Image: Illustration by Tyler Jacobsen
In Brief
- Archaeologists long thought the first Americans were the Clovis people, who were said to have reached the New World some 13,000 years ago from northern Asia.
- But fresh archaeological finds prove that humans reached the Americas thousands of years before that.
- These discoveries, along with insights from genetics and geology, have prompted reconsideration of where these pioneers came from, when they arrived and what route they took into the New World.
More In This Article
In the sweltering heat of an early July afternoon, Michael R. Waters clambers down into a shadowy pit where a small hive of excavators edge their trowels into an ancient floodplain. A murmur rises from the crew, and one of the diggers gives Waters, an archaeologist at the Center for the Study of the First Americans at Texas A&M University, a dirt-smeared fragment of blue-gray stone called chert. Waters turns it over in his hand, then scrutinizes it under a magnifying loupe. The find, scarcely larger than a thumbnail, is part of an all-purpose cutting tool, an ice age equivalent of a box cutter. Tossed away long ago on this grassy Texas creek bank, it is one among thousands of artifacts here that are pushing back the history of humans in the New World and shining rare light on the earliest Americans.
Waters, a tall, rumpled man in his mid-fifties with intense blue eyes and a slow, cautious way of talking, does not look or sound like a maverick. But his work is helping to topple an enduring model for the peopling of the New World. For decades scientists thought the first Americans were Asian big-game hunters who tracked mammoths and other large prey eastward across a now submerged landmass known as Beringia that joined northern Asia to Alaska. Arriving in the Americas some 13,000 years ago, these colonists were said to have journeyed rapidly overland along an ice-free corridor that stretched from the Yukon to southern Alberta, leaving behind their distinctive stone tools across what is now the contiguous U.S. Archaeologists called these hunters the Clovis people, after a site near Clovis, N.M., where many of their tools came to light.
This article was originally published with the title The First Americans.
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31 Comments
Add CommentTo reason with something one must first know the reason
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have trudged through the barren lands of Canada’s Arctic and have seen evidence that this land in times past was subject to salt water ocean, evidence of prehistoric inhabitants that would indicate a tropical environment.
You have a choice here, You can either believe that the Arctic was once hot (that damn global warming thing again) and believe the garbage of plate tectonics. Or you can consider my science in that the Earth moves around on its North South magnetic Axis changing its exposure to both Sun and Moon.
It is of GREAT IMPORTANCE to establish a constant monitoring system for Canada’s North Magnetic Pole Movements. — WOBBLING of the EARTH
cbc.ca bruce voigt
Thanks, Bruce, but I'd just as soon trust the trained experts who have been studying this systematically for decades.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYeah, yeah, I know ..... Copernicus and Galileo were right, so the experts can't be trusted ...... besides, the experts have a liberal agenda ..... everyone knows they are paid by the Communist Party ..... lol!
You're actually right about the Earth wobbling on its axis and parts of Canada having been tropical, but then "your science" starts babbling about how plate tectonics is "garbage science"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHave you ever read Gardner's essay on pseudoscience, Bruce? http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=hermits-and-cranks-lesson
I remember about having read that, before the last migration thru the Bering strait, that is in the origin of all native americans of today, an even earlier migratory wave is suspected, perhaps 20 thousand years old or more, as some older tools and other human activity produced remains, much older than 13 thousand years, were found in what is now Argentina. This early migration was supposedly annihilated, don't remember if by the current native americans arriving in the most recent traveller's wave, or by the europeans when they came to America, memories of killings of natives, in fights and outside battles are left, this can be consulted in the La Salle missionaries' records, for example.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell,... this is a great article, and except for jgrosay, the comments seem like they belong on a 'creationist' or 'non-scientific' forum.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe only thing missing from this article and from the new magazine cover that I can see is the fact that the man on the magazine cover should be African.
The scientists/writers who worked on this topic in this issue have not done their homework. It has been many years since the OLDEST human skull "Lucia" has been found in the Americas by Dr. Walter Neves lab out of Sao Paulo University. There were many skulls found - and all of them are confirmed to be definite African features. You can't get any better evidence than a physical, carbon dated skull! Scientists believe that these African looking peoples migrated directly from Africa or Australia. This also explains and correlates directly to the dozens of Olmec Heads with obvious African features. Here is a website that shows this evidence and links to scientific journal publications: http://2012.caliwali.com/lucia.htm
If Lewis and Clark could travel across America with only the help of a Native American woman, then these African Olmecs - far more experienced than Lewis and Clark in how to travel across wilderness - easily could have traveled up to Texas from central America.
The African Piri Reis map, used by Africans and Arabians long before 'Columbus' was born in Spain, also correlates with the Africans traveling to the Americas. History SO needs to be rewritten!
Do your homework Scientific American scientists!
peace,
Pahdri
Postulator: Surely, you're joking??....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis same basic headline and story pops up on about a 10 year cycle as new sites are discovered and reported to the media, typically before peer review. So far none of them, with the possible exception of Monte Verde, have stood the test of time and continued excavation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy am I reminded of the pseudo-scientific nonsense that claimed Africans gave civilization to the natives of the western hemisphere? The old Chariots of the Gods silliness? Nobody claims that ancient Europeans were too primitive or stupid to have built all those megaliths across Britain and France, but there are always people trying to make indigenous peoples from the west or other locations look incapable....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRA #2 sure supported the possibility the Americas were populated by peoples originating from what is now Iraq - didn't the Central American civilizations have folklore concerning "white" men arriving by sea?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo, does evolutionary science consider it impossible that modern human could have evolved independently on different continents? I would think it at least as likely as not, but don't remember ever seeing such a hypothesis presented.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisScientific research on the topic of prehistoric immigration to the Americas goes back at least as far as Thor Heyerdahl. Personally, I find all of the research compelling, but what I find frustrating is that so many researchers and authors seem to ignore the work of scientists and editors who came before them.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe subject of pre-historic immigration to the Americas has been looked at from the point of view of DNA analysis, tool-design, carbon-dating of artifacts and language construction. As much as practical of the peer-reviewed research on this subject needs to be used in articles designed for the mass-market, if the article is to be responsible, and not just the latest research that an editor decides to write an article about.
If there is evidence that supports the assertion that the arctic had a tropical environment within the last few hundred thousand years, then I, for one, would welcome the opportunity to inspect that evidence.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf there are two absolute constants in the history of archeology they are these: old theories will be challenged and eventually replaced by new theories and most archeologists will resist new theories with biting criticism until proven wrong. Then the cycle will repeat, again and again.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat idea was entertained in the early days of American archaeology, but was never supported by any evidence. Archaeological, physical, and genetic information all support that the Americas were colonized by biologically and technologically modern humans less than 18,000 years ago (the time of the last glacial maximum).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFifty years ago when I was sitting in a Freshman English class which was taugth by a short stocky dark haired Air Force Officer for the semester, he handed me a red covered inch and a half thick book called, "The First Americans". He said, you are one of us so you will be interested. Please read it quickly and return it to me. I did, and am glad that I did because it said that we came here 30,000 years ago or more. I never learned his tribe but my grandfather was Cherokee. How he knew my heritage is beyond me as I looked very white. Green eyed and dirty blonde hair. My mother had only begun to age so her Indian background was not so noticable. But as time went on I learned to see my extended relatives in many faces. Not only were we here before you whites thought we were but we are hidden in plain sight. Treat the land better and do not forget that now it is surmised that when the epidemics of disease ravished the Native Population, the farmlands and grazing lands regrew forests which gobbled up carbon dioxide and helped bring on the Little Ice Age. Revenge is Mine, says your God.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFifty years ago when I was sitting in a Freshman English class which was taugth by a short stocky dark haired Air Force Officer for the semester, he handed me a red covered inch and a half thick book called, "The First Americans". He said, you are one of us so you will be interested. Please read it quickly and return it to me. I did, and am glad that I did because it said that we came here 30,000 years ago or more. I never learned his tribe but my grandfather was Cherokee. How he knew my heritage is beyond me as I looked very white. Green eyed and dirty blonde hair. My mother had only begun to age so her Indian background was not so noticable. But as time went on I learned to see my extended relatives in many faces. Not only were we here before you whites thought we were but we are hidden in plain sight. Treat the land better and do not forget that now it is surmised that when the epidemics of disease ravished the Native Population, the farmlands and grazing lands regrew forests which gobbled up carbon dioxide and helped bring on the Little Ice Age. Revenge is Mine, says your God.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you look (of course very few folks do) at the Olmec paintings that have very dark African looking people with dreadlocks, there are also a few paintings of white folks with red beards. Obviously, the Olmecs were not racist and brought some white folks with them to the Americas. This suggests that they were an integrated society with different races. The Olmec heads are clearly African, but it is so funny when White people or South American people look at these heads (http://2012.caliwali.com/theolmecs.htm) and say "Oh, well that is a Native American person, yeah,... Native American people look like that." Hilarious!,... Native American people NEVER looked like these Olmec Heads: http://2012.caliwali.com/images/olmecheaduse.jpg. So commentors like 'thevillagegeek' above - are basically just admitting that they're blind as a bat.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this;)
peace,
Pahdri
The article ends: "These early Americans deserve our admiration . . . 'they exemplify the spirit of survival and adventure that represents the very best of humanity.'" Lest anyone forget, the descendants of "the very best of humanity" are part of the population of the Americas today. Sadly, many live in impoverished conditions with opportunities limited.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe article clearly states and I quote,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this“In more than a dozen studies geneticists examined modern and ancient DNA samples from Native Americans, looking for telltale genetic mutations or markers that define major human lineages known as haplogroups. They found that native peoples in the Americas stemmed from four major founding maternal haplogroups, A, B, C and D and two major founding paternal haplogroups C and Q. To find the probable source of these haplogroups, the teams then searched for human populations in the Old World whose genetic diversity encompassed all the lineages. Only the modern inhabitants of southern Siberia, from the Altai '. Mountains in the west to the Amur River in the east, matches genetic profile,
a finding that strongly indicates that the ancestors of the first Americans came from an East Asian homeland.”
Where do some of you get the wild and incorrect things you are saying? Are you so anglocentric and racist that you just cannot accept that the first people were NOT white?
In order to keep some people from jumping to incorrect conclusions the author and others need to avoid using paleo-American and use the better known and accepted paleo-Indian. As the term paleo-American has become popular in the last few years with some “experts” in the field who are trying to confuse the facts by inferring that the first people were not related to modern Indians. Which only encourages people like some on this comment board to continue their nonsensical blather.
The article clearly states and I quote,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this“In more than a dozen studies geneticists examined modern and ancient DNA samples from Native Americans, looking for tell tale genetic mutations or markers that define major human lineages known as haplogroups. They found that native peoples in the Americas stemmed from four major founding maternal haplogroups, A, B, C and D and two major founding paternal haplogroups C and Q. To find the probable source of these haplogroups, the teams then searched for human populations in the Old World whose genetic diversity encompassed all the lineages. Only the modern inhabitants of southern Siberia, from the Altai Mountains in the west to the Amur River in the east, matches genetic profile, a finding that strongly indicates that the ancestors of the first Americans came from an East Asian homeland.”
So where are some of you getting the wild and incorrect things you are saying? Are you so anglocentric and racist that you just cannot accept that the first people were NOT white?
In order to keep from confusing some people the author and others need to avoid using paleo-American and stick with paleo-Indian. As the term paleo-American has become popular in the last few years with some “experts” in the field who are trying to confuse the facts by inferring that the first people were not related to modern Indians. Which only encourages people like some on this comment board to continue their nonsensical blather.
What was it that impelled the early arrivals in North America, whether by the coastal or inland route,to constantly go further and further south even when that involved going through the fever ridden tropical forests of Central America, the waterless Atacama desert, and thus ending up in the unfriendly and barren Tierra del Fuego? It surely cannot be because of pressure by those behind them, or lack of resources where they were. Could it just have been curiosity or was it that well known human desire to get away from anyone else. The numbers were small and they presumably moved in 'tribal' groups of 100 to 150. There must surely have been sufficient space and resources in North America to last hunter gatherers for thousands of years. And of course the same impulses had driven the first humans to Australia up to 45000 years ago. Smokytodd
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne missing point is that these migrants would not have headed out blindly. Certainly, they would have sent out scouts. Although the groups may have traveled at a "kilometer or so a year" and "could travel as far as 27 kilometers a day". The scouts, which would be the best survivalists and expert hunters and gatherers, could have traveled much faster and further, and returned to the group to report good routes and bring back some of the "abundance" from the lands ahead.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSince the a man can walk the length of the Americas in about 6-years ["George Meegan (b. ca. 1952) is a British long-distance walker best known for his unbroken walk of the entire Western Hemisphere from the southern tip of South America to the northernmost part of Alaska, 19,019 miles (30,608 km) in 2,425 days (1977-1983)" - Wikipedia], a man could have walked the from Central Siberia to the southern tip of South America in about 10-years (Even if this is an optimistic number, an individual could have done it in a lifetime.).
And...It wouldn't be surprising if one scout, or a small group of scouts walked back to their home village, in Siberia, and told tales that inspired more migrants to come to this abundant land.
I agree with that but my point is this, why - being so few - did they in that vast land feel the need to go further when what was ahead was a great deal worse than where they already were?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe drop in ocean depths by hundreds of feet allowed wanderers to explore our planet. Why be shocked by either new discoveries or reanalysis of old data? I think this was a legitimate attempt to add a new perspective to an ancient story. Thank you Heather Pringle and SA for helping us unravel data to add another chapter in the history of the indomitable homo sapiens.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPolitics drive science and it is pathetic. The American Indians were not the first persons in the Americas. They in fact committed genocide on the earlier peoples it would seem. Evidence pretty much shows that they are at the very least the third wave of immigrants to the new world. The first have been dated to 60,000 years ago at the Serra Da Capivara site in Brazil. That includes skulls and carbon dating of campfires. There are remnant populations of people known as the "Negritos" which still exist in the Philippines and other remote areas of the Pacific. They are black pygmies of Asiatic orgin. The are about 4.5 feet tall and have very African features. I lived with a tribe of them on the Subic Bay Naval reservation for a short while. They were the first inhabitants of the entire Pacific, New Guinea, SE Asia, and in fact genetic studies show that East Indians are derived a mixing of Negritos and Aryan stocks. These negritos were probably the one of the first modern humans to spread about in Asia. They are related to the Australian Aborigines. In any case the Malayan derived people who today dominate the Pacific wiped most of them out. Similarly the same happened in the Americas. Please, read before you publish. This is a very poorly researched article by persons incapable of connecting the dots of information that is commonly available and as well documented as anything in the article. Furthermore it is my opinion that nobody wants to challenge the Native American claims about being the first Americans who have been uniquely persecuted by the Europeans when in fact they were not first and completely murdered the groups who lived here previously. The shame of Kennewick Man, probably a Ainu person related the aboriginal population of Japan, being stolen for political reasons by Native Americans and buried as one of their supposed ancestors, when he was more like a victim of their ancestors is a bit much. Lets follow the leads and stop this nonsense. Connect the dots.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUm, these were the first Americans: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negrito
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThey are being wiped out via interbreeding and habitat destruction. If any of ya want to get famous. Connect the dots and publish a real story based on the facts.
Amigo, they are not African, they are Negrito. Asian Pygmies who look like Africans and who settled most of Asia first. Otherwise you are correct.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI haven't read Scientific American since the early 80's and it has certainly been dumbed down.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe belief of our "crossing" is only a theory, hypothesis, a GUESS! Scientists were not there, nor do I believe they are right about a lot of things. Humans as a specie learns from trial and error. They are also speculating that humans evolved from apes. This I find amusing for the simple fact that there are still apes here on earth, why didn't they evolve? Migration is a fact amongst all people as a species. All humans migrated to find food or to escape violence. The same way we still migrate to find work or to escape violence.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow do scientists know for a fact that there was a land bridge? How do they know native people migrated from asia? Because we have similar skeletal structures? Stop guessing at something you know nothing about. This is just a tactic to further degrade Native people as a whole. Just because you feel guilty, don't put them down to make yourselves feel better about what you did. All you're doing is making yourselves look like fools trying to prove something you didn't see. Besides if all this is theory, why is it taught in school as if it were fact. Schools should make sure that students realize that what they are being taught is only a guess, a theory, or a hypothesis. Not an absolute fact. History needs to be abolished from schools if it exists before a hundred years ago. None of it is right, and its only in theory. It also seems that it doesn't matter what is written... humans are not exactly the most truthful species. We have a tendency to lie and 'fudge' the truth to our own needs and desires.
To look at humans and study their behaviour. We aren't much different than we were 10,000 years ago, we still have to look for ways to get food, escape war and violence, and a suitable place to live. We have just evolved in ways that we made it easier for ourselves. Migration is a human fact. All of our ancestors did it, no matter the race. Carbon dating does not guarantee fact either. Most of what we know (like i said earlier) is trial and error.
Example: If your father drove from New York City to Buffalo... unless he told you which way he went do you know how he got there? You can determine the mode of transportaion, possible routes, and guess from there right? Imagine no roads, and a possible bridge that used to exist... just because you dug something up doesn't make it true. It could have been a tribe that used to live there that became extict. Develope better theories.
I think there are still in our days native americans out there. Fred <a href="http://www.junowebdesign.com/magento">Magento</a>
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWorld-wide evidence suggests that humans first began mastery of the sea around 50,000 years ago. This is shown by evidence in Australia and elsewhere (places where there is NO land/ice bridge). Also, evidence shows that just about every race of humans developed this ability. There have been found Chinese writings and even Hebrew writings in caves in North America dating thousands of years ago (most probably less than 10,000 years ago but certainly long before Columbus). I postulate that humans spread around A LOT more than we think and A LOT earlier then we think. I think it is possible that Caucasians, Asians and Africans all "visited" the North/South American continent 30000-50000 years ago.
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