The Swordfish Hunters: The History and Ecology of an Ancient American Sea People
Bruce Bourque's The Swordfish Hunters captivated me as no recent book has. I could not put it down. Thousands of years ago, Maine's Red Paint People were among the first maritime cultures in the Americas. They could have subsisted on easily caught cod, but they chose to capture dangerous and elusive swordfish. Bourque explains beautifully the prehistory of these people, the evolution of archaeological thinking about them, and the myriad new scientific threads that shed new light on this old culture. Anyone with even a passing interest in New England's deep maritime roots must read this book. -- Robert Steneck, Professor of Marine Sciences University of Maine