The People of the Stone

Like many people, and all archeologists I assume, my recent visit to Peru was the fulfillment of a long-standing dream to witness first-hand the great site of Machu Picchu, as well as many of the other important Inca and pre-Columbian sites there.  As with most of these travelers, I was struck by the uniqueness and mystery of the world's most famous &

Civilized man's seemingly insatiable desire to create stone monuments to his gods or to himself is as enduring as our earliest advanced cultures.  In the last ten months this writer has been fortunate to visit both Egypt and Peru, the source of some of the greatest and oldest monumental architecture on our planet.  As someone who has

  During the course of five years of near continuous work on The People of the Stone saga detailing the controversial and amazing issues surrounding the peopling of North America from the end of the Ice Age to the coming of the first Europeans, the problem of frequently dealing with an unknown mythological past has often arisen, at times even dominated, th

     Whether they go by the name of Nativistic Movement, Revival Cults, Millenarianism, or some other recognized name, the recurrence at regular intervals around the world of such cultic practices is nothing new.  Such happenings usually involve a messianic figure preaching a return to a former way of life or spiritual belief--generally in the face of a

For a limited time the readers of this blog are being offered the opportunity to submit a review of any of the four novels in THE PEOPLE OF THE STONE saga and receive a 50% discount, with personalized inscription and free shipping, on the purchase of any other novel in the series.  This offer includes a reserved copy of the new novel THE CORN MAIDEN'S GIFT, which

Since the widespread discussions of the Solutrean Solution proposed by Stanford and others, along with the more general acceptance of  increasing numbers of confirmed pre-Clovis sites from Chile to Virginia, the full range of the first American occupations controversy has recently re-emerged in full force.  Not that this discussi

The coincidence of the rapid dispersal and disappearance of so-called Clovis Culture in such a relatively short time span (less than 1,000 years according to most radiocarbon dates), and across an enormous distance of nearly two continents, at the same time as the extinction of the mammoth and many other species of Pleistocene megafauna continues to generate en

The questions of if, when, and for what reason human sacrifice was practiced among the prehistoric peoples of North America has often been raised.  Archeological evidence has not always been supportive, while at the same time also being suggestive that such rites could have been practiced at various times and locations.  In preparing to deal with this very difficult s

Around 1980 when this writer made the momentous decision to take what I had learned as a professional archeologist and use it to start a new career (mostly out of necessity for continued gainful employment) as an "applied anthropologist" it was not with the intention of becoming an avocational, much less a professional, flintnapper.  But this was what happened, a

As the writer of this blog, each week I receive a detailed report of the various contact entry querries, key word searches, etc.