The Archeological Society of Virginia and the Council of Virginia Archaeologists recently completed a years-long effort to produce “The Archaeology of Virginia’s First Peoples,” a book about Virginia’s pre-European contact past. This was published with partial funding from the state’s Department of Historic Resources.

Edited by Elizabeth Moore, DHR’s state archaeologist, and Bernard K. Means, professor of anthropology at Virginia Commonwealth University, the book surveys a timespan that stretches back more than 15,000 years, as evidenced by the Cactus Hill Archaeological Site in Sussex County and numerous other sites throughout Virginia, a release said.

The Archeology Society independently published “The Archaeology of Virginia’s First Peoples” through Amazon’s print-on-demand publishing program.

Featuring more than 100 photos, maps, tables, and illustrations, “The Archaeology of Virginia’s First Peoples” costs $40 and may be purchased through Amazon. The organizations will use proceeds from sales of the book to fund future publishing projects, the release said.

The editors and six other contributing archaeologists to the volume range chronologically across the major temporal-cultural divisions that scholars use to discuss American Indians in Virginia and the extended Mid-Atlantic region during the pre-contact past. The authors enlist the findings of recent archaeology, new technologies, and evolving research to discuss and question current ideas about Virginia’s First Peoples during the Paleoindian through the Early Archaic, Archaic and Early and Late Woodland periods.