The American Yawp
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Chapter 1 · Reading ledger

Notes on
American Origins

80 citations, collected away from the main text for uninterrupted reading.

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Section 01.01

I. Introduction

  1. Alan E. Strauss, “Insights into the Woodland Period in Coastal New England as Seen from a Large Block Island Shell Midden,” Archaeology of Eastern North America 46 (2018): 167–90; James R. Ringer, “The Atherley Narrows Fish Weir Complex: A Submerged Archaic-to-Historic-Period Fishing Site in Ontario, Canada,” Revista de Arqueología Americana , no. 26 (2008): 131–51.[]

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  2. Victor Butler-Thomas, John Coatsworth, and Roberto Cortés-Conde, The Cambridge Economic History of Latin America: Volume 1, The Colonial Era and the Short Nineteenth Century (Cambridge University Press, 2005).[]

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  3. Bernal Díaz del Castillo, The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico, 1517–1521 , trans. A. P. Maudslay (Da Capo, 1996), 190–91.[]

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Section 01.02

II. First Americans

  1. Noelani Arista, The Kingdom and the Republic: Sovereign Hawai‘i and the Early United States (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019), 15–16.[]

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  2. Carole A. Dana, Margo Lukens, and Conor M. Quinn, “Still They Remember Me”: Penobscot Transformer Tales , Volume 1 (University of Massachusetts Press, 2021), xv–xvii.[]

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  3. Adapted from Christopher R. Teuton, Deep Waters: The Textual Continuum in American Indian Literature (University of Nebraska Press, 2010), xi–xiv.[]

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  4. James F. Barnett Jr., Mississippi’s American Indians (University Press of Mississippi, 2012), 90.[]

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  5. Edward Benton Banai, The Mishomis Book: The Voice of the Ojibway (University of Minnesota Press, 2010).[]

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  6. The Chickasaw Nation, “Migration Story,” accessed August 16, 2025, https://​www​.chickasaw​.net/​Our​-Nation/​History/​Migration​-Story​.aspx.[]

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  7. John W. Ives, “‘My Uncle Was Resting His Country’: Dene Kinship and Insights into the More Distant Past,” in Natural Science and Indigenous Knowledge: The Americas Experience , ed. Edward A. Johnson and Susan M. Arlidge (Cambridge University Press, 2024), 32–106.[]

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Section 01.03

III. Beginnings and Arrivals

  1. Paulette Steeves, The Indigenous Paleolithic of the Western Hemisphere (University of Nebraska Press, 2021); Christen Mucher, “Born of the Soil: Demography, Genetic Narratives, and American Origins,” in Decolonizing “Prehistory”: Deep Time and Indigenous Knowledges in North America , ed. Gesa Mackenthun and Christen Mucher (University of Arizona Press, 2021).[]

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  2. Tom D. Dillehay, The Settlement of the Americas: A New Prehistory (Basic Books, 2000); E. James Dixon, Quest for the Origins of the First Americans (University of New Mexico Press, 1993).[]

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  3. David G. Anderson and Thaddeus G. Bissett, “The Initial Colonization of North America: Sea Level Change, Shoreline Movement, and Great Migrations,” in Mobility and Ancient Society in Asia and the Americas , ed. Michael David Frachetti and Robert N. Spengler III (Springer, 2015), 59–88.[]

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  4. Matthew R. Bennett, David Bustos, Jeffrey S. Pigati, Kathleen B. Springer, Thomas M. Urban, Vance T. Holliday, et al., “Evidence of Humans in North America During the Last Glacial Maximum,” Science 373 (2021): 1528–31, https://​doi​.org/​10​.1126/​science​.abg7586.[]

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  5. John F. Hoffecker, Scott A. Elias, G. Richard Scott, Dennis H. O’Rourke, Leslea J. Hlusko, Olga Potapova, et al., “Beringia and the Peopling of the Western Hemisphere,” Proceedings of the Royal Society B 11, no. 290 (January 2023): 29020222246, https://​doi​.org/​10​.1098/​rspb​.2022​.2246.[]

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  6. Dylan Gaffney, “Pleistocene Water Crossings and Adaptive Flexibility within the Homo Genus,” Journal of Archaeology Research 29 (2021): 255–326, https://​doi​.org/​10​.1007/​s10814​-020​-09149​-7.[]

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  7. Vance T. Holliday, Jason D. Windingstad, Jordon Bright, Bruce G. Phillips, Joel B. Butler, Ryan Breslawski, et al., “Paleolake Geochronology Supports Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) Age for Human Tracks at White Sands, New Mexico,” Science Advances 11, no. 25 (2025), https://​doi​.org/​10​.1126/​sciadv​.adv4951.[]

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  8. Lorena Becerra-Valdivia and Thomas Higham, “The Timing and Effect of the Earliest Human Arrivals in North America,” Nature 584 (August 2020): 93–97, https://​doi​.org/​10​.1038/​s41586​-020​-2491​-6.[]

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  9. Jon M. Erlandson, Michael H. Graham, Bruce J. Bourque, Debra Corbett, James A. Estes, and Robert S. Steneck, “The Kelp Highway Hypothesis: Marine Ecology, the Coastal Migration Theory, and the Peopling of the Americas,” Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology 2, no. 2 (2007): 161–74, https://​doi​.org/​10​.1080/​15564890701628612.[]

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  10. Daryl Fedje, Quentin Mackie, Duncan McLaren, Becky Wigen, and John Southon, “Karst Caves in Haida Gwaii: Archaeology and Paleontology at the Pleistocene-Holocene Transition,” Quaternary Science Reviews 272 (2021): 107221, https://​doi​.org/​10​.1016/​j​.quascirev​.2021​.107221.[]

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  11. David G. Anderson, Thaddeus G. Bissett, and Stephen J. Yerka, “The Late Pleistocene Human Settlement of Interior North America: The Role of Physiography and Sea-Level Change,” in Paleoamerican Odyssey , ed. Kelly E. Graf, Caroline V. Ketron and Michael R. Waters (Texas A & M University Press, 2013), 183–203.[]

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  12. Dennis Stanford, Darrin Lowery, Margaret Jodry, Bruce A. Bradley, Marvin Kay, Thomas W. Stafford Jr., et al., “New Evidence for a Possible Paleolithic Occupation of the Eastern North American Continental Shelf at the Last Glacial Maximum,” in Prehistoric Archaeology on the Continental Shelf , ed. Amanda M. Evans, Joseph C. Flatman, and Nicholas C. Flemming (Springer Science, 2014), 73–93.[]

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  13. Juliet E. Morrow, “Early Paleoindian Mobility and Watercraft: An Assessment from the Mississippi River Valley,” Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology 39 (2014): 103–29, https://​doi​.org/​10​.1179/​2327427113Y​.0000000001; Jessi Halligan, “Reconstructing the Pleistocene Environment of the Greater Southeast,” in In the Eastern Fluted Point Tradition , ed. Joseph A. M. Gingerich (University of Utah Press, 2013), 58–72; M. Scott Harris, Leslie Reynolds Sautter, Kacey L. Johnson, Katherine E. Luciano, George R. Sedberry, Eric E. Wright et al., “Continental Shelf Landscapes of the Southeastern United States Since the Last Interglacial,” Geomorphology 203 (2013): 6–24, https://​doi​.org/​10​.1016/​j​.geomorph​.2013​.02​.014; C. Andrew Hemmings and J. M. Adovasio, “Inundated Landscapes and the Colonization of the Northeastern Gulf of Mexico,” in Pre-Clovis in the Americas: International Science Conference Proceedings Led at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC , ed. Dennis J. Stanford and Alison T. Stenger (Smithsonian Institution, 2014), 16–31.[]

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  14. J. Matthew Shumway, “How Migration, Cultural Clashes and Place Combine to Create Group Identities: How the Diné Became the Navajo,” in Geography of Time, Place, Movement and Networks , Volume 5, Mapping Women and Family Journeys, ed. Stanley D. Brunn (Springer, 2024), 213–28.[]

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  15. Rohina Rubicz, Theodore G. Schurr, and Michael H. Crawford, “Mitochondrial DNA Variation and the Origins of the Aleuts,” Human Biology 75, no. 6 (2003): 809–35, https://​dx​.doi​.org/​10​.1353/​hub​.2004​.0009.[]

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  16. J. Tyler Faith, “Late Pleistocene Climate Change, Nutrient Cycling, and the Megafaunal Extinctions in North America,” Quaternary Science Reviews 30, no. 13–14 (2011): 1675–80, https://​doi​.org/​10​.1016/​j​.quascirev​.2011​.03​.011.[]

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  17. Jack W. Brink, “Inukshuk: Caribou Drive Lanes on Southern Victoria Island, Nunavut, Canada,” Arctic Anthropology 42, no. 1 (2005): 1–28, https://​doi​.org/​10​.1353/​arc​.2011​.0084.[]

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  18. Donald K. Grayson and David J. Meltzer, “Revisiting Paleoindian Exploitation of Extinct North American Mammals,” Journal of Archaeological Science 56 (2015): 177–93, https://​doi​.org/​10​.1016/​j​.jas​.2015​.02​.009.[]

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  19. Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States (Beacon, 2014), 17.[]

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Section 01.04

IV. Continent-Wide Changes

  1. David S. Leigh, “Terminal Pleistocene Braided to Meandering Transition in Rivers of the Southeastern USA,” Catena 66, no. 1–2 (2006): 155–60, https://​doi​.org/​10​.1016/​j​.catena​.2005​.11​.008.[]

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  2. R. Douglas Hunt, American Agriculture: A Brief History (Purdue University Press, 2002), 4–35.[]

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  3. Gayle J. Fritz, Feeding Cahokia: Early Agriculture in the North American Heartland (University of Alabama Press, 2019), 11.[]

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  4. Amy Olson, “Archaeologists Find Intensive Indigenous Farming in Michigan,” Dartmouth News (June 5, 2025).[]

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  5. D. R. Piperno, A.J. Ranere, I. Holst, J. Iriarte, and R. Dickau, “Starch Grain and Phytolith Evidence for Early Ninth Millennium B.P. Maize from the Central Balsas River Valley, Mexico,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106, no. 13 (2009): 5019–24, https://​doi​.org/​10​.1073/​pnas​.0812525106; Esperanza Torres-Rodríguez, Miguel Vallebueno-Estrada, Javier Martínez González, Angel García Cook, Rafael Montiel, and Jean-Philippe Vielle-Calzada, “AMS Dates of New Maize Specimens Found in Rock Shelters of the Tehuacan Valley,” Radiocarbon 60 (2018): 975–87, https://​doi​.org/​10​.1017/​RDC​.2018​.29.[]

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  6. Robert C. Hunt, “Irrigation, Food Surplus, and Complexity: A Case from Hohokam, a Prehistoric Neolithic Culture in the American Southwest,” in Irrigation in Early States: New Directions , ed. Stephanie Rost (University of Chicago, 2022). 175–82.[]

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  7. Joe W. Saunders, Rolfe D. Mandel, C. Garth Sampson, Charles M. Allen, E. Thurman Allen, Daniel A. Bush, et al., “Watson Brake, a Middle Archaic Mound Complex in Northeast Louisiana,” American Antiquity 70, no. 4 (2005): 631–68, https://​doi​.org/​10​.2307/​40035868.[]

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  8. Gayle J. Fritz, Feeding Cahokia: Early Agriculture in the North American Heartland (University of Alabama Press, 2019).[]

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  9. Erna Gunther, “An Analysis of the First Salmon Ceremony,” American Anthropologist 28, no. 4 (October–December 1926): 605–17.[]

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  10. Gary E. Moulton, ed., The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition , vol. 6 (University of Nebraska Press, 1983).[]

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  11. Richard A. Diehl, The Olmecs: America’s First Civilization (Thames and Hudson, 2004), 25.[]

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  12. Christopher Pool, Olmec Archeology and Early Mesoamerica (Cambridge University Press, 2007), 2–10.[]

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Section 01.05

V. Political Change

  1. Kenneth D. Tollefson, “Potlatching and Political Organization among the Northwest Coast Indians,” Ethnology 34, no. 1 (Winter 1995): 53–73, https://​doi​.org/​10​.2307/​3773863.[]

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  2. J. Ramos-Madrigal, Gayle J. Fritz, Bryon Schroeder, Bruce Smith, Fátima Sánchez-Barreiro, Christian Carøe, et al., “The Genomic Origin of Early Maize in Eastern North America,” Cell 188, no. 1 (January 9, 2025): 33–43, https://​doi​.org/​10​.1016/​j​.cell​.2024​.11​.003.[]

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  3. Richard Erdoes and Alfonso Ortiz, American Indian Myths and Legends (Pantheon Books, 1984).[]

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  4. Nigel Davies, The Toltecs Until the Fall of Tula (University of Oklahoma Press, 1977), 122–25, 285–95.[]

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  5. Jerry B. Howard, “Hohokam Legacy: Desert Canals,” Pueblo Grand Museum Profiles (2003).[]

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  6. Coll Thrush, Native Seattle: Histories from the Crossing-Over Place (University of Washington Press, 2007), 126.[]

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  7. H. Wolcott Toll, “Making and Breaking Pots in the Chaco World,” American Antiquity 66, no. 1 (January 2001): 65, https://​doi​.org/​10​.2307/​2694318.[]

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  8. Anna Sofaer, “The Primary Architecture of the Chacoan Culture: A Cosmological Expression,” in Anasazi Architecture and American Design , ed. Baker H. Morrow and V. B. Price (University of New Mexico Press, 1997).[]

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  9. Stuart J. Fiedel, Prehistory of the Americas (Cambridge University Press, 1992), 217.[]

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  10. D. Lepofsky, K. Lertzman, D. Hallett, and R. Mathewes, “Climate Change and Culture Change on the Southern Coast of British Columbia 2400–1200 Cal. B.P.: An Hypothesis,” American Antiquity. 70, no. 2 (2005): 267–93, https://​doi​.org/​10​.2307/​40035704/.[]

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  11. Amber M. Vanderwarker, Dana N. Bardolph, and C. Margaret Scarry, “Maize and Mississippian Beginnings,” in Mississippian Beginnings , ed. Gregory D. Wilson (University Press of Florida, 2017), 29–70.[]

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  12. James Brooks, Captives and Cousins: Slavery, Kinship, and Community in the Southwest Borderlands (University of North Carolina Press, 2002).[]

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  13. Timothy R. Pauketat and Thomas E. Emerson, eds., Cahokia: Domination and Ideology in the Mississippian World (University of Nebraska Press, 1997), 31.[]

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  14. Thomas E. Emerson, “An Introduction to Cahokia 2002: Diversity, Complexity, and History,” Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology 27, no. 2 (Fall 2002): 137–39, http://​www​.jstor​.org/​stable/​20708175.[]

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  15. David Graeber and D. Wengrow, The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity (Picador/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021), 452–65.[]

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  16. Kathleen DuVal, Native Nations: A Millennium in North America (Random House, 2024), 31–34.[]

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  17. Christina Snyder, “The Lady of Cofitachequi: Gender and Political Power Among Native Southerners,” in South Carolina Women: Their Lives and Times , vol. 1, ed. Marjorie Julian Spruill, Valinda W. Littlefield, and Joan Marie Johnson (University of Georgia Press, 2009), 11–25.[]

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  18. Snyder, “The Lady of Cofitachequi,” 13–14.[]

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  19. Markus Eberl, Community and Difference: Change in Late Classic Maya Villages of the Petexbatun Region (Vanderbilt University Press, 2014), 452.[]

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  20. Bruce H. Dahlin, “Climate Change and the End of the Classic Period in Yucatan,” Ancient Mesoamerica 13 (2002): 327–40, https://​doi​.org/​10​.1017/​S0956536102132135.[]

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Section 01.06

VI. Continuities

  1. Kathleen DuVal, Native Nations: A Millennium in North America (Random House, 2024), 54–61.[]

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  2. David Graeber and D. Wengrow, The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021), 141–63.[]

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  3. Traci Ardren, “Studies of Gender in the Prehispanic Americas,” Journal of Archaeological Research 16, no. 1 (March 2008): 1–35, https://​doi​.org/​10​.1007/​s10814​-007​-9016​-9.[]

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  4. Jane Mt. Pleasant, “A New Paradigm for Pre-Columbian Agriculture in North America,” Early American Studies 13, no. 2 (Spring 2015): 374–412, https://​doi​.org/​10​.1353/​eam​.2015​.0016.[]

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  5. Patrick Bottiger, “Fertile Grounds: Knowledge, Ceremony, and the Intensification of Maize,” Agricultural History 97, no. 4 (2023): 513–46, https://​doi​.org/​10​.1215/​00021482​-10795855.[]

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  6. David Smits, “The “Squaw Drudge: A Prime Index of Savagism,” Ethnohistory 29, no. 4 (1982): 296, https://​doi​.org/​10​.2307/​481102.[]

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  7. Laura F. Klein and Lillian A. Ackerman, Women and Power in Native North America (University of Oklahoma Press, 1995).[]

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  8. Neal Salisbury, Manitou and Providence: Indians, Europeans, and the Making of New England, 1500–1643 (Oxford University Press, 1984).[]

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  9. Robert Cummings Neville, “Religious Diversity and Cultural Inclusion in America,” Religion & Education 22, no. 2 (1995): 28–39, https://​doi​.org/​10​.1080/​15507394​.1995​.11000805.[]

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  10. Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples’ History , 38.[]

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  11. David Wengrow and David Graeber, “‘Many Seasons Ago’: Slavery and Its Rejection Among Foragers on the Pacific Coast of North America,” American Anthropologist 120, no. 2 (2018): 237–49, https://​doi​.org/​10​.1111/​aman​.12969.[]

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  12. Douglas M. George-Kanentso, Iroquois on Fire: A Voice from the Mohawk Nation (Bloomsbury, 2006), 20–21.[]

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  13. Blackhawk, Rediscovery , 78–79.[]

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  14. Martin Gallivan, “Native History in the Chesapeake: The Powhatan Chiefdom and Beyond,” in The Oxford Handbook of North American Archaeology , ed. Timothy R. Pauketat (Oxford University Press, 2012), 310.[]

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  15. Margot Beyersdoff, “Writing Without Words/Words Without Writing: The Culture of the Khipu,” Latin American Research Review 40, no. 3 (2005): 294–311, https://​doi​.org/​10​.1353/​lar​.2005​.0037.[]

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  16. Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples’ History , 31.[]

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  17. Amy Schutt, Peoples of the River Valleys: The Odyssey of the Delaware Indians (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007), 7–30.[]

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  18. Adapted from a 2015 version told by Onondaga Faithkeeper Oren Lyons, “The Peacemaker & the Tadadaho,” https://​www​.youtube​.com/​watch​?v​=​9iVziGHPhVw.[]

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  19. Gary Warrick, “The Precontact Iroquoian Occupation of Southern Ontario,” Journal of World Prehistory 14, no. 4 (2000): 415–66.[]

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