Readings and Listening To Consider - 4/15/24

Books and Articles Worth a Review…

I am currently on a 4-month (yes, 4-month) road trip starting in Maine and traveling across the USA in a big circle through the south, into the West and Northwest, and coming back through Canada. It’s been a dream of my wife for many years and I was “encouraged” to go along with it. I finally succumbed to her advice and we’ve been on the road for just over a month at this point. However, I digress.

My reason for writing this section is to offer up an open-access book for your consideration, entitled: The Search for the First Americans: Science, Power, Politics by Robert Davis, Jr. a former federal government employee who retired and has focused his writings on the interactions between science and public policy (download available at: JSTOR, EBSCO, Internet Archive, OAPEN, and/or Project MUSE). The book provides an overview of all the research completed to date on the source of humankind in the Americas. It’s a fascinating read and it is ABSOLUTELY clear that beyond Native Americans, the Clovis peoples, and other population groups from long, long ago – European settlers are only very recent interlopers on this beautiful land.

I share the book because I think it puts in context many of the socio-political dynamics we face as a society. And, as importantly, we need to get out and explore our nation more. I’ve been a traveler since the early days of my Mom and Dad’s travels in the Midwest where they slept in small, one-room motels with my littlest brother as we traveled about and Mark (my second younger brother) and I slept in the locked car in the parking lot traveling around as we visited national and state parks, museums and the like. But, I clearly missed a lot despite those early-day travels. Just as one example, I spent the better part of a day this past week at the Three Rivers Petroglyph north of Alamogordo, NM. The area is literally covered with more than 21,000 petroglyphs – many of which are older than 5,000 years – marked on stones across the mountain. It’s clear that art as a hobby didn’t start with us contemporary folks in the last thousand or so years. Anyway, consider getting out and exploring the lands of the Americas. There’s much to learn and even more to ponder!! Then, head into Canada for even more learnings…