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59
/100
I Index Overall Rating
Readers
23/100Critics
61/100Scholars
92/100Author:
Jennifer Raff
Publisher:
Twelve
Date:
February 8, 2022
The story of who the first peoples in the Americas were, how and why they made the crossing, how they dispersed south, and how they lived based on a new and powerful kind of evidence: their complete genomes. Origin provides an overview of these new histories throughout North and South America, and a glimpse into how the tools of genetics reveal details about human history and evolution.
What The Reviewers Say
Raff beautifully integrates new data from different sciences...and different ways of knowing, including Indigenous oral traditions, in a masterly retelling of the story of how, and when, people reached the Americas. While admittedly not an archaeologist herself, Raff skillfully reveals how well-dated archaeological sites...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.
Raff wants to tell the most accurate, if still incomplete, story of how humans settled the Americas by integrating research on ancient and modern DNA with archaeological finds.
Origin bills itself as 'a genetic history of the Americas', and it largely delivers on that promise. The final third of the book, in particular, draws on genetic and archaeological evidence to tell the story as we see it now. This section is a model of clear and nuanced explanation: Raff highlights the uncertainties and caveats, but doesn’t allow them to overwhelm the story.
Raff discusses complex issues but explains concepts in easy-to-understand text.
