Here is an interesting article discussing how stresses from weather and climate change may have forced we humans to adapt, become smarter, and more resilient. Makes sense to me.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/human-evolution-ingenuity-top-science-stories-2018-yir
I have been going to retirement villages out on the Olympic Peninsula and within a day’s drive of Tacoma to read from Strong Heart and Adrift, or once to discuss the research I did before writing the tales. Without fail, I get more out of these events than the audience, because after the reading and questions and book sales and signings I get to hear their stories, and some of those stories are astounding. I am surprised, though I should not be, at how many in the audience have Native American ancestors, how many are fourth or fifth generation descendants of the first pioneers, how many are writers themselves, and especially how many have ornery and complex daughters, cousins, nieces, or grandchildren so like Sarah Cooley, the main protagonist in my tales. I don’t know where Sarah came from, she just appeared when I started the book, but she seems real to me. Is real. Apparently so with audience members, too.
Many of my listeners cannot hear very well, so I talk loudly or use a microphone, and many others ask about an audio version, as they cannot see that well for reading. I am in the process of producing an audio version of Strong Heart with a company which will produce both MP3 files for phones and pads and CDs as well. If this works I hope to to the same with Adrift, using the same great narrator, Laurel Anne White, and when my third book appears, probably next September, tentatively titled Found, that one, too. It’s fun to go to these places, knowing these tales will be in the hands of children and grandchildren (after being read first, of course) in time for the holiday season.
I also have prepared this talk, about 20 minutes long, describing all the research that went into Strong Heart – human origins, human migrations, glacial epochs, DNA evidence, fossil evidence, sea level changes, climate shifts, where the ice was and where not, glacial refuges, how people may have traveled ages ago, when they may have first reached the Americas, and whether the ancient legends among First Peoples that they have always been here might be true. The discussion after such a talk with these groups of elders, some of great age, experience, and knowledge, is fascinating.
Check this out – these people stood straighter than we modern humans, and had bigger lungs….every new discovery finds them more “modern,” closer to us culturally, and physically superior (?)….
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2018/10/30/neanderthals-upright-individuals-skeleton-proves/
In my tales Strong Heart and Adrift I offer that the ancient legends of First Peoples might be true – that they have always been here, always, since humans first became “modern” ages ago, despite the ice. Check out this article in Digital Journal:
Here is an article about a structure in New Zealand which may upend much theory about New Zealand’s settlement and human origins in general….
This article from Hakai Magazine talks about ancient footprints found around the world, including (at the end of the article) a site in British Columbia along the coast.
Spent a week at the Toklat Cabin at Mile 53 inside Denali National Park to complete, edit, and finalize Found, book # 3 in a series about the Olympic Peninsula and North Pacific Coast, which started with Strong Heart in 2017 and will see Adrift in September 2018 (copies now sent to reviewers!). The cabin, used by the Toklat Ranger in the summer (the park road is closed 30 miles away until later this month) and by Denali dog sled teams in the hard winter, is 14 by 16 feet, one room, simple, quiet, and perfect for working on tales. 
Spectacular country.
Two articles here, demonstrating that we think we now so much more than perhaps we do. The first discusses the recent discovery of a second type of DNA, just found, quite different from the “standard” DNA first found in the middle of the 20th Century. The second article discusses how an entirely new organ has been found in our body – this after how many centuries of robbing graves and dissecting cadavers?
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/04/23/the-moral-mask/
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/03/interstitium-fluid-cells-organ-found-cancer-spd/
