Gods of Thunder: How Climate Change, Travel, and Spirituality Reshaped Precolonial America

Archaeologist Pauketat (The Archaeology of Ancient North America) draws links between medieval Indigenous societies in Mesoamerica, the American Southwest, and the middle Mississippi valley in this provocative if somewhat overextended study. Throughout, Pauketat highlights similar architectural features (mounds, pyramids, ballcourts), physical artifacts (stone daggers, conch shells), and religious symbols (circular water shrines, gods of wind and rain) found in Indigenous settlements separated by thousands of miles and hundreds of years, using this and other evidence to examine how the Medieval Warm Period (800–1300 CE) may have led to cultural transmissions and contributed to societal changes, including the decline of the Maya and the rise of Cahokia near modern-day St. Louis. Pauketat’s archaeological evidence is strong, but other elements of the narrative muddy his main points, including lengthy descriptions of conquistador Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca’s ill-fated journey through some of these regions in the 16th century and details about Charles Dickens’s excursion to the Cahokia mounds in 1842. These historical asides add color and intrigue but distract from Pauketat’s archaeological, anthropological, and climactic theories. Still, readers interested in pre-Columbian North America will be enlightened by this bold study. (Feb.)