64 pages • 2 hours read
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Chapter 5Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 5 Summary: "Pleistocene Wars"
Chapter 5 discusses hypotheses for the genetic ancestry and migration of Native Americans. The chapter discusses a number of different theories, and the tools developed over time to either validate or reject these theories. The first half of the chapter begins with discussion of the sampling of genetic material. The examination of DNA evidence, which began in the 20th century, uses samples from mitochondrial DNA. The use of samples from mitochondrial DNA helps to clear up misconceptions and mystifications of the origins of Native Americans, which had previously been shrouded in mystery. Remarkably, scientists found that Native Americans share a significant amount of genetic material with certain Siberian ethnic groups.
The latter half of the chapter discusses theories of migration, by which the forerunners of Native Americans arrived to the Americas. The principal subject is that Beringia, a land bridge theorized to exist between modern-day Alaska and Eastern Siberia, used to exist, and allowed for migration from Siberia to the Americas. The theory goes that during an Ice Age, the recession of sea levels allowed for peoples to migrate between the continents for a short amount of time. As with many theories in anthropology and archaeology, these hypotheses seemed outlandish to many when they were initially proposed, but as science and understanding improved, the theory grew to be accepted.
Chapter 5 Analysis
Chapter 5 suspends the encounter narratives of the previous chapters to discuss theories of origin and migration of Native American peoples. The primary characters and actors in this section are researchers, scientists, and archaeologists. Attempting to reconstruct this history is a daunting, if not impossible task, a task made more difficult, Charles Mann adds, by both cultural and academic biases. The remoteness of the tasks of these fields, and the lack of precise tools allow for assumptions and prejudices to persist. To emphasize this, the author devotes significant attention to the theories which prevailed prior to those generally accepted today. The object of this placement is not simply to illustrate how far anthropology and archaeology have come, but to track how mistakes and errors become part of conventional thinking, as well as to illustrate how difficult it is to dislodge these conventions. One particular point of controversy that illustrates this pattern is the Clovis theory—which attempted to put a date for the migration based upon the discovery of a trove of artifacts in New Mexico. This theory however, fell apart when radiocarbon dating found that other sites were older, but mistakenly rejected. The rejection of the Clovis theory demonstrated that Native American civilization was much, much older than previously considered.
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