Understanding the first migrants to the Americas more than 13,000 years ago is a big task. So is figuring out how the ancestors of indigenous peoples transformed themselves from hunters of mammoth and mastodon to farmers to the builders of complex societies. Professor Shane Miller, an archaeologist working in the American southeast (and a Tides listener!) joins me to talk about cutting-edge archaeology and how our understanding of the early Americas is changing.

I wrote a book, and it comes out in July! You can preorder The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World here.

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