Native America: The Story of the First Peoples
By Kenneth L. Feder
Archaeologist Kenneth Feder’s latest book, Native America, offers the public a fascinating, highly readable, jargon-free overview that reaches surprisingly deep into the past. In presenting the vast diversity of Indigenous peoples who have inhabited North America over the last 20,000 years, Feder respectfully dispels many of the negative stereotypes and misconceptions surrounding archaeology in general and Native peoples in particular. He draws on archaeology, historical records, and Native oral histories to tell the ongoing story of Native resilience and adaptation in the face of changing environmental and sociocultural conditions, from the northern Arctic to the desert Southwest. He also encourages community collaboration in all aspects of archaeology—not to supplant Indigenous knowledge, but to supplement it.
Feder presents a compelling mix of Native origin stories—including those of the Tule River Tribe, Inuit, and Diné—and science-based, archaeologically informed accounts of the origins of North America’s Native peoples. Together, they provide an excellent introduction to New World archaeology while delving deeply enough to appeal to a broad range of readers. Feder covers the major epochs, cultures, and sites of North America, from the first peopling of the Americas through the Archaic period, the rise of agriculture, the Eastern Woodlands period, Arctic settlement, the mound builders of the Midwest, the pre-Columbian urban center of Cahokia, and developments and major sites in the Southwest, Arctic North, and Northwest Coast. He also examines radiocarbon dating, dendrochronology, and other dating methods, rock imagery, warfare, residential schools—also known as Indian boarding schools—and efforts at reconciliation.
Well-written, engaging, and often humorous, this richly illustrated volume includes color photographs, hundreds of black-and-white images, detailed maps, chapter notes, and a useful index. Winner of the Society for American Archaeology’s Best Book Award in the popular archaeology category, the book represents a true master class in American archaeology.
Princeton University Press, 2025; 440 pp.; Illus.; $39.95 hardcover; press.princeton.edu
Arroyo: The Dog That Loves to Dig!
By Gwen Olivier
Arroyo: The Dog That Loves to Dig! introduces young readers to archaeology through an especially appealing guide: an adventurous dog with a talent for excavation. Arroyo accompanies his owner, Marie, to archaeological sites, where his enthusiasm for digging leads the pair through desert landscapes, ancient ruins, and a lighthearted mystery.
Written for children ages 5 to 8, the picture book blends a fictional adventure with nonfiction information about archaeology. Author Gwen Olivier draws upon her professional experience in geoarchaeology and paleoenvironmental science, as well as her field research in New Mexico’s Chupadera Arroyo. Her own dog, Bash, and the many hours she has spent excavating archaeological sites provided the inspiration for Arroyo and his adventures.
The story offers children an accessible introduction to archaeology as both a scientific discipline and a profession. Rather than presenting archaeologists simply as treasure hunters, the book emphasizes exploration, observation, and learning about the past. Educational pages provide additional information about archaeological work, while instructions for an at-home dig activity invite children to continue investigating after the story ends.
Arroyo’s canine perspective makes the subject approachable for readers who may be encountering archaeology for the first time. The combination of a playful protagonist, a Southwestern setting, and hands-on educational material should make the book particularly useful for families, elementary classrooms, museums, and archaeology programs seeking to encourage curiosity about science and history.
The book also supports the field it celebrates: A portion of its proceeds helps fund fieldwork and laboratory analyses for student archaeological projects in the Southwest.
Arroyo Books, 2025; 46 pp.; $14.99 paperback; arroyobooks.com
The Four Heavens: A New History of the Ancient Maya
By David Stuart
Leading Maya hieroglyphics expert David Stuart draws on decades of research, new decipherments, and archaeological discoveries to bring this ancient civilization to life and tell a new history of the Maya. The decipherment of ancient Indigenous Maya writings allows their story to be told from their own perspective. It is told by one of the world’s leading Mayanists, who began contributing to the decipherment of Maya hieroglyphs at age 13. The son of two Maya scholars, Stuart became the youngest person ever to receive a MacArthur Fellowship, at age 18. For the first time, specific information about people, places, and events allows for a detailed history of ancient Maya extending back to the second century.
Beautifully illustrated with many of Stuart’s own drawings and images, The Four Heavens reflects recent discoveries and thinking about Maya civilization, offering insights into Maya belief systems and lifeways more than 2,000 years ago. The highly readable book is organized into four parts that reflect Mesoamerican understandings of time, cosmology, and spatial balance: paskab/The World Revealed, which explores the founding of new ceremonial plazas and spaces; kabch’en/The Earth and Caves, a detailed historical narrative of Classic-period dynasties and the sociopolitical world they occupied and shaped; chante’chan/The Four Heavens, which examines the underlying structure of Maya cosmology; and lok’oy/The Leaving, which considers the much-debated Maya “collapse” of the ninth century and its aftermath. Rather than portraying a classic story of rise and fall, Stuart demonstrates that the Maya’s ups and downs were adaptive responses to changing sociopolitical and environmental conditions over nearly three millennia. Part of the public-facing Unearthing the Past series, this groundbreaking book is an incredible addition to Maya scholarship.
Princeton University Press, 2026; 488 pp.; Illus.; $35.00 hardcover; press.princeton.edu
Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks: Landscape Monuments of the Ancient Ohio Valley
By John H. Hancock, with Marti L. Chaatsmith, Bradley T. Lepper, and Bret J. Ruby
Inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2023, the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks encompass eight ancient Indigenous earthwork complexes in Ohio. Built between 1,600 and 2,000 years ago along tributaries of the Ohio River, they represent extraordinary achievements in engineering, geometry, and astronomy. This gorgeous Smithsonian book incorporates Indigenous perspectives and quotations alongside more than 250 large-format photographs, maps, LiDAR images, and paintings, plus an index and further reading. Organized into three parts, it provides historical background, examines the sites, and considers their broader significance, including Tribal involvement, collaborative management, ceremonial objects, and global importance.
Among the world’s largest geometrically shaped earthworks, the complexes feature monumental embankment walls and gateways enclosing vast spaces. Some also contain mounds and burials. Research identifies them as ceremonial gathering places, evident in their enormous scale, elaborate construction, formal precision, astronomical alignments, ceremonial deposits, and relative lack of domestic refuse. Although other earthworks survive across Ohio and beyond, the book focuses on eight UNESCO-designated components within three principal clusters: Newark’s Octagon Earthworks and Great Circle Earthworks; Hopeton Earthworks, Mound City Group, High Bank Works, Hopewell Mound Group, and Seip Earthworks near Chillicothe; and Fort Ancient. These monumental landscapes incorporate precise geometric figures and sculpted hilltops, some aligned to solar and lunar cycles.
Rather than identifying a single group or culture, “Hopewell” describes a widespread religious and ceremonial movement whose cosmological ideas, symbols, and practices were adopted by communities with diverse lifeways. The Hopewell Interaction Sphere extended across much of eastern North America. Participants brought materials from distant regions—including mica from the southern Appalachians, copper from the Great Lakes, obsidian from the Yellowstone region, and marine shell from the Gulf Coast—to Ohio, where artisans transformed them into ceremonial objects. The book offers fascinating insights into the latest research on these ancient masterworks.
Smithsonian Books, 2026; 224 pp.; Illus.; $34.95 hardcover; smithsonianbooks.com
