摘要：A Prehistory of the North… is a well-wri.en overview of
the archaeological evidence for the gradual northward
spread of humanity from Africa over an interval spanning
the Pliocene to the present-day. The text is relatively
jargon-free, which makes it easy to follow Hoffecker’s arguments,
and plentiful maps, illustrations and text boxes
about climatic regimes at different times artfully illuminate
his discussion. Following an enthusiastic foreword by B.
Fagan and an introduction dealing with Vikings in North
America, the book is divided into six chronologically ordered
chapters and complemented by an extensive corpus
of endnotes and a comprehensive bibliography. Throughout,
Hoffecker weaves the evidence he presents into a sequence
of arguments about why, how and when humans
expanded northwards from their evolutionary birthplace.
At 142 pages, the text necessarily glosses over some detail,
but what emerges is nonetheless a coherent and stimulating
summary of results o.en published in sources that, for
various reasons, can be hard to access for many Western
scholars. As such, the book constitutes a useful reference
to put in context salient issues about human evolution that
frequently are discussed mainly on the basis of the African
and Western Eurasian evidence alone.
