This book is an up-to-date and thought-provoking reader on the peopling of Americas, with detailed contributions from some of the foremost scholars on the subject. Regional syntheses spanning the Americas, with sophisticated analyses of radiocarbon, artifact, and site data, are instructive models of scholarship. A preface by the coeditors highlights the need for “diversity, before all” (p. xvii), and it notes that the geographic ordering of chapters from south to north is intended to shake up our thinking, essential for moving forward. The cover depicting the hemisphere inverted profoundly symbolizes this goal.

The early settlement of southern South America is explored through reconsiderations of earlier work by Hugo Nami at Cueva del Medio, by a large, diverse, and multidisciplinary team typical of current field and laboratory research. Fabiana Martin and colleagues show how new interpretations between cultural and faunal remains can be made with older sites and assemblages, reinforcing the idea that archaeological science is a cumulative and positive process.

Research on the Deseado Massif in Patagonia, focusing on lithic raw material collection and use, are examined by Nora Viviana Franco and Lucas Vetrisano. Locations, characteristics, and variability of stone outcrops and artifact scatters situate excavations at the La Grunta 1 rockshelter in broader perspective. The site and outcrop data and photographs, including Google Earth imagery, provide a good feel for the landscape—something done well in several other chapters.

César Méndez and colleagues examine the early archaeological record in western Patagonia. They show how the use of multiple scales and differing kinds of data collection and analyses—from using satellite imagery to identify glacial geomorphic features to piece-plotting individual artifacts and recognizing patterns of differential erosion on their surfaces—can result in the detection of past occupation surfaces, enriching interpretations of archaeological assemblages from them.

Rafael Suárez synthesizes successive Fishtail, Tigre, and Pay Paso cultural complexes in the plains of southeastern South America in an important examination of postglacial human adaptation. Major technological reorganizations are evident over some 4,000 years, from approximately 12,900 to 9000 cal BP.

Francisco Javier Aceituno-Bocanegra and Antonio Uriarte identify optimal early dispersal routes from Panama into Colombia. Syntheses of site locations and radiocarbon dates and sophisticated cost surface analyses show patterns of movement and interaction in the region through time. Specific corridors of communication and interaction and multiple hypotheses are advanced to link local trends to developments further north and south.

Fishtail and Clovis-like occupations in Central America and southern Mexico are examined by Guillermo Acosta-Ochoa and colleagues, who advocate greater effort to obtain primary paleosubsistence evidence and less on accepting assumptions based on the presence of fluted points, given the minimal evidence for megafaunal exploitation in the region.

The history of research and thinking about early occupations in Mexico are explored by Ciprian F. Ardelean and colleagues as part of a descriptive overview of initial excavations and cultural materials at Chiquihuite Cave in northern Zacatecas. Because of the great antiquity of the assemblage, as recently reported in “Evidence of Human Occupation in Mexico around the Last Glacial Maximum” (Nature 584:87–92, 2020), this chapter's call for caution when exploring such possibilities nicely sets the stage for ensuing analyses and interpretations.

Thomas J. Williams and colleagues examine early lithic industries from the Gault site in Texas, demonstrating similarities and differences between the Clovis and underlying Gault assemblages. A discussion of early assemblages from across the Americas emphasizes their diversity, but the authors argue that the Gault assemblage may well be ancestral to the Clovis materials above it. Continued reporting on the nature and contexts of these early materials—and ideally, the discovery of intervening assemblages—will help clarify this possibility.

Ashley K. Lemke and John M. O'Shea summarize early Holocene artifact and feature assemblages along a major ridgeline now submerged in central Lake Huron that was likely a migration corridor for caribou, and where hunting stations and occupation areas for early peoples were located. Dozens of features—including cairns, drive lanes, and hunting blinds—were documented, and the study is a model of the kind of contributions underwater archaeology can make to understanding early occupations.

J. M. Adovasio and David A. Pedler briefly summarize evidence for older-than-Clovis occupations in the United States, showing that these peoples were widely dispersed, were technologically and culturally diverse, and in some cases possessed implements we are slowly coming to recognize as useful temporal diagnostics. The Clovis First model has been beaten to death for decades now, and as these authors and Tom D. Dillehay note in the concluding chapter, we need to call “pre-Clovis” something else (I have suggested Early Paleoindian) and move on—our terminology presupposes all paths lead to Clovis, which they clearly do not.

Michael J. Shott synthesizes evidence for and relationships between Paleoindian stone tools and proboscidean extinction in the North American Midwest, and at continental and global scales. Analyses of area excavated, tool count, and proboscidean MNI indicate that the Midwest sample is unusual and equivocal regarding extinctions, lacking in relationships that range from weakly suggestive to robust at larger geographic scales. Data compilations and innovative analyses and interpretations are valuable guides for future efforts.

Theodore G. Schurr provides a broad yet detailed synthesis of how DNA evidence is shaping models of human population dispersals in the Americas. Research among modern peoples and ancient human remains is critical to refining these histories, which are becoming richer and more remarkable each year. Schurr offers an even-handed and holistic perspective—much needed given rapid changes in these research domains.

A masterful concluding chapter by Dillehay summarizes major themes and is replete with insights and observations that place the book as a whole and its individual chapters in perspective. The editors acknowledged that he did so in their preface. I encourage readers to read that and these conclusions first, and then again after reading the intervening chapters.

People and Culture in Ice Age Americas is an excellent book. In addition to synthesizing knowledge about specific areas and topics, it shows through numerous examples how we can effectively document the stories of the earliest Americans.