Although interested in the subject, I didn’t rush into read- ing The First Americans by Heather Pringle (Scientific American, Nov. 2011). The reason is I’m suspicious about any article with a lot of quotation marks - it’s a cheap way of presenting something you do not understand yourself. I am not interested in who said what but what is article’s author opinion about that. And presenting science subject with your own words is, in particular, important in popular science writings. Heather’s article is heavily loaded with quotation marks.

However, this time my curiosity prevailed and I read the article. Surprise, surprise! Quotation marks are just the tip of an iceberg. Not only scientists’ statements are quoted, the same goes for their appearance.

Says Heather about Michael R. Waters, an archaeologist from Texas A&M University: "...a tall, rumpled man in his mid-fifties with intense blue eyes and slow, cautious way of talking". Thank you Heather, really. It never crossed my mind, I have to admit, how important is the color of eyes for a scientist, an archaeologist especially. Just imagine what would we know about first Americans if Water’s eyes were brown or, God forbid, green.

Down the line, says Heather about Jon M. Erlandson, an archaeologist at the University of Oregon: "Reed-thin, tousled and in his mid-fifties ..." Hmm, mid-fifties must be good age either for archaeology or the interviews on archaeology.