Gods of Thunder
How Climate Change, Travel, and Spirituality Reshaped Precolonial America
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- £19.99
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- £19.99
Publisher Description
A sweeping account of Medieval North America when Indigenous peoples confronted climate change.
Few Americans today are aware of one of the most consequential periods in North American history--the Medieval Warm Period of seven to twelve centuries ago (AD 800-1300 CE)--which resulted in the warmest temperatures in the northern hemisphere since the "Roman Warm Period," a half millennium earlier. Reconstructing these climatic events and the cultural transformations they wrought, Timothy Pauketat guides readers down ancient American paths walked by Indigenous people a millennium ago, some trod by Spanish conquistadors just a few centuries later. The book follows the footsteps of priests, pilgrims, traders, and farmers who took great journeys, made remarkable pilgrimages, and migrated long distances to new lands.
Along the way, readers will discover a new history of a continent that, like today, was being shaped by climate change--or controlled by ancient gods of wind and water. Through such elemental powers, the history of Medieval America was a physical narrative, a long-term natural and cultural experience in which Native people were entwined long before Christopher Columbus arrived or Hern?n Cort?s conquered the Aztecs.
Spanning most of the North American continent, Gods of Thunder focuses on remarkable parallels between pre-contact American civilizations separated by a thousand miles or more. Key archaeological sites are featured in every chapter, leading us down an evidentiary trail toward the book's conclusion that a great religious movement swept Mesoamerica, the Southwest, and the Mississippi valley, sometimes because of worsening living conditions and sometimes by improved agricultural yields thanks to global warming a thousand years ago. The author also includes a guide to visiting the archaeological sites discussed in the book.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Archaeologist Pauketat (The Archaeology of Ancient North America) draws links between medieval Indigenous societies in Mesoamerica, the American Southwest, and the middle Mississippi valley in this provocative if somewhat overextended study. Throughout, Pauketat highlights similar architectural features (mounds, pyramids, ballcourts), physical artifacts (stone daggers, conch shells), and religious symbols (circular water shrines, gods of wind and rain) found in Indigenous settlements separated by thousands of miles and hundreds of years, using this and other evidence to examine how the Medieval Warm Period (800–1300 CE) may have led to cultural transmissions and contributed to societal changes, including the decline of the Maya and the rise of Cahokia near modern-day St. Louis. Pauketat's archaeological evidence is strong, but other elements of the narrative muddy his main points, including lengthy descriptions of conquistador Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca's ill-fated journey through some of these regions in the 16th century and details about Charles Dickens's excursion to the Cahokia mounds in 1842. These historical asides add color and intrigue but distract from Pauketat's archaeological, anthropological, and climactic theories. Still, readers interested in pre-Columbian North America will be enlightened by this bold study.