Title
1491 : new revelations of the Americas before Columbus / Charles C. Mann.
Edition
1st ed.
ISBN
140004006X (alk. paper)
Imprint
New York : Knopf, 2005.
Language
English
Description
xii, 465 p. : ill., maps ; 25 cm.
Other Standard Identifiers
9781400040063
Call Number
E61 .M266 2005
Dewey Decimal Classification
970.01/1
Summary
Mann shows how a new generation of researchers equipped with novel scientific techniques have come to previously unheard-of conclusions about the Americas before the arrival of the Europeans: In 1491 there were probably more people living in the Americas than in Europe. Certain cities--such as Tenochtitlán, the Aztec capital--were greater in population than any European city. Tenochtitlán, unlike any capital in Europe at that time, had running water, beautiful botanical gardens, and immaculately clean streets. The earliest cities in the Western Hemisphere were thriving before the Egyptians built the great pyramids. Native Americans transformed their land so completely that Europeans arrived in a hemisphere already massively "landscaped" by human beings. Pre-Columbian Indians in Mexico developed corn by a breeding process that the journal Science recently described as "man's first, and perhaps the greatest, feat of genetic engineering."--From publisher description.
Bibliography, etc. Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. [403]-449) and index.
Holmberg's mistake
A view from above
1: Numbers from nowhere?
Why Billington survived
In the land of four quarters
Frequently asked questions
2: Very old bones
Pleistocene wars
Cotton (or anchovies) and maize (tales of two civilizations, part I)
Writing, wheels, and bucket brigades (tales of two civilizations, part II)
3: Landscape with figures
Made in America
Amazonia
The artificial wilderness
The great law of peace.
