The Past in Perspective: An Introduction to Human Prehistory, and Native American Archaeology in the Parks: A Guide to Native Heritage Sites in Our National Parks and Monuments.
Feder applied the "Page 99 Test" to his new book, Native America: The Story of the First Peoples, with the following results:
The story told in a book that explores the deep history of an entire continent can be likened to the story conveyed by an archaeological site. The individual pages of the book are the equivalent of the multiple layers encountered as archaeologists navigate through time. Page 99 of Native America: The Story of the First Peoples represents one of the layers the reader digs through during their journey.Learn more about Native America at the Princeton University Press website.
Specifically, page 99 presents a map depicting the locations of many of the most important sites where archaeologists have intersected with the trail of Native People for the period between more than 20,000 to about 10,000 years ago. This is a time when these First Peoples were adapting to an America much different from our own. That America had vast glaciers covering much of the north and was inhabited by giant beasts like mammoths, mastodons, and varieties of bison that dwarf even their enormous modern cousins. Native people successfully hunted these animals with little more than stone tipped spears, guile, and the force of their will. Had I lived then, I would have strongly considered vegetarianism!
Page 99 represents a moment in a much larger history presented in the book, one told not in cuneiform, hieroglyphs, ink on vellum, or on pages produced with a printing press. Instead, the history conveyed in Native America is written in exquisite and deadly spear points found at the sites located on page 99’s map; in miraculously preserved human footprints located in the crystalline white sands of a New Mexico desert and dating to more than 20,000 years ago; in achingly beautiful and architecturally sophisticated cliff dwellings; in giant sculptures of earth in the form of bears, birds, and an enormous snake; in intriguing paintings and etchings on the walls of soaring cliffs; and in the forensic evidence of tragic battles fought and battles lost when two cultures, one native, one newly arrived, clashed in an existential conflict.
Page 99 may present a mere moment in that deep history, but it reflects quite well the overarching message of Native America: The Story of the First Peoples presenting a part of the ongoing story I tell of the creativity, sophistication, ingenuity, and resilience of the First Peoples of America.
--Marshal Zeringue
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