"Kathleen O' Neal & Michael W. Gear - People 3 - People Of The Earth" - читать интересную книгу автора (O'Neal Kathleen)

modern-day native languages to find "root languages"--the original
language, or languages from which our current-day versions spring
suggest that prehistoric peoples in North America spoke with as much
sophistication as we do. The earliest White impressions of tribal
languages further strengthen these theories. In the seventeenth
century, French missionaries among the Huron reported that European
languages could not compare with the complexity and intricacy of the
Huron language. The Hopi still use verb tenses unheard of in English,
and the Arapaho communicate in two separate languages, one for common
use, the other for ceremonial purposes, much as Latin was once used by
the Catholic church.

Our books' characters speak in coherent, refined sentences, because the
best scientific theories suggest that they did. And our primary goal
in writing this prehistory series is to provide the reader with the
most accurate portrait of prehistoric life ways in North America that
we, as archaeologists, can. You will not find any convenient-
stereotypes here.

If this series spawns an interest in American prehistory, your local
librarian or bookstore can direct you to books on
the subject. Or contact your State Historic Preservation Office, the
Bureau of Land Management, or the Forest Service, for further
information. It's your cultural heritage.
Introduction

Township 23 North, Range 96 West, 6th Principal Meridian.

Dust rolled up in a light tan smudge behind Skip Gillespie's big white
four-wheel-drive pickup. The three-quarter ton Ford pounded across
potholes, puffing gouts of powdery grit out from under the all-terrain
tires. Skip winced and bounced around in the cab as the truck
chattered over washboard and hammered over a ditch where runoff had
carved a gash in the dirt road.

"Damn. Gotta get a patrol to smooth this sucker out." He glanced over
at the construction site that appeared as he crested a low,
sagebrush-dotted ridge. The road snaked down into the basin and wound
around through the scabby grease wood to the plant site. At this early
stage it didn't look like much, just ripped and torn dirt where the
heavy equipment had begun to shape the parched clay and sand into a
flat spot. One day it would be a collection-and-processing center for
oil and natural gas--one of the largest, and most expensive, plants in
the country. But now the brightly colored earth moving machinery lay
idling in the harsh noon-hour sun while the crews ate lunch. Black
smoke rose in dwindling columns from the diesel stacks to fade into the
hot, dry air.

Skip followed the bladed road down the ridge and raced across the flats
ahead of the dust trail that billowed behind the Ford in a rising white