A
book about the facial reconstruction of historic remains found in
North America
h
Once,
no humans lived on the continent of North America; then they began
to journey here.
The
first migrants arrived perhaps fifteen or twenty thousand years ago.
Scientists believe that people from Asia had settled on a
one-thousand-mile-wide land bridge (now called Beringia) that
connected present-day Siberia to Alaska. Eventually, some of their
descendants moved onward to North America and spread out across the
land.
Much
later, others came from Europe, from Africa, from Asia and other
places. Some came willingly; some were enslaved and brought against
their will.
But
all settled on this continent.
And
when the earliest settlers of North America died, so long ago, they
were buried in caves or isolated graves. Later, others built burial
mounds or cemeteries for their dead. Over time, many of the mounds
were robbed and destroyed. Many early cemeteries disappeared from
sight when makeshift grave markers blew away in the wind or decayed.
Sometimes the early dead were not even buried; they simply fell
where they were wounded and came to rest where they lay. No matter
how they died or were buried, as time passed these people were
forgotten.
Today,
when a skeleton from centuries ago is discovered, scientists want to
study it to discover information about the person’s life and
death, about her or his time and place in history. Sometimes artists
are asked to reconstruct faces from the past, using replicas of
their skulls. Then these nameless, unknown people can be brought
back to life, remembered, and honored.
Now,
when their skeletons are discovered, their stories can be told.
