In "1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus", author Charles C. Mann writes about new discoveries in the archaeological world that change the way we look at pre-Columbus Indians. This includes things as bedrock shaking as where they came from, how early they were here, how big their cities and civilizations were, right down to just how many there were and why the precipitous decline.

It would take too much to cover even a little bit of the overwhelming data thrown at you in this book. It is all written in a very colloquial way, with very little jargon or complex theories. There were quite a few colorfully arcane words used, but not technical ones. He did a very good job of describing what life must have been like in many of the various Mesoamerican societies, including of course the Inkas (sic), Mayan, and even large civilizations that predate these.

I thought he sometimes got bogged down in the nitty gritty details of some of the stories. It worked much better as an overarching description of the whole era, rather than a detailed view of various kings, emperors and wars, which tended to make my eyes glaze over.

I really enjoyed the parts about maize. Did you know that no one is really sure how maize, a staple crop of the Indians, came about? Its nearest known relative is a stalk that has very tiny ears. And its seed is so protected by the husk that it actually requires human intervention to plant itself, so there is no doubt that the ancient Indians developed it somehow. But there is plenty of discussion (and dissension) as to exactly how this came about.

That is my other big complaint about the book - there is so very little actually known. Published in 2005, I would imagine it is due for an update, because things were changing fast and furious even then. And it is really unbelievable just how vicious these academic fights can get! You would have to be pretty thick skinned to want to propose a wildly divergent theory, like instead of coming across the Bering Strait and down the coast, perhaps there was a "valley" in the glacier coverage and they actually came down the middle? Or that there were large, self-sustaining cities all up and down the Amazon, not just subsistence farmers eking out a living. Wow, the mud gets slung by the truckful!

One last factoid - Iquitos, Peru, which is 2,500 miles up the Amazon River, is the farthest inland seafaring port. Yes, sea going vessels dock after traveling up the Amazon River. The scale of the Amazon River (20% of the world's fresh water flows through it) is hard to imagine.

In the last chapter, he makes the claim that the vast flocks of passenger pigeons (some took an entire day to fly by!) and the giant herds of buffalo were actually the result of the precipitous decline of the Indian population due to the European sicknesses like smallpox. When the Indians were at their peak, the population of these and other animals were kept down by both environmental changes (like fields for maize) and by heavy hunting. Once their numbers were cut down, the populations of many animals exploded, which is sort of contrary to how you might think of things back before Columbus.

But I really enjoyed the book and the learning experience. Mann writes well and is very engaging. He tries to give both sides of an argument, of which there are legion. But he also gives you enough hard data to give you a port to dock in for a bit anyway. Highly recommended for the ancient history buff.