Coastal Migration of the Clovis People to the Americas

The first Americans came from Asia, beginning as early as thirty thousand years ago, over a land bridge that formed at the Bering Strait during the Ice Age. The new immigrants were hunters and gatherers, and over a period of fifteen thousand years various groups spread over the American continents. By the time of the European “discovery” of the New World, there were perhaps as many as 100 million native Americans, the vast majority living in Central and South America.

In what years did the primary waves of migration from this place, come to America?

Anthropological theories concerning the peopling of North America is a topic that is widely debated. By far, Western scientists seem to agree that: “As a result of the vast amount of water that was locked up in glacial ice toward the end of the Pleistocene era, there was a worldwide drop in sea level of as much as 400 feet” (Sutton 19), creating a land link, known as the Beringia, between Asia and Alaska. Starting from this point about the land link, we find that Elias’s article “First Americans Lived on Bering Land Bridge for Thousands of Years,” is the most agreeable theory about the peopling of North America.

How the first Native people arrived has always been shrouded with mystery, yet there have been theorists to suggest they came in one way or another. “Heavily glaciated during the Pleistocene epoch (Ice Age), the early prehistory of Canada mirrors the withdrawal of the Ice” (Lightfoot 2009: 249). The Laurentide sheet and the smaller Cordilleran ice sheet had created floors of the Chukchi and the Bering Sea, creating a bridge between Asia and Alaska. This bridge has been presumed to be the route in which our long ago ancestors first entered the New World. It was then though Beringa, humans then begun to create settlements all over

During the 1400’s, a physical connection was made between Europe and the Native Americans by Christopher Columbus. Today, he is looked upon as a hero for discovering the land that the United States of America currently occupies. Beneath the glorified image of Columbus, there lies something much darker that people often overlook. Although Columbus began the migration of Europeans to America, he did not discover it first. In addition, the new formed connection between the Europeans and the Americas paved way for the genocide of many of the indigenous people.

It has been thought for many years that the Americas were a vastly unpopulated land until Columbus came. However new evidence disputes this previously thought notion. Archeologist, who have been studying the remains of Native American culture, have found evidence suggesting that the Indians were in the Americas for much longer and in greater numbers than what was believed. This new evidence shows us the impact the Europeans had on the New World and gives us insight into what the Americas were like before the Europeans and what they may have been had the Europeans never settled here.

1st movement of people into the Americas: from Asia who went over the Bering Strait (see terms) by land during the Ice Age

Chapter Nine goes into detail about the late Paleoindian Period the growth of agriculture in North and South America. Clovis points appeared all over the Americas attesting to a continent-wide networking. However, as time pasted distinctive points and tools began to pop up based on region and the needs it provided for. In fact, a common theme of this chapter was the Native Americans ability to exploit their resources and maximize their intake of food sources.

The first settlers in the Americas were not all Europeans and Africans. Many settlers spoke a variety of different languages and lived in numerous different kinds of societies. In most cases many were descendants of bands of hunters and fishers who had also crossed the Bering Strait thru a land bridge at various times between 15,000- 60,000 years ago. Others might have arrived by sea from Asia, and the Pacific Islands. However, history in North and South America did not start with the approaching of the Europeans.

One often wonders where the Native North Americans originated from. Some theories have been discussed about the peopling of the Americas. Early theories involving lost tribes and continents were based purely on speculation instead of actual scientific facts. Discoveries made during many archeological expeditions have helped shape the always changing interpretations by adding more questions and more theories. There have been genetic and linguistic studies which raised more understanding and brought new questions.

Indians arrived in America some 30,000 to 40,000 years ago. Archeological findings and Radiocarbon testing suggested that the prehistoric people who populated the Americas were hunters following the herds of wooly mammoths. They walked from Siberia across a land bridge into Alaska. They headed south toward warmer climates, slaughtering the mammoths as they went. As the glaciers melted, the oceans rose and covered this land bridge, creating the present-day Bering Strait and separating Alaska from Russia. By the time Christopher Columbus arrived, they were millions of what might be called First Americans or Amerindians occupying the two continents of Americas. The first noted documentation of the Beringia theory of the peopling of North America was by Jose de

The authors perspective of dexterity helps the reader understand the migration. In the text “ Following the Food” it states, “ Archeologists have concluded that the first Americans were skilled toolmakers, used fire, hunted large game such as mammoths, and moved about in pursuit of their prey.” Their ability to hunt animals such as mammoths shows that they are dexterous because of how challenging it would have been to hunt them. The same text

Archaeology provides clues to the past when no written record existed, making the field the only way to expand the existing knowledge of the Clovis and pre-Clovis cultures. In South America, there is an abundance of archaeological sites dating to both Clovis and pre-Clovis times, but in North America, specifically on the East coast, there are only a handful of excavated sites. In reference to pre-Clovis, this statement is especially true, with varied sites that have not been fully excavated or are not convincing enough to be considered hard hitting evidence in favor of their existence. These sites are the basis for the debate over who came first and if pre-Clovis really existed or not, making the analysis of excavations a key factor to understanding

In modern America, we often take for granted the natural world that surrounds us and the American culture which is built upon it. For many of us, we give little thought to the food sources that sustain and natural habitats that surround us because when viewed for what they are, most people assume that they have “simply existed” since the country was founded. However, the documentary ‘America Before Columbus’ provided this writer an extremely interesting record of how the America we know came to exist. In the documentary, one of the most interesting discussions centered on the fact that it was not merely the arrival of conquistadors and colonists that irrevocably changed the landscape of the Americas, but that it was also the coined term known as the “Columbian Exchange” that afforded these travelers the ability to proliferate so successfully. The basic definition of the Columbian exchange is one that defines the importation of European flora and fauna. It could also loosely represent other imports, both intended and unintended, such as tools, implements, and even disease. Armed with this definition, it takes little imagination to envision how differently the Americas might have developed had any significant amount of the native European flora, fauna, or other unintended import not been conveyed to the Americas through the Columbian Exchange. Beyond the arrival of explorers, settlers, and colonists to the New World, the breadth of what the Columbian Exchange represented to

In the first part of this article it explains how dogma has trumped science. Through the couse of this first section it explains the idea of the Bering Strait theory. This is a highly controversal theory that states that Paleoindians walked from Asia over an anciant land bridge about 15,000 years ago. To many people this theory is rock solid but to some it is an insult. There are some breaks in the theory, one being that there is a gap in time that is unaccounted for. Some say that they settled into the land bridge then once again moved, but this is not for certian. There was even a term coined for die-hard archaeologists who insist upon Clovis as representing the earliest culture of North America. They were called the "Clovis Police". The