Voted "one of the 100 best sci-tech books of the year" by Library Journal when 1st published, Koster: Americans in Search of Their Prehistoric Past is the extraordinarily well-told story of the long-term excavation of a deep Archaic site in the Lower Illinois Valley that pieces together a fascinating picture of the earliest known settlers in the Western Hemisphere. The Koster site in Kampsville, IL, is considered one of the most important archeological treasures in North America. Hundreds of students, archeologists, botanists & geologists worked to explore the many layers of this remarkable settlement. From clues as small as pollen grains, mussel shells & animal bone fragments unearthed at the Koster farm, they have been able to solve many intriguing mysteries about these earliest Americans-what they ate, how their tools were made & used, what diseases plagued them & how they built their homes. Koster is a highly readable true-life adventure that offers clear, take-the-reader-along explanations of the thought processes involved in generating & testing hypotheses & inferences from available data.