Indiana Jones: Myth, Reality And 21st Century Archaeology

This episode expands our discussion of the Early Peopling of the North America to the West Coast. When did people first appear in the region? How did climates and environments diverge from the present? How did early peoples adapt to nearshore and interior environments and when did these landscapes change? Answers to these questions have broad implications for understanding the human ecological dynamic in the present age of sustainability. Late glacial and post-glacial events along the Pacific margins diverge significantly from those discussed earlier for the East Coast. Patterns of deglaciation, tectonics, and climate change resulted in surfaces that were significantly different, but can still be reconstructed with increasing accuracy with new geoarchaeological methods. We discuss these reconstructions and theories with guests Dr. Loren Davis and Dr. Matthew Des Lauriers, renowned West Coast researchers and Ms. Amy Gusick, PhD candidate at the University of California, Santa Barbara.