Research paper

“Migration of tribal groups from Asia – America during the Ice Age”

Much has been said about how the first humans reached the

Americas and there are several hypotheses that try to explain this

fact, however, scientists agree on the same idea, the first humans to

arrive in the New World moved from Asia to the Americas through the

Bering Strait during the last Ice Age of the Pleistocene, which took

place approximately between 110,000 to 10,000 years before the

present time or BP.

Some theories state that humans might have travelled by boat

those 55 miles that separate the two continents, as there´s evidence

that others reached Australia about 40,000 years ago, still the

strongest theory assumes that they did it by land, migrating along a

pack of ice called Beringia, which connected Siberia to the north west

of Canada working as a bridge for the migrating humans.

Even though modern humans crossed the Beringia, it is said it

took them thousands of years until they reached the north of the

Americas and finally entered the New World and these certainties are

proved by genetic archaeologists that state: “There is much genetic

diversity in the first population than was previously thought in

comparison to the humans in Asia.” For according to genetic

archaeologists humans endured the extremely cold weather in the

Beringia area for a long period. According to Ripan Malhi, a geneticist

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in the department of anthropology at the University of Illinois: “The

ancestors of Native Americans who first left Siberia perhaps as much

as 30,000 years ago, came to a standstill on Beringia, a landmass

that extended from Northeastern Siberia to Western Alaska, and they

were isolated long enough –as much as 15,000- to maturate and

differentiate themselves genetically from their Asian brothers.”

Why did the homo sapiens migrate to the north crossing the

landmass that joined the continents? The answer is: because they

were following their sustenance, since it is well proved that by that

time the modern human in Asia and Siberia was a skillful hunter, who

chased several animals like mammoths, mastodons, bisons and deer,

which began to migrate to the New World and consequently, led the

first Natives of America to new lands unknown to them. However,

these hunters were so fierce that they butchered almost all the

animals on the area and soon had to move looking for more

mammals following the herds, therefore, little by little they entered

the Americas peopling the northwest of the Canadian area known as

Yukon, where great findings were made in Old Crow Basin such as it

is stated in the National Geographic Magazine (September 1979):

“And here we emerge from the realm of speculation into

archaeological acceptance - the earliest widely acknowledged

occupation site in the New World, carbon dated to at least 27,000

years ago.”. A prominent discovery on this area is a fossil bone from

a caribou, carbon dated to be 27,000 years old and used as a tool to

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remove flesh and/or hides from animals, which shows a clear

evidence of human manufacture

During this time, Canada and the northern part of United States

were almost completely covered with ice, nevertheless, there is a

hypothesis which states that about 25,000 to 10,000 BP there were

two huge ice sheets called the Laurentiade in the east and the

Cordilleran in the west, which had a passage in between called the

“Ice free Corridor”, this extent was free of ice and early humans could

follow herds along this corridor to Central North America and

subsequently, to Central America and South America.

Some archaeologists believe that the true discoverers of the

New World and first inhabitants of the Americas were the “Clovis

people”, who migrated through Beringia going down along the Ice

Free Corridor and settling near a town called Clovis, in New Mexico,

where different types of evidence, including a mammoth fossil

skeleton with a spear-point in its ribs, were found. However, not all

archaeologists accept this version, for there are some who claim that

there have been earlier inhabitants called “Pre Clovis” in other areas

such as Dutton and Selby, but there is still no solid evidence to

support this new argument.

The Clovis People, who belonged to the early Paleo-Indian Era

(approximately 12,000 years BP) used the animals’ hides to make

their clothes, which they tailored with precision, for protection against

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the inclement weather. They were also hunters and foragers, they

hunted animals like mammoth, bison, horse and camel and they did it

using a highly mobile hunting strategy and fluted spear points as

weapons which they made and were found much later on the

discovery area mentioned before. These samples of spear points

show how developed the Clovis people were, being considered by the

Wiscosin Historical Society members as ingenious, when they state:

“The Early Paleo-Indian tradition is characterized by the distinct

production of fluted projectile points, which possess a longitudinal

groove, or flute on one or both faces. Fluted points are an example of

the incredible ingenuity and resourcefulness of the early peoples that

inhabited North America”

All things considered, I strongly believe in the theory developed

before, since they rely on findings made by professionals. It is a fact

that human beings are deeply involved in knowing more about their

past as if this reassured their existence and showed them their

purpose in life, which would be fundamentally “surviving”, that is why

thanks to uncounted researchers we are able to know more about our

ancestors and it is my belief that the early Natives of the Americas

have survived throughout history, unintentionally peopling the New

World. They are then, a sample of the faculty and potential our

species has and quite deserving, the owners of the title of the most

developed species in the world.

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Sources

http://www.geneticarchaeology.com/research/researchers posit new ideas.

National Geographic Magazine, September 1979, pages 330 – 363.

http://yukon.taiga.net/vuntutrda/archaeol/pleis.htm

http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/museum/artifacts

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/08071193203.htm