Abstracts

Anthropology/archeology/folklore

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Alaska's first settlements

Article Abstract:

The significance of the 11,700-year-old Mesa site has been exaggerated by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The site is one of the oldest in Alaska, but others in the Tanana Valley have also been dated by accelerator mass spectrometry to between 11,000 and 11,800 years ago. Furthermore, the sites seem to belong to the same cultural tradition. The Mesa site adds to knowledge of the period, but it is hardly the region's 'first well-documented Palaeoindian site,' as claimed by the BLM.

Alaska, Human settlements, Paleo-Indians

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All about Eve

Article Abstract:

There are two competing ideas about how modern humanity evolved. One, based on analyses of mitochondrial DNA, holds that modern humans evolved in Africa and left 200,000 years ago. The other, based on fossil studies, claims that humans evolved throughout the world after Homo Erectus left Africa 1 million years ago. Fiercely debated though they are, both claims seem too simplistic. The column is based on two essays that appear in "Scientific American," April 1992.

Analysis, Prehistoric peoples, Mitochondrial DNA, Human evolution

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In the footsteps of the Norse

Article Abstract:

Norsemen visited parts of North America 500 years before Columbus. In the 1960s one of their small wintering spots was excavated and reconstructed in Newfoundland, at L'Anse-aux-Meadows, by Anne Stine Ingstadt. The resulting Parks Canada exhibition is one of the most evocative such sites, and it typifies the places the Norse settled during their expeditions.

Discovery and exploration, Newfoundland and Labrador, Newfoundland, Northmen

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