When the Land Was Young: Reflections on American Archaeology - Paperback

by Sharman Apt Russell (Author)

An award-winning science and nature writer "presents a lively, confident, and free-flowing history of archaeology in America" (Booklist).

Digging up the relics of the past is not without controversy. With insight and eloquence, Sharman Apt Russell reveals here that when it comes to archaeological study, there is more than one way to examine history.

Raising provocative questions anew about subjects such as the role of humans in the extinction of the large land mammals of the Pleistocene epoch and the repatriation of Native American graves, Russell, winner of the John Burroughs Medal--whose recipients include Rachel Carson--explores the question of what we owe to our past. Through a series of interviews with archaeologists and activists who have helped modernize the field, Russell provides fascinating ideas about the role of archaeology in the stewardship of antiquity, as well as the implications for our common future.

"Russell's work is thoughtful, beautifully written, and well documented. A good way for lay readers to become more informed." --Library Journal

"Agile, cerebral, ruminative, entirely satisfying." --Kirkus Reviews

Author Biography

Sharman Apt Russell was awarded the 2016 John Burroughs Medal for Distinguished Nature Writing, whose other recipients include Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson, and Roger Tory Peterson. Her works include the award-winning young adult historical fantasy Teresa of the New World, set in the dreamscape of the sixteenth-century American Southwest, and Knocking on Heaven's Door, which takes place in a science fiction Paleoterrific future. Her nonfiction ranges from Diary of a Citizen Scientist to Standing in the Light: My Life as a Pantheist. Sharman is a professor emerita at Western New Mexico University in Silver City, New Mexico, and affiliate faculty at Antioch University in Los Angeles. She lives with her husband in the Gila Valley of southwestern New Mexico.