Review : Cultural deaths

Patagonia: Natural History, Prehistory and Ethnography at the Uttermost End
of the Earth by Colin McEwan and others is exactly that—essays,
fascinating archive photographs and Victorian accounts of encounters with
“savages”, including notes from the 23-year-old Darwin. It tells the sad story
of the destruction of ancient cultures in one of the last corners of the New
World to be colonised. An update allowing that humans arrived in South America
more than 10 000 years ago is already needed. Published by the British Museum
Press Princeton, £14.99/$24.95, ISBN 0714125350.