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National Geographic : 1977 Aug
Contents
LMOST since the time of Columbus, a mystery has cast its shadow across the New World. How and when did the first Americans arrive in this hemi sphere? Modern anthropology has answered the "how": The forebears of the American Indians migrated from Asia. No one can know what pressures drove these nomadic hunters from their ancestral lands. But evidence strongly indicates that they entered North America by way of Alaska. Your Society has now joined with the Na tional Park Service in an attempt to cast more light on the "when." In 1976 Dr. W. Roger Powers and Dr. R. Dale Guthrie of the University of Alaska, digging at Dry Creek in the mountains of central Alaska, uncovered the remains of ancient human oc cupation. The area surrounding their dig holds rich archeological promise. Lush grass lands are as hospitable to game and man today as they were in the deep past. The Society and the Park Service are supporting a three-year, $600,000 project aimed at find ing the earliest traces of man at this gateway to the New World. Bering Strait, scarcely 50 miles of open wa ter, now separates Asia and North America. But, as recently as 18,000 years ago, when Ice Age glaciers imprisoned much of our planet's water, sea level stood some 300 feet lower. Siberia and Alaska were linked by a corridor of open land perhaps 1,000 miles wide. For decades archeology seemed to show that the first Americans arrived some 12,000 years ago and proceeded, through several millennia, to drift southward with the game and the seasons. But recent years have brought provocative discoveries. Carbon dating of bone implements found in the Ca nadian Yukon suggests man hunted there more than 25,000 years ago; an obsidian blade from a Mexican site may be 23,000 years old. Excavations in Siberia have dis closed evidence of migration toward America between 20,000 and 30,000 years ago. In the past, collaboration between the Society and the Park Service has unearthed Wetherill Mesa's prehistoric culture in Colo rado. Now, continuing the quest, we hope to penetrate even further into the murky frontiers of man's past in the Americas. 1* 4_JI UGEQGIAPfH1iC THE NATIONALGEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE,VOL. 152, NO. 2 COPYRIGHT© 1977 BY NATIONALGEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY WASHINGTON,D. C. INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT SECURED August 1977 West Germany: Continuing Miracle 149 In three decades a war-devastatedland has become Western Europe's strongest, most prosperousnation. John J. Putman and Robert W. Madden report on how it happened and look at the road ahead. On the Trail of Wisconsin's Ice Age 182 A chain of glacial wonders, some still being sculpted only 10,000 years ago, is traced by Anne LaBastille and Cary Wolinsky. The Challenge of Air Safety 209 Michael E. Long and Bruce Dale ridejetliners and visit control towers for an in-depth look at one of today's safest means of transportation. Penguins and Their Neighbors 237 Renowned naturalistRoger Tory Peterson voyages to the Antarctic to observe the incredible lives of birds and animals in one of earth's most rigorous environments. Photographsby Des and Jen Bartlett. Five Times to Yakutsk 256 National GeographicphotographerDean Conger recalls 16 years and 100,000 miles of travel in the U.S.S.R. The most recent result: a new Geographic book on the Soviet Union. Purdah: Life Behind the Veil 270 For three years anthropologistDoranne Wilson Jacobson lived in a village in India, studying the ways of women who veil themselves from the view of others-sometimes even their husbands. How Soon Will We Measure in Metric? 287 Prepareto meet the meter, advises science editor Kenneth F. Weaver, who offers a handy tear-out guide to the system. Drawings by DonaldA. Mackay. COVER: A Lockheed TriStar wings over the California coast on an air-safety test flight (pages 206-208). Photographby Bruce Dale. 147
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