The First Americans

by John David Cross

It was about 13,000 years ago that the First Americans, people who came from Asia, worked their way past the melting glaciers of the last Ice Age and began spreading across North, Central, and South America - lands previously unscarred by humans and teeming with mammoths, giant bison, saber-toothed tigers, and beavers the size of a cow. But it's only recently that scientists have pieced together the elusive, compelling saga of that epic migration. And the more we learn about them, the more we must marvel at the courage, adaptability, enterprise, and enduring resilience of the First Americans.

Most of us know little about the early Americans and the wonders they achieved. Some of them learned to hunt forty-ton whales from dugout canoes; others built a vast system of canals that irrigated crops on tens of thousands of acres. Fully a thousand years before the pyramids at Giza went up, people on the Mississippi River were constructing even larger pyramidal earthworks, and later, a thousand miles to the north, others built a city that would remain the largest in North America until after the Revolutionary War. In the cradle of civilization that evolved in Central America, the Olmecs, Mayans, and Aztecs built complex cultures and dazzling cities whose monumental structures and works of art still have the power to awe and inspire.

This book describes the peopling of North and Central America and examine their amazing societies - the farmers and cliff-dwellers of the Southwest United States, the mound-builders of the Midwest, the Northwest Coast whale-hunters with their potlatches and totem poles, and the mighty, gods-driven cultures of Mesoamerica. It is a saga as breathtaking as it is surprising.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

174 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 16, 2016

Reviews

[A · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like it, I wasn't expecting lots of details, since it is a short book and covers several different cultures. The writing is very friendly and accessible. Two things really bothered me though: The lack of pictures (for example, of the Anansazi constructions). The other issue is that most of the dates mentioned in the book are refered from the year of writing (e.g., 950 years ago, X happened) instead of in "approx 1050CE" or something like that.

Still, very entertaining and informative.

[Susan Bennett · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you want a basic understanding of the major groups of the First Americans, where they migrated from and their cultural differences without being overwhelmed with too much detail, this book is for you.

[MaryBeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

Background facts were distorted. If the editor can't catch bass facts, what else was incorrect? IE That gray whales are filter feeders and eat small crustaceans and small creatures (see the chapter on the Makah chapter 4). In chapter 1, states that elephants descend from mammoths. Don't recommend this book to anyone. It's not worth paying money for it. The only good thing about this book is that it encouraged me to double check what he wrote about, which is why it gets 2 stars.

[Keith · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this short book a lot -- in fact, a lot more than I expected to. It dealt with the civilization of those he aptly calls "the first Americans." It was not overly complicated or overly technical, and (more importantly) not preachy. This would be a good book for young readers to learn about a world we can hardly fathom.

[Neysa Zurkammer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Historic

Having a great-great grandmother who was full blooded Cherokee, I found this book so satisfying. It truly gives a vivid picture of what the America’s were like before the white man came from Spain. I loved the Epilogue which says mankind would not be where it is today without the accomplishments of our native ancestors.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

This intriguing history presents the successive and complex cultures and civilizations that inhabited North America for at least 10,000 years before the arrival of Europeans. The emphasis is on economics and trade, including the evidence for massive construction projects that are difficult to comprehend (bigger than the pyramid at Giza) given the limited tools available to the inhabitants. There were many cities of a scale and grandeur that rivaled any city in American before the Revolutionary War. Many had spectacular art. Perhaps the most sobering fact is the disappearance of nearly every ancient well-established tribe, and failure to thrive that surely made native Americans more vulnerable to the European invaders. Cross cites the great body of evidence for human sacrifice, slavery, and frequent warfare that characterized many of these civilizations. Cross gives an interesting narrative of a typical whale hunt that might have been conducted by the Makah of the Northwest territories. In his Epilogue, the author claims that "without these first Americans, nothing that we have achieved would have been possible" and "life as we know it would not exist." He does not explain that. Given that so much of our current American cultures find their sources in Europe and other places outside of North America, an explanation for such a conclusion is necessary.

[Carole · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a concise history of the earliest Americans who arrived by land bridge or watercraft. The author organizes all the tribes into four regional groups living from present day Alaska and Canada to southern Mexico. He covers governing practices; familial and larger community and inter-tribal relationships, hierarchies, and class systems; hunting, gathering and cultivation in terms of tools and weapons, animals and seafood, territories, and hunter, gatherer, and farmer behavior; religious beliefs and rituals: arts and crafts; etc. The writing is simple, clear, and precise. I liked this somewhat historical and partly speculative account. I learned quite a bit, and I was confirmed in my suspicion that very early (100 B.C.to 1500 A.D,) human beings and societies would be as familiar to us as ourselves if we could put aside language and costume. As revealed by this author these first American people were family oriented, superstitious, tradition bound, laborers at repetitive and exhausting jobs, concerned with fulfillment and material comforts and embellishments, and on and on—in a word they were people like us.

[Sharon Parker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice intro on early people

This is a nice introduction to the archaeology of North America. This short book discusses the migration of humans from Asia and across the once frozen Bering Sea into Alaska and from there throughout the rest of North America. The writing is clear and simple, and would make a pretty good introduction to the topic. I took away a star for the predictable demonization of the first Europeans who eventually came into contact with these people. They were definitely not perfect, but the writer had to perform some outright comical mental gymnastics in explaining how horrible Christianity was compared to the native religions which required massive human sacrifice on a regular basis.

[Reggiefras · Rating 4 out of 5]

A concise history of the prehistory of the North American Continent covering the main concentrations of the peoples who inhabited the various areas. There was much information I had not read before and the author (maybe deliberately) avoided the ambiguous history of the Siloutrians, whom some are beginning to conjecture on some solid evidence, were present on the East Coast of present day America, and may have had a greata influence on the current inhabitants here upon their arrival.

[Wendy Nadolny · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good read

A very brief history of the first people to live in the Americas. I would have like some writing about the people on the east coast. These were not mentioned in the book. Maps of the location where the people lived would have been very helpful, also some pictures. A good book but left out yo much information.

[David Hyder · Rating 4 out of 5]

Superficial

It's just me, but as interesting as the topic is I found several of the later chapters superficial. The early chapters were very interesting. However, the later chapters should have been the most interesting but had the least interest. I thought we knew a lot about the Aztecsbut most of the chapter was a discussion of the conquest.

[Bonnie Shepard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Engrossing

Well-written storytelling of the people who inhabited the Americas before us. How cultures rose and fell in a progression from Hunter gatherers to more complex societies. How their ways of life, religion, death rituals, language, art, music contributes to ours today. Fascinating.

[Diego Palomino · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good introduction to the native cultures of the north Americans. Well written, straight forward although pictures would have been helpful. The other criticism I have is that there was no mention of the peoples of Canada.

[Apriel · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well written and easy to follow account of the first people of the Americas. No notes or a bibliography are included though and, as another reviewer pointed out, pictures would have been welcome. Despite these things this book is still a good introduction to the subject.

[Jacqueline K. Hand · Rating 5 out of 5]

Readable History

I know about our American history from the invasion of the Europeans but didn't know about how the people who were here arrived here. This answered that question in an easy and to the point read. I recommend it to history buffs too.

[Marc Gerstein · Rating 3 out of 5]

OK. Interesting educational exposition on now the Western Hemisphere was populated and the societies that developed, but suffered from extensive descriptions of physical things (artifacts, structures, etc) where illustrations would have been preferable.

[Richard Gruner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Concise and informative

Well-organized, non-academic summary of native American culture. It may inspire further exploration as it piques interests. An expansion of the "gallery" would be helpful, and it should be broken up and illustrations placed near appropriate text.

[Matthew Moore · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good historical account of events with some new/old theories applied. A good read to understand where we came from and why we are the way we are.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Informative overview. Not boring, but not compelling either.

[Wendell H Howell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Serious research.

7' tall bears while on all fours! Beaver as big as cattle! Facinating . Mesmerizing. How far word spread with no other means than word of mouth!

[Joe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read! It will help me be better on my job.

[K · Rating 3 out of 5]

A GOOD PRIMER

This book provided a good overview of the ancestors for some of the indigenous peoples of North and Centrol America.

[Drobinsky Alexander · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's hard to evaluate since I'm not anthropologist - I could not verify validity of theories. However, book leaves good general impression and extended horizons of my really limited knowledge of pre-columbian civilizations. Before this book I didn't understand the reasons for blood sacrifices of Aztecs or even knew about sophisticated civilizations that precursor-ed them. The book is also describes in details customs and livelihood of whale hunting tribes as well as nightmarish treatment of those tribes by western society.
I think this book could serve as an excellent introduction to history of pre-columbian America. I would also like to mention that book's language is precise , concise and well structured, I really enjoyed reading :)

[Kathy Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book very much. It is well written and easy read. I learned a lot about the early Native Americans. I learned a great deal about the Mounds in my hometown of St Louis.

[Douglas Wingert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent primer on American history that preceded the colonial period.

[Anthony Ambruso · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book

My knowledge of the ancient American tribes was sketchy at best, and I was fascinated by their culture. This was a good expose of that culture.