I am a third grade teacher and the study of Native Americans is part of our History/Social Studies curriculum. Every third grade teacher at my school has purchased this book with their own money to use when teaching this topic. It is beautifully illustrated and contains lots of colorful photographs. It contains interesting facts and information about different Native American tribes and their customs, from totem poles and tipis to wedding ceremonies and canoe-building. My students really enjoy reading it and looking at the pictures. I highly recommend it for those of you who have an interest in Native American culture, artwork and customs.

The historical perspective that is the core of David's book makes the positions of the adversaries in the Kennewick Man dispute more understandable. I expected a telling of the controversy surrounding Kennewick Man, and perhaps some suggestions about what the remains mean to theories concerning the peopling of the New World. What I got was a lucid history of the stormy relationship between Native Americans and archaeologists that forms a good part of the background for the Kennewick Man controversy. David goes some distance (maybe too far)to be charitable to all the players in this scientific soap opera. He makes it clear, however, that Native American remains are part of Native American history and identity, not specimens to be mined for cranial measurements and loopy inferences about intellectual capability. I am left with a nagging question that David doesn't address, but is at the center of this controversy: how do we KNOW the affiliation of human remains? Surely NAGPRA can't ascertain affiliation, although it can apparently assign it. In the absence of some rigorous examination of remains by qualified individuals we are left with the prospect of conflicting claims that characterizes "Kennnewick Man: The Soap". If affiliation is determined by legislative fiat or dueling attorneys, we all lose. Classifying remains as Native American because they are found in North America does some violence to common sense - are Toyotas indigenous because we find them here? Vine DeLoria's views notwithstanding, the peopling of the New World remains a story to be told. It is possible that the Americas were peopled more than once by groups from parts of the world that conventional wisdom has long dismissed. David closes his book with the account of a collaborative project in Alaska that offers a real alternative to the disputes surrounding Kennewick Man. Hopefully such cooperation will be a model for archaeological research, and the picture of Native American prehistory that it renders will be more complete because of its inclusiveness. All in all, a superb read that encourages us to examine our motives and to recall the obscenities that have occurred in the past, and almost certainly will occur again, for "Science".

David Hurst Thomas has produced an amazing book in Skull Wars. It is at once a serious scholarly history of the relationship between archaeologists and Native Americans and at the same time a good read, accessible to an informed public. Thomas tells it like it is when it comes to this history. As he points out it is a history that archaeologist cannot be proud of. He does an excellent job of demonstrating how the colonial context of archaeology shaped the actions of scholars to bad ends, often despite their good intentions.

Those individuals who call for a more balanced account of this history only wish to deny or cover up the ugly truth. Thomas is if anything too kind to many of the key figures of early archaeology and in the recent Kennewick controversy. As Thomas argues archaeologists need to learn from this history and not simply hide behind naive good intentions. Thomas demonstrates how informed archaeologists can work with Native American people to build common ground and interests. He shows us how we can go beyond the controversy to link good intentions with good actions.

I cannot verify or deny Thomas' comments on the Asatru religion but the reviews that react so negatively to them are focusing in on only a couple of paragraphs in the book. These comments have little to do with the overall point of the book or its content. Virtually no professional archaeologists accept the idea that there is evidence for Norse or other European settlement or exploration in North American much before AD 900 or that these explorations extended beyond the east coast of Canada. Even the theory advanced by a few archaeologists that paleolithic Solutrian peoples from the Iberian Peninsula may have crossed the arctic ice to become the North American Clovis culture has been recently dismissed in American Antiquity.

As a professional archaeologist and a scholar who has written extensively on relationships between archaeologists and Native Americans I welcome this readable account. It is a book that should be read by anyone interested in North American archaeology and I hope that it will become required reading of all archaeology students.

Skull Wars is a superb read - engagingly written and forcefully presented - it has relevance well beyond the anthropological and Native American communities. Thomas'interweaving of history, American socio-political history and the emergence of social sciences as practiced in the US is fascinating. He's packed an amazing amount of research into this volume. I learned much and disagree with little. Coming to terms with the issue of race in this country is still in many ways largely intractable, but made much more complex by issues of class. When compounded with the Native American experience the complexities are even more magnified.

The issues confronted in Skull Wars are particularly germane for those Native American groups that have retained some semblance of generational continuity. Thomas accurately touches on the "top down" weaknesses of the implementation of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.

Thomas clearly articulates that there is not a one-size fits all approach to accommodating and reconciling the concerns of legitimately affected Native Americans and the archaeological community. The positive examples at the end of the book serve as models for much of the country.

I hope Skull Wars reaches the wide audience it deserves. I enthusiastically recommend it.

I thought that this book was an excellent resource for people researching the roots of humankind. The only problem with it that I had was that it tended to give different facts in different parts of the book. For example, in one part it said that it was proven that Neanderthals buried their dead with ibex horns, or cave bear skulls and therefore had a religion and believed in an afterlife, but in other parts it stated that the ibex horns were just thrown in the general area of the burial and that the cave bear skulls were the result of several generations of cave bears living in the cave and dying out before the Neanderthals moved in. I thought it was a good read, but in some places controversial and confusing. If you're into prehistory and evolution, I wouldn't be without this volume. I would actually give it 4 1/2 stars.

The book has a lot of information on the scientific research done in the escavations of ancient hominides;our ancestors and the only clue to the finding of the "missing link".The book shows the different sites of the discoveries,hominides like "homo habilis" and "astrolophitecus".A very fine book for the antrophology "conosseur" and enthusiast.

This book has one over-riding theme repeated constantly: The White Man is always wrong and the Indian is and has always been an innocent victem. I won't list details, but the lack of objectivity and obvious implications to the promote the theme are insulting. Although the book may contain some valuable and useful facts about Native Americans and their lifestyles, it is impossible to determine how authentic any of them are due to the overt propaganda that is being constantly asserted.

A beautiful book that pleases the mind and eyes. Very authoritative and full of historical and anecdotal information relating to the Native Americans. Begins with pre-Columbus and continues through the ages to the 90's. A must read for anyone interested in Native american culture and history. The photographs and illustrations are priceless and well worth the price of the book. Add this to your history collection, younsters enjoy browsing at the wonderful prints of paintings and illustrations. An easy read whose pictures entertain and captivate the imagination.