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harlanh 's review for:
Origin: A Genetic History of the Americas
by Jennifer Raff
Really fascinating research, great point of view, not that well presented. Although I wanted to like this treatment of contemporary archaeological and genetic research into the peopling of the Americas more, I struggled with a few things. Organizationally, the book feels like the chapters were re-ordered about ten minutes before it was sent to the printer -- a section intro halfway through the book feels like it was the original intro. As a consequence, Raff fails to introduce new technical concepts as she talks about them, getting into the weeds of controversies before the reader is able to follow. Additionally, there aren't enough illustrations of complex theories, maps, or genetic relationships, which makes many of the arguments difficult to understand. And what illustrations there are are shockingly small, almost unreadable.
Still, if this is a topic of interest, I'd recommend it, in particular for the deeply sympathetic discussion of how indigenous peoples are and should be involved in invasive research into their ancestors and predecessors on the land.
Still, if this is a topic of interest, I'd recommend it, in particular for the deeply sympathetic discussion of how indigenous peoples are and should be involved in invasive research into their ancestors and predecessors on the land.