The First American: The Suppressed Story of the People Who Discovered the New World | 
 enlarge | Author: Christopher Hardaker
Creator: Charles Naeser
Publisher: New Page Books
Category: Book
List Price: $24.99
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Avg. Customer Rating:  5 reviews
Sales Rank: 321198
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 319
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6.3 x 1.2
ISBN: 1564149420
Dewey Decimal Number: 972.01
EAN: 9781564149428
ASIN: 1564149420
Publication Date: June 30, 2007
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Product Description
Forty years ago, an amateur prehistorian discovered an engraved mastodon bone near Mexico City, showing a virtual bestiary from the Ice Age. Harvard University took notice and excavated nearby sites around the Valsequillo Reservoir. They found perfectly buried kill sites with the oldest spearheads in the world. Some archaeologists postulated their age at 40,000 years, three times older than the official 12,000-year-old date for the first Americans. Then the shocker--United States Geology Survey (USGS) geologists came up with the date of 250,000 years old!
Even though these dates were published in peer-reviewed geological journals, archaeologists wrote off the geologists, saying they were mistaken and that their dates were too ridiculously old. Archaeologists never returned to the site and curiosity died out. Soon after, this once world-class archaeology region became off-limits for official research, a "professional forbidden zone."
The Valsequillo discoveries were legendary, but regarded as "fringe" by professional archaeologists. Why this radical turn-about? What was found that was so unspeakable, so impossible? What happened to these artifacts--America's earliest art and spearheads, and why don't archaeologists seem to care? In the new book, The First American, archaeologist Christopher Hardaker tries to unearth the mystery.
The book details the events of the discovery and its subsequent dismissal, as well as the attempt in 2001 by a wealthy outsider to find the truth about the Valsequillo discoveries. Included in The First American are photos of the original artifacts, and excerpts from reports, letters, and memos from the site participants themselves.
Archaeologists will once again be forced to ask the same question their mentors asked: Are we too in love with our own theories to ignore the evidence of science yet again? And readers will hear the real story of the great Valsequillo discoveries, the greatest story of early American man never told.
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| Customer Reviews:
 New controversial theories MUST be well presented to be embraced January 3, 2008
13 out of 20 found this review helpful
One of the most important things to do when you are selling an unpopular view, position, or account of how things happened, is to be clear, organized, and come across as professional. Mr. Hardaker's writing is unorganized, all over the map, and just plain not well presented. You can't convince people of a paradigm if your evidence is not well presented, and you play the "blame game" of what happened to corrupt what was great evidence. I was sorely disappointed in this book. I doubt it will convince anyone of pre-clovis occupation if you do not already have that belief. The whole thing reads more like a JFK conspiratorial book than anything else. At least that is the way I see it. I am sure he is a fine man and his beliefs may be right on target, but the presentation is not well done.
Dogmatism Triumphs over Data (again) December 31, 2007
13 out of 16 found this review helpful
Recently I attended a "science" methods seminar offered by the San Bernardino County Museum. Featured in the seminar was a simulated archeological dig that could be done with children. At my dig "site" I found some nails, and the presenter, modelling a good inquiry extension strategy, asked me, "What can you conclude from the nails?" "Well," I responded, "I would conclude that these were human artifacts, had I discovered them anywhere in the world except the Calico Early Man Site. But, had I discovered them at the Calico Early Man Site, I would conclude they are natural geological features." At this point my presenter asked what I would be doing at the Calico Man site in the first place.
As Christopher Hardaker demonstrates in this delightful little book, this exchange is illustrative of what regularly happens in archeology. So long as artifact finds can be dated within the "Clovis first" paradigm, they are accepted. But as soon as one uncovers earlier artifacts, they are simply assumed to be "geofacts" instead, and all further inquiry at the those particular sites are discouraged. For the record, many of the articfacts at Calico date to more than 20,000 years old, far older than the 12,000 year old Clovis culture that until recently was paraded as the oldest evidence of human habitation in the new world. Because of its association with Louis Leaky, this site figures prominently in Hardaker's book. But the bulk of the book is devoted to archeological digs around Valsequillo resevoir in Mexico. Here the dating of artifacts to more than 200,000 years has been confirmed by multiple lines of geological evidence, all of which has resulted in the archeological profession studiously ignoring their own finds at the various Valsequillo sites. Indeed, the story Hardaker tells includes the actual destruction of artifacts by a prominent archeologist, and the "loss" of hundreds of in situ photographs and dig notes. It is an amazing story, but one that confirms a thesis I have long held, namely that "science" operates more like a religion than its proponents would like to admit. Just as Catholic biblical scholars have some leeway in interpreting texts, scientists can do research so long as they do not seriously question existing paradigms. Should they go beyond the unwritten boundaries, however, they are "excommunicated" from academe and their work is ignored or sometimes even outright destroyed, as this little volume illustrates in copious detail.
Taken the whole, 'The First American' is really two books. The first discusses dozens of archeological sites where the evidence contradicted the established beliefs and careers were lost or destroyed. This is by far the longest portion of the book. But the second part offers some interesting speculations in defense of diffusionism: in particular, it argues that paleolithic (pre modern) humans might well have mastered ocean travel and come further than many thought possible. I found this argument intriguing, if not entirely convincing. But the fact that the first part of the book was the most riveting speaks volumes about the nature of scientific inquiry in this day and age. Open minded readers will find this an interesting book. Dogmatists will not, but absent their dominance in science today, this book would not have been written in the first place.
 A Benchmark Publication September 1, 2007
16 out of 18 found this review helpful
This is the best book on the skullduggery and infighting behind the scenes in the Pre-Clovis debate since Elaine Dewar's "Bones". The fact that the author has been a credentialed, practicing archaeologist for over thirty years adds additional weight to his commentary on a subject usually addressed by nonprofessional outsiders.
The primary source documents for this book were graciously made available to me about a year ago by Virginia Steen-McIntyre, a tephronologist member of the original Valsequillo excavations. In a weekly newspaper column I write, I did my best to synopsize the technical material in those documents for the lay reader but Chris Hardaker's distillation surpasses my own by an order of magnitude. In addition, Chris has ferreted out related but exceedingly obscure material that I have never seen in print before and likely never would have. This would include his account of recent discoveries of advanced tool making in the African Middle Paleolithic, Lorenzo's raid on the Smithsonian for the Armenta's inscribed bone artifact, and his personal account of suppression of student investigation of Carter's Texas Street Site by his California archaeology professor.
Accusations of archaeological coverups abound in the "fringe" literature and in my experience, the majority of them lack foundation. By the same token, over the years I have found a small core of these accusations have a very real basis in fact. Chris Hardaker covers these as well in "The First American" and goes into the mentality and politics that give rise to such baffling suppression. Still, in the end, Chris is left as puzzled as I am, as to why mainstream science would turn its back on its core principles. To even raise the question of conspiracy to suppress knowledge is to invite an avalanche of ridicule and I must commend Chris Hardaker's courage to stand up publicly and face it. Virginia Steen-McIntyre has endured such ridicule for four decades in an effort to keep the profound discoveries in the Valsequillo Valley from vanishing into the black hole of public consciousness and in 2004 finally saw this site reopened by Texas A&M and INAH. We are still waiting for official publication of their findings promised three years ago. In the meantime, we have Chris' account of what he observed at Hueyatlaco along with surviving members of the original excavations. Though there will be howls of protests that this book is doing an end run around the peer review process, Chris has done a yeoman job of making this fascinating story accessible to highly interested laymen such as myself and he has done so in an extremely lively and entertaining style. For those with a taste for dissident but real archaeology, I give "The First American" my highest recommendation.
My Review: July 20, 2007
8 out of 12 found this review helpful
This book is well worth reading. It was a little wordy and the author has a soap box, however, the subject matter is well covered and the author does have his reasons for speaking out. Read to find out why!
If you are a 'new world' archaeology buff this book is a must read. Graham Hancock fans or readers of 1421: The Year China Discovered America should receive this book very well.
It's not the Science, it's the Politics July 3, 2007
12 out of 21 found this review helpful
I read this a few months ago. I should no longer be amazed that politics plays more into science then the simple facts. As someone in the book mentions, "I don't see the logic of rejecting data just because it seems incredible". The simple fact that this mega-site contradicts the obvious error that the Clovis New Mexico site is the oldest site of man in the Americas.
The amount of effort that the Clovis Firsters are putting in to suppressing any contradicting evidence is beyond amazing. It will take many more years of scientific proof (and rubbing people's noses in that prove) to convince these people that the evidence from the many and various sites that are older then their site.
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