The Last Giant of Beringia: The Mystery of the Bering Land Bridge - Hardcover

O'Neill, Dan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0813341973 ISBN 13: 9780813341972

Publisher: Basic Books, 2004

Synopsis

The intriguing theory of a land bridge periodically linking Siberia and Alaska during the coldest pulsations of the Ice Ages had been much debated since José de Acosta, a Spanish missionary working in Mexico and Peru, first proposed the idea of a connection between the continents in 1589. But proof of the land bridge - now named Beringia after eighteenth-century Danish explorer Vitus Bering - eluded scientists until an inquiring geologist named Dave Hopkins emerged from rural New England and set himself to the task of solving the mystery. Through the life story of Hopkins, The Last Giant of Beringia reveals the fascinating science detective story that at last confirmed the existence of the land bridge that served as the intercontinental migration route for such massive Ice Age beasts as woolly mammoths, steppe bison, giant stag-moose, dire wolves, short-faced bears, and saber-toothed cats - and for the first humans to enter the New World from Asia. After proving unambiguously that the land bridge existed, Hopkins went on to show that the Beringian landscape cannot have been the "polar desert" that many had claimed, but provided forage enough to sustain a diverse menagerie of Ice Age behemoths.

About this title

About the Author

Dan O'Neill is the author of A Land Gone Lonesome and The Last Giant of Beringia . He was named Alaska Historian of the Year by the Alaska Historical Society for The Firecracker Boys . He lives in Fairbanks, Alaska.

From Publishers Weekly

This is a short but compelling history of a major event in recent geological studies: the final proof in the early 1970s of the onetime existence of the Bering Land Bridge, a long-surmised strip of land that connected North America and Asia in the Ice Age, possibly as early as 14,000 years ago. Starting with the work of a Jesuit missionary in 1589, but focusing on natural historian Dave Hopkins, Alaskan historian O'Neill (The Firecracker Boys) gives an impressive presentation of the 400-year-old debate over Beringia, the name now commonly given to the land bridge over which early humans would have crossed eastward. But O'Neill is equally interested-perhaps more so-in paying tribute to Hopkins, the scientist whose pioneering archeological and geological studies defined Beringia as a distinctive area and ecosystem and who shaped the direction of modern Arctic studies. Starting with the influence of Hopkins's nature-loving New England mother, O'Neill charts what became a life of "searching for clues of ancient landscapes." He gives clear and compelling summaries of Hopkins's most important work, from his early discovery that deep spots in the Bering Strait were actually canyons and fragments of ancient river valleys, to his final landmark studies indicating that the ecological conditions of the land bridge would have been able to support herds of grazing animals, conditions that also would have permitted the land bridge to be inhabited by humans. This is an impressive portrait of Hopkins, a scientific "giant" whose legacy is as huge as the woolly mammoths that he showed to have ranged throughout Beringia.
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About this edition

• Publisher: Basic Books
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0813341973
• ISBN 13: 9780813341972
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 240