Gods Of Thunder How Climate Change Travel And Spirituality Reshaped Precolonial America Timothy R Pauketat by Timothy R. Pauketat 9780197645109, 0197645100 instant download after payment.

Few Americans today are aware of one of the most consequential periods in North American history--the Medieval Warm Period of seven to twelve centuries ago (AD 800-1300 CE)--which resulted in the warmest temperatures in the northern hemisphere since the "Roman Warm Period," a half millennium earlier. Reconstructing these climatic events and the cultural transformations they wrought, Timothy Pauketat guides readers down ancient American paths walked by Indigenous people a millennium ago, some trod by Spanish conquistadors just a few centuries later. The book follows the footsteps of priests, pilgrims, traders, and farmers who took great journeys, made remarkable pilgrimages, and migrated long distances to new lands.

Along the way, readers will discover a new history of a continent that, like today, was being shaped by climate change--or controlled by ancient gods of wind and water. Through such elemental powers, the history of Medieval America was a physical narrative, a long-term natural and cultural experience in which Native people were entwined long before Christopher Columbus arrived or Hernan Cortes conquered the Aztecs.