"[E]xtraordinary documentary reconsiders everything we thought we knew about the ancient maritime world." Andrew Lipman, Assoc. Prof, History, Barnard College, Columbia Univ

Covering decades of research ANCIENT SEA PEOPLES OF THE NORTH ATLANTIC is a culminating story of the gradual discovery of this ocean adapted Native American civilization and the recognition that their cultural remains can extend out onto the now submerged continental shelf of the Atlantic Coast. The program places this indigenous culture in a circumpolar context comparing their surprising sophistication with other ocean adapted peoples of the North Atlantic. The documented research with Native interpretation chronicles the slow but inexorable change in scientific thinking about culture, climate, and connection across the northern Circumpolar World that offers a new perspective on early Native American history.



Grade Level: 10-12, College, Adults
US Release Date: 2024     Copyright Date: 2024
DVD ISBN: 1-961192-30-6

Reviews "Ancient Sea Peoples is a revelation. Taking a literal deep dive into its subject, drawing on long-submerged evidence and the latest scholarship in sensitive ways, the film reveals how seafaring peoples transformed both Atlantic and Pacific shores thousands of years before the present. This extraordinary documentary reconsiders everything we thought we knew about the ancient maritime world." Andrew Lipman, Associate Professor of History, Barnard College, Columbia University, Author, The Saltwater Frontier: Indians and the Contest for the American Coast "In over four decades, cinematographer Ted Timreck has adventurously explored the Maritime Revolution that transformed Indigenous peoples and cultures ranging the northern Atlantic seaboard in the millennia since the last Ice Age. Made in close collaboration with Arctic archaeologist William Fitzhugh and his colleagues at the Smithsonian, this well-crafted documentary raises compelling questions about prehistoric navigation technology and ancient mysteries in symbolic and submerged landscapes that invite speculation and drive research." Dr. Harald E.L. Prins, University Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, Kansas State University "Scholars have often overlooked the maritime history of the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas. Ancient Sea Peoples of the North Atlantic addresses this omission by making a compelling case that Native Americans in eastern North America participated in the worldwide Maritime Revolution that occurred during the Ice Age, and that their participation contributed to the development of ocean adapted indigenous cultures thousands of years before the Columbian voyages." Christopher Arris Oakley, Professor of History, East Carolina University, Co-author, Native Carolinians: The Indians of North Carolina "A beautifully produced film that presents evidence from archaeology, architecture, ancient documents, and Indigenous oral histories linking Medieval and Celtic views of maritime geographic knowledge with a much more distant past. Interviews with prominent archaeologists discuss decades of coastal and underwater research, providing tantalizing and provocative ideas regarding a now-inundated continental shelf along eastern North America that may have been densely settled as long as 20,000 or more years ago. Ideally suited for university courses in world prehistory and North American archaeology as well as for advanced high school social science or history courses, this film will promote critical discussions into the nature of solid evidence for our understanding of the debates surrounding the peopling of the New World." Peter E. Siegel, Professor of Anthropology, Montclair State University, Co-author, The Archaeology of Native North America