Spinster Mary Anning, uneducated and poor, was of the wrong sex, wrong class and wrong religion, but fate decreed that she was exactly the right person in the right place and time to pioneer the emerging science of palaeontology, the study of fossils. Born in Lyme Regis in 1799, Mary learned to collect fossils with her cabinet-maker father. The unstable cliffs and stealthy sea made the task dangerous but after her father died the sale of fossils sustained her family. Mary's fame started as an infant when she survived a lightning strike that killed the three adults around her. Then, aged twelve, she caught the public's attention when she unearthed the skeleton of a 'fish lizard' or Ichthyosaurus. She later found the first Plesiosaurus giganteus, with its extraordinary long neck associated with the Loch Ness monster, and, dramatically, she unearthed the first, still rare, Dimorphodon macronyx, a frightening 'flying dragon' with hand claws and teeth. Yet her many discoveries were announced to the world by male geologists like the irrepressible William Buckland and Sir Henry De La Beche and they often received the credit. In Jurassic Mary Patricia Pierce redresses this imbalance, bringing to life the extraordinary, little-known story of this determined and pioneering woman.

Voices of a Thousand People is the story of one Native community's efforts to found their own museum and empower themselves to represent their ancient traditional lifeways, their historic experiences with colonialism, and their contemporary efforts to preserve their heritage for generations to come. This ethnography richly portrays how a community embraced the archaeological discovery of Ozette village in 1970 and founded the Makah Cultural and Research Center (MCRC) in 1979. Oral testimonies, participant observation, and archival research weave a vivid portrait of a cultural center that embodies the self-image of a Native American community in tension with the identity assigned to it by others. Patricia Pierce Erikson is an independent scholar who has taught cultural anthropology at Smith College, the University of Washington, and the University of Southern Maine. Helma Ward (1918-2002) was a Makah elder who served twenty-two years as a Makah language specialist for the MCRC. Kirk Wachendorf is an interpretive specialist at the MCRC who draws upon his experiences as a Makah tribal member and his previous archaeological work to provide public programming. Janine Bowechop is the MCRC's executive director.