The intriguing theory of a land bridge periodically linking Siberia and Alaska during the coldest pulsations of the Ice Ages had been much debated since Jose de Acosta, a Spanish missionary working in Mexico and Peru, first proposed the idea of a connection between the continents in 1589. But proof of the land bridge - now named Beringia after eighteenth-century Danish explorer Vitus Bering - eluded scientists until an inquiring geologist named Dave Hopkins emerged from rural New England and set himself to the task of solving the mystery. Through the life story of Hopkins, The Last Giant of Beringia reveals the fascinating science detective story that at last confirmed the existence of the land bridge that served as the intercontinental migration route for such massive Ice Age beasts as woolly mammoths, steppe bison, giant stag-moose, dire wolves, short-faced bears, and saber-toothed cats - and for the first humans to enter the New World from Asia. After proving unambiguously that the land bridge existed, Hopkins went on to show that the Beringian landscape cannot have been the "polar desert" that many had claimed, but provided forage enough to sustain a diverse menagerie of Ice Age behemoths.
ISBN-13: 9780465051571
Media Type: Paperback
Publisher: Basic Books
Publication Date: 09-07-2005
Pages: 240
Product Dimensions: 5.38(w) x 8.00(h) x (d)
Dan O'Neill is the author of A Land Gone Lonesome and The Last Giant of Beringia. He was named Alaska Historian of the Year by the Alaska Historical Society for The Firecracker Boys. He lives in Fairbanks, Alaska.
Table of Contents
| 1 |
The toast of Khabarovsk |
1 |
| 2 |
The Ice Age |
11 |
| 3 |
Hebe's son |
19 |
| 4 |
Calling |
37 |
| 5 |
Fieldwork in arctic Alaska |
51 |
| 6 |
Something going on |
77 |
| 7 |
Giddings |
83 |
| 8 |
A simultaneous equation |
109 |
| 9 |
Writing the bible |
117 |
| 10 |
The productivity paradox |
127 |
| 11 |
Mammoth fauna |
139 |
| 12 |
Soil from maars |
151 |
| 13 |
The first Americans |
163 |
| 14 |
The first of the first |
177 |
| 15 |
The last of the last |
185 |
|
Afterword |
197 |
|
Bibliographic notes |
201 |
|
Acknowledgments |
219 |
|
Index |
223 |
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