"Kathleen O' Neal & Michael W. Gear - People 2 - People Of The Fire" - читать интересную книгу автора (O'Neal Kathleen)

State Archaeologist with the Bureau of Land Management, provided
information and encouragement. Marv and Patricia Hatcher, Principal
Investigators of Pronghorn Anthropological Associates, helped with the
photocopying of stacks of archaeological reports gathered from across
the West. Dr. George Prison, of the University of Wyoming, deserves our
deepest gratitude for publishing so many of his observations on hunting
techniques and Paleo-Indian weaponry, and for sharing his personal
thoughts on the Mountain Archaic. Phyllis Boardman and the Torrey Lake
Ranch deserve thanks for access to petroglyphs. Jo Hubbard eased the
way. Walter Williams's The Spirit and the Flesh proved invaluable for
information on berdache after Dale Walker turned us on to the book. Jim
Miller and John Albanese receive special mention for their study and
interpretation of Holocene geology. (See, we remembered all those
lectures in the test pits!) [Catherine Cook and Katherine Perry read the
manuscript and provided helpful comments. Burt and Rose Crow of the
Ramshorn Inn kept Guinness on hand for us when we needed a place to
brainstorm plot. Irene Keinert and Justin Bridges of Wind River Knives
photographed archaeological resources. Finally, we'd like to acknowledge
our dirt-archaeologist colleagues for all the years of bull sessions
over a beer or the crackling of a campfire. You know who you are. If you
see your pet idea here, you've made a difference.
FOREWORD.

From the time of the first human incursions into the Western Hemisphere,
a thriving big-game-hunting tradition known as Paleo-Indian flourished
through most of North America. Highly efficient, these human
predators--in addition to climatic change and possible epizootic
diseases--accelerated the extinction of animals such as the mammoth,
giant sloth, horse, and camel. Through it all, humans, and their prey,
adapted to the gradually warming climate until roughly eight thousand
years ago. From the geological record, a dramatic climatic upheaval
occurred: the Altithermal. A series of droughts baked North America,
lowering regional water tables as much as twenty feet. Vegetation zones
shifted, topsoil eroded, drainage channels ate deeply into the earth.
The tree line climbed ever higher on the mountains. The huge lakes of
the Great Basin vanished to leave salt flats and desert in Utah and
Nevada. Giant dune fields spawned from destabilized parent material and
drifted to cover parts of Montana, Wyoming, and Nebraska, while
wind-borne loess settled over the American Midwest. Stricken with
drought, the lush grasses on grazing land deteriorated; the buffalo
herds declined in number. In this period of hardship people starved,
bands of hunters, fissioning, moving, warring--ever in search of elusive
herds of game animals. Yet, from the seeds of these hard times came the
birth of a new North American culture.
Introduction.

"Jesus! I didn't know it would be so dusty." The blond man's shovel
banged hollowly on rock as he tried to scoop it full. Muscles bulged as
he straightened and threw his shovelful of dirt into the gray-headed
man's sifter screen. The contraption rested on two wobbly legs and