Dewar, a Canadian investigative journalist whose exposé Cloak of Green
probed the dark underbrush of environmental politics, returns here to dust off North American anthropology's skeletons in the closet. The author profiles a handful of scientists whose research debunks the prevailing theory that the first Americans came here on foot from Siberia over the Bering Strait during the last ice age; she also presents controversial archaeological, genetic and folkloric evidence suggesting that humans settled in South America at least 1,000 years earlier. Furthermore, she says, finds like the Caucasoid Kennewick Man, discovered in a Washington State riverbed, suggest that somebody beat the forebears of modern Native Americans to these shores. The truth is out there, but as Dewar argues, proper research has been thwarted time and again by stiff-necked academic careerism, the "dirty water of ethnic politics" and just plain carelessness—bones mysteriously "disappear" from museum storerooms, labs forget to conduct crucial DNA studies and so forth. This is popular rather than hard science, and there are gripping moments, but had she written half as much book, Dewar would have told a leaner, more vibrant story. But Dewar is a keen observer of place and personality, and the scientists she interviews are the real heart of the story she wishes to tell—which is perhaps why her argument sometimes gets buried in pages of anecdotal narrative. (Mar.)
