The Eternal Frontier: An Ecological History of North America and its Peoples.

• Author: Martikke, Susanne
• Position: New and Noteworthy

The Eternal Frontier: An Ecological History of North America and its Peoples by Tim Flannery (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press 2001). The Eternal Frontier portrays in broad strokes thc development of North American flora and fauna over the course of millions of years. Flannery argues that the continent's nature has been shaped by many waves of immigration--first of animals and then, starting 13,000 years ago, of humans. Both ecologically and culturally, North America has been a frontier since long before the Europeans made it their frontier.

By the time humans entered the stage via the Bering land bridge, the continent's flora and fauna had been radically and repeatedly transformed by such forces as fluctuations in climate and continental shift. But the arrival of the first humans, the Clovis people, initiated an episode of mass extinction. The Clovis pioneered the use of stone spear points and...