The World They Made: Native America in 1491
By Daniel R. Whitfield
Length4h 23m
About this audiobook
A woman with a child on her hip walked south along the shore of a shallow lake, in mud that took her footprints the way wax takes a seal. A giant ground sloth had passed that way not long before, and she stepped around its track without breaking stride. Then the water rose, the mud closed over the prints, and the dunes of White Sands in New Mexico walked across them. When seeds from the same layers were dated in 2021, they came back at roughly 23,000 to 21,000 years old, thousands of years before Clovis, the culture once confidently called the first Americans.
Those footprints raise the questions this history is built around. How long have people lived in North America? How did they feed and govern themselves? How many of them were there by the time Columbus sailed, and what happened to them after he came? The answers run through the ridges of Poverty Point, Cahokia around 1050, the Hohokam canals and the great houses of Chaco, the cedar and salmon of the Northwest Coast, a league of peace, and the Three Sisters of corn, beans and squash.
The last chapters reckon with numbers: the long argument over how many people lived here in 1491, and the Great Dying that followed the ships. They close on the world those people made. At White Sands the wind still shifts the sand, and every year it uncovers a few more footprints.
Audiobook details
GenreHistory
Length4 hrs 23 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateSep 18, 2026
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1Chapter 1: Footprints in the Mud
2Chapter 2: Poverty Point
3Chapter 3: Cahokia, 1050
4Chapter 4: The Hohokam Canals
5Chapter 5: The Great Houses of Chaco
Mostrar todos os capítulosVer menos
6Chapter 6: Cedar, Salmon, and Rank
7Chapter 7: A League of Peace
8Chapter 8: The Three Sisters
9Chapter 9: The Number of People
10Chapter 10: The Great Dying
11Chapter 11: The Lines on the Map
12Chapter 12: The World They Made
13About the Author
More from Daniel R. Whitfield
Jim Thorpe: The Greatest Athlete and the Fight for His MedalsDaniel R. Whitfield4h 19m$6
Ninety Million Acres: The Dawes Act and the Theft of Indian LandDaniel R. Whitfield4h 47m$6
The Osage Empire Before OilDaniel R. Whitfield4h 38m$6
The Prophet and the Confederacy: Tenskwatawa, Tippecanoe, and the War for Native PowerDaniel R. Whitfield4h 17m$6
Ely Parker: The Seneca Engineer Who Wrote the Surrender at AppomattoxDaniel R. Whitfield3h 27m$6
The Chickasaw Wars: The Nation That Never SurrenderedDaniel R. Whitfield3h 55m$6
The Marshall Trilogy: How Three Supreme Court Cases Built Tribal SovereigntyDaniel R. Whitfield4h 42m$6
The Kiowa and the Southern Plains: Horse Trade, Sun Dance, and the Long Road to ReservationDaniel R. Whitfield4h 50m$6
A Brief History of IntelligenceMax S. Bennett12h 18m4.6 (6.6K)$29 · $0.00
The Daughter of AuschwitzTova Friedman, Malcolm Brabant7h 54m4.6 (16.7K)$26 · $0.00
Lily's PromiseLily Ebert, Dov Forman8h 54m4.6 (16.1K)$29 · $0.00
On Democracies and Death CultsDouglas Murray10h 38m4.6 (6.5K)$29 · $0.00
Across the RiverKent Babb11h 40m4.6 (927)$29 · $0.00
Balcony Over Jerusalem: A Middle East Memoir - Israel, Palestine and BeyondJohn Lyons12h 37m4.6 (1.4K)$33 · $0.00
BeyondStephen Walker15h 39m4.6 (3.2K)$33 · $0.00
Kings and PawnsHoward Bryant10h 9m4.6 (678)$29 · $0.00
No EscapeNury Turkel9h 30m4.6 (809)$28 · $0.00
Jubal Stone: U.S. Marshal: Blood Trail To Hell: A Western Adventure NovelCasey Nash3h 42m4.6 (3.2K)$18 · $0.00
Fall and RiseMitchell Zuckoff17h 23m4.6 (9.8K)$40 · $0.00
The SurvivorJosef Lewkowicz, Michael Calvin9h 22m4.6 (2.5K)$29 · $0.00
Always FaithfulThomas Schueman, Zainullah Zaki12h 12m4.6 (977)$29 · $0.00
The State of Society in France Before the Revolution of 1789 (Annotated)Alexis de Tocqueville17h 25m4.6 (1.2K)$2 · $0.00
All the Gallant MenDonald Stratton, Ken Gire5h 55m4.6 (11.8K)$24 · $0.00
Saint Joan (Annotated)George Bernard Shaw6h 20m4.6 (1.2K)$1.20 · $0.00
Medgar and MyrlieJoy-Ann Reid10h 52m4.5 (27.8K)$29 · $0.00
The History of the Peloponnesian War (Annotated)Thucydides24h 3m4.6 (1.1K)$2 · $0.00
Where the Birds Never SingJack Sacco10h 31m4.6 (3.8K)$29 · $0.00
Serviceman J: The Untold Story of an NZSAS SoldierJamie Pennell5h 51m4.6 (452)$24 · $0.00
You may also like
Teutonic Mythology: The Gods and Goddesses of the Northland (Vol. 1-3)Viktor Rydberg31h 18m4.3 (281)$1 · $0.00
TidesJonathan White11h 12m4.3 (1.2K)$23
Sea PeopleChristina Thompson11h 39m4.3 (10.1K)$29 · $0.00
Periodic TalesHugh Aldersey-Williams13h 36m3.9 (6.1K)$33 · $0.00
African ArtMaurice Delafosse7h 14m$18 · $0.00
Aboriginal Remains in Verde Valley, ArizonaCosmos Mindeleff3h 58m$1 · $0.00
Native America Before the United StatesSantiago Machain5h 26m$21 · $0.00
In Search of Gravestones Old and CuriousW. T. Vincent3h 7m4.0 (13)$2 · $0.00
The Old Road (Annotated)Hilaire Belloc6h 56m3.4 (24)$3 · $0.00
The Ancient Monuments of North and South America, 2nd edC. S. Rafinesque50m$2 · $0.00
The Art of Pottery: 7 Classic Books on the Craft of PotteryGisela M. A. Richter, Michael J. Harner, A. L. Kroeber, Unknown, C. Malcolm Watkins, Frank Hamilton Cushing, Carl E. Guthe, Mary White16h$1.99 · $0.00
The Emeryville ShellmoundMax Uhle3h 57m$1 · $0.00
The Ports, Harbours, Watering-places and Picturesque Scenery of Great Britain (Vol. 1&2) (Annotated)W. Finden11h 2m$2 · $0.00
MaiolicaC. Drury E. Fortnum5h 54m$2 · $0.00
The Energy Core of Our PlanetElijah V. Reynolds5h 25m$4.10 · $0.00
Primer of Ohio Archaeology: The Mound Builders and the IndiansH. C. Shetrone56m$2 · $0.00
History of Linn County Iowa (Annotated)Luther Albertus Brewer, Barthinius L. Wick28h 29m$2 · $0.00
People of AfricaEdith A. How1h 21m$2 · $0.00
Notes on the Floridian Peninsula; Its Literary History, Indian Tribes and AntiquitiesDaniel G. Brinton6h 33m$2 · $0.00
Canadian Wild Flowers (Annotated)Catharine Parr Traill2h 39m$1.99 · $0.00