Stories and histories of individuals, families, and groups in a specific region of early contact provide that deep sense of place for a truly American future.

William A. Haviland studied anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, where he received his PhD in 1963. He is now professor emeritus at the University of Vermont, where he founded the department of anthropology. Previously he taught at Hunter and then Barnard College in New York City. He has done archaeological work in Belize, Guatemala, South Dakota, and Vermont. He studied the bones of kings and commoners at the ancient Maya city of Tikal and carried out ethnographic and ethnohistorical research in Maine and Vermont. His one hundred or so publications include fourteen books, among these five textbooks, one on Vermont Indians (coauthored with Marjorie Power), one on Maine Indians, and four monographs on work done at Tikal, Guatemala. Haviland and his wife, Anita, live on Deer Isle, where he serves on the boards of the Deer Isle-Stonington Historical Society and the Abbe Museum in Bar Harbor.