The New York Times - Book Review - USA (2022-03-13)

THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW 11

IT’S ANTHROPOLOGY 101.At the end of the
last ice age, around 13,000 years ago, re-
treating glaciers created an inland corri-
dor connecting Siberia to the Americas.
People from northeast Asia crossed the
Bering Strait land bridge and entered a
new world. From there, these people — of-
ten given the name Clovis, after a New
Mexico site that was rich with the distinc-
tive stone tools they made — rapidly
spread and successfully adapted to the
various ecologies they encountered. All

Native Americans can trace their ancestry
back to these First Peoples.
But, according to the University of Kan-
sas anthropological geneticist Jennifer
Raff, that’s not quite how it happened.
In her new book, “Origin: A Genetic His-
tory of the Americas,” Raff beautifully inte-
grates new data from different sciences
(archaeology, genetics, linguistics) and
different ways of knowing, including Indig-
enous oral traditions, in a masterly re-
telling of the story of how, and when, peo-
ple reached the Americas. While admitted-
ly not an archaeologist herself, Raff skill-
fully reveals how well-dated
archaeological sites, including recently an-
nounced 22,000-year-old human footprints
from White Sands, N.M., are at odds with
the Clovis first hypothesis. She builds a
persuasive case with both archaeological
and genetic evidence that the path to the
Americas was coastal (the Kelp Highway
hypothesis) rather than inland, and that
Beringia was not a bridge but a homeland
— twice the size of Texas — inhabited for
millenniums by the ancestors of the First
Peoples of the Americas.
Throughout, Raff effectively models
how science is done, how hypotheses are
tested, and how new data are used to refute
old ideas and generate new ones.
As a paleoanthropologist who works on
fossils of ancient human ancestors living
millions of years ago, I’ve never fully
grasped why my colleagues who study the
peopling of the Americas so fervently ar-
gue over a few thousandyears. But Raff
helps the reader understand why those
several thousand years matter in terms of
identifying source populations for the First
Peoples of the Americas, the route they
took (coastal versus inland) and the eco-
logical challenges they faced. An informed
and enthusiastic guide throughout, Raff
takes the reader from underground cav-
erns in Belize to a clean lab at the Univer-

sity of Kansas where ancient DNA is te-

diously teased from old bones. She ex-

plains difficult to understand concepts —

geoarchaeology, coalescence times, biodis-

tance — with well-placed sidebars. The

book is richly referenced, and informative

footnotes and endnotes give readers an op-

portunity to take a deeper dive if they wish.

Our job as anthropologists is to breathe

life into the past, to retell the stories of our

ancestors and extinct relatives. We do not

work with lifeless old bones or inert mole-

cules but with the precious, fragmentary

remains of once living, breathing, thinking

individuals who laughed, cried, lived and

died.

As Raff explains, “We have promised to

treat the small scraps of bone and teeth

with respect and mindfulness that they are

cherished ancestors, not ‘specimens.’”

Sprinkled through “Origin” are lovely vi-

gnettes of life thousands of years ago. Raff

playfully imagines how the Yana River

boys lost their deciduous teeth in a Sibe-

rian river 31,000 years ago. She poignantly

fills a page with the sorrow a family must

have felt as they placed the limp body of

their 2-year-old boy into the earth in south-

central Nevada 12,600 years ago. Through

a combination of rigorous science and a

universal humanity, Raff gives ancient

people a voice.

The first few chapters of “Origin” detail

the long history of archaeology in the

Americas. Here, we meet the usual charac-

ters — Thomas Jefferson, Ales Hrdlicka,

Franz Boas — but also folks who were new

to me. People like José de Acosta, a Jesuit

priest who long ago predicted that the In-

digenous peoples of the Americas were re-

lated to northeast Asian populations. And

George McJunkin, a formerly enslaved

man who made one of the most important

archaeological discoveries of the 20th cen-

tury at Folsom, N.M.

Throughout “Origin,” Raff takes on

pseudoscientific nonsense rooted in big-

otry and colonial thinking. She eviscerates

claims of “lost civilizations” founded on the

racist assumption that Indigenous people

weren’t sophisticated enough to construct

large, animal-shaped or pyramidal

mounds and therefore couldn’t have been

the first people on the continent. She con-

vincingly disposes of the Solutrean hy-

pothesis of ancient Europeans in the

Americas with logic and evidence. It puz-

zles her (and me) that people interested in

this topic watch ill-informed “documenta-

ries” on the History Channel when “the

true histories, evident in genetics, oral tra-

ditions and archaeology, are exciting

enough.”

Given the fast and furious pace of dis-

covery in this field, Raff is clear that not ev-

eryone will agree with her interpretations

of the data. “All scientists must hold them-

selves open to the possibility that we could

be wrong, and it may very well be that in

five, 10 or 20 years, this book will be as out

of date as any other,” she writes. “That pos-

sibility is what makes working in this field

so rewarding.” That, she explains, is how

science is done.

While science is the most objective way

of understanding the natural world that

humans have ever devised, it is still done

by an emotional, subjective primate — us.

Raff celebrates science, but also calls at-

tention to the many ways science has

harmed Indigenous communities. “Origin”

details mistrust between some Native

communities and helicopter scientists who

have swooped into their lands and ex-

ploited them for their DNA without invit-

ing input and participation from all stake-

holders. The hashtag #decolonizescience

looks good on Twitter and the concept

sounds good in grants, but it rings hollow

unless it is put into practice. Raff provides

a road map for how to do this and convinc-

ingly argues why this must be the future of

our science. In fact, “Origin” opens with

the discovery of 10,000-year-old human

bones from Shuká Káa Cave, Alaska, and

details the constructive partnerships, built

on transparency and trust, that emerged

between scientists, Indigenous communi-

ties and federal agencies.

My only quibble with this outstanding

book is that we don’t learn who Raff herself

is and how she personally has contributed

to this work through her scholarship until

halfway through “Origin.” At the end of the

book, she describes herself as “one ob-

scure researcher from a small lab.” To be

sure, there are much bigger labs than hers,

but I think she’s being too modest. Jennifer

Raff is a well-published scholar and accom-

plished scientific communicator who has

contributed important insights into the ge-

netic history and movement patterns of In-

digenous Americans. She is at the forefront

of a culture change in our science. And now

she has written thebook anyone interested

in the peopling of the Americas must

read. 0

Newcomers Club

A geneticist challenges a longstanding theory about the earliest Americans.

By JEREMY DESILVA

ORIGIN

A Genetic History of the Americas
By Jennifer Raff
Illustrated. 328 pp. Twelve. $30.

SOPHIE LÉCUYER

Through science and humanity, Raff

gives ancient people a voice.

JEREMY DESILVAis the author of “First Steps:
How Upright Walking Made Us Human.”