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Article Title: Earliest humans in the Americas
Article ID: YB100003
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2nd Classification Number: 720000
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Earliest humans in the Americas 1

1
2 Earliest humans in the Americas
3 The Americas were the last continents (except
4 for Antarctica) colonized by Homo sapiens (that
5 is, anatomically modern humans) and they repre-
6 sented the “end of the road” or final stage of the
7 global expansion process that started in sub-Saharan
8 Africa around 100,000 years ago. Although some re-
9 searchers in the past postulated that the origin of
10 humankind was in South America, currently all of
11 the available data support the model that humans
12 migrated to the American continents as Homo sapi-
13 ens at the end of the Pleistocene (an epoch span-
14 ning about 1.8 million to 10,000 years ago and com-
15 monly characterized as when the earth entered its
16 most recent phase of widespread glaciation). This
17 means that no ancestors of Homo sapiens ever oc-
18 cupied or evolved in the Americas. Although this
19 has been a highly contested debate, it seems that
20 Neandertals lived in the Old World until roughly
21 30,000 years ago (when they became extinct), co-
22 existing with the ancestors of modern humans who
23 had expanded throughout the Old World from Africa
24 between 100,000 and 60,000 years ago. The descen-
25 dants of these modern humans then entered the
26 Americas sometime at the very end of the Pleis-
27 tocene.
28 Routes into the Americas. Given the strong evi-
29 dence (for example, genetic and morphometric data)
30 linking the indigenous people of the Americas with
31 Asiatic ancestors, the main entrance route seems to
32 be across the Bering Strait and neighboring areas
33 (named Beringia), when the whole region emerged
34 as a land bridge as a consequence of a drop in
35 sea level during the Late Pleistocene [ca. 27,000–
36 11,000 carbon-14 years before the present (14C yr
37 BP)]. [Note that all radiocarbon dates (expressed as
38 14
C yrs BP) are not calibrated here, meaning that they
39 do not match exactly with the calendar years; for
40 example, at around 12,000 14C years BP, the calen-
41 dar years are 2000 years older (around 14,000 yrs
42 BP).] Once in Alaska, there were two possible routes:
43 crossing a narrow ice-free corridor that was open
44 between the Laurentide and Cordilleran ice sheets
45 (the vast North American glaciers, which covered
46 much of the Northwest Territories and the rest of
47 Canada) at ca. 11,500 14C yr BP or following a coastal
48 route along the Pacific coast of North America (see
49 illustration). However, the earliest archeological
50 sites in Alaska, such as Swan Point and Broken Mam-
51 moth (both dated at around 11,700 14C yr BP), are
52 slightly younger than the earliest sites found in the
53 rest of the continent. These data thus raise a problem
54 that is still unresolved and would favor the coastal
55 route.
56 An alternative model has been proposed, stating
57 that some of the early Americans descended from
58 Late Paleolithic people from the north coast of Spain
59 (the “Solutrean,” ca. 22,000–16,500 14C yr BP), who
60 may have followed the edge of the ice sheet that
61 covered the North Atlantic during the last Ice Age
62 (see illustration). However, this provocative model
63 is still speculative.
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2 Earliest humans in the Americas

64
65
66
67 Swan Point
68 Broken Mammoth
Ice-free corridor rou
69 te
70
71 At
al route
Coast

la
72

n
tic
73

rou
74 Paisley Caves

te
75 Blackwater Draw
76
77
Page/Ladson
78
79
80
81
Pubenza
82 Pedra Pintada
83
84
Santa Elina
85
86
Qda. Sta. Julia
87
88 Arroyo Seco 2
89 Monte Verde
90
Co. Tres Tetas
91
Limit of the ice at ca. 14,000 14C years BP Piedra Museo
92
93 Archeological sites
94
95 Map showing the main possible routes of entry into the Americas and the main archeological sites mentioned in the text.
96
97 Evidence. Until recent decades, the main evidence
98 for the early peopling of the Americas had come from
99 remains at archeological sites, principally stone tools
100 (mostly the distinctive “fluted points”) associated
101 with the bones of extinct animals (bison, mammoth,
102 camelids, ground sloth, giant ground sloth, American
103 horses, and so on) and eventually with charcoal from
104 hearths. However, in the past 30 years, morphometri-
105 cal studies of human skeletons, mainly the skull, have
106 provided new tools for approaching the peopling of
107 the Americas. More recently, genetic studies on the
108 DNA sequences of indigenous populations as well as
109 from ancient bones have enhanced our understand-
110 ing of the process of human expansion from the Old
111 World to the Americas. Current models of the early
112 peopling of the Americas are combining these three
113 lines of evidence, although giving varied degrees of
114 importance to each of them.
115 The baseline for the peopling of the Americas is
116 given by what is called the “Clovis culture,” a well-
117 established population of hunter-gatherers that in-
118 habited the Great Plains of North America. Clovis
119 populations exploited extinct megafauna (for exam-
120 ple, mammoth and bison) and used a distinctive type
121 of projectile spear point, the “Clovis point,” which
122 was discovered for the first time at the Blackwater
123 Draw site in eastern New Mexico. Recent studies
124 have been oriented toward carefully dating Clovis
125 sites as well as refining the chronology of other con-
126 temporaneous and pre-Clovis sites in the Americas.
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Earliest humans in the Americas 3

127 Also, new sites that potentially date to the pre-Clovis

128 period have been carefully excavated, providing new
129 high-quality data for investigation.
130 In regards to Clovis, the latest analysis of 14C ages
131 indicates that the chronological span of this culture
132 was between 11,050 and 10,800 14C yr BP. There are
133 several sites that are a few thousand years older than
134 Clovis that are south of the Laurentide ice sheet, and
135 these provide strong evidence for an earlier human
136 presence in the Americas. Some of these sites in-
137 clude the following: Paisley Caves (Oregon), where
138 human coprolites (petrified excrement) have been
139 dated to ca. 12,300 14C yr BP; Monte Verde (in south-
140 ern Chile), which dates between ca. 12,800 and
141 12,300 14C yr BP and has been interpreted as hav-
142 ing a forest-adapted economy based primarily on the
143 collection of wild plant foods and secondarily on the
144 scavenging and/or hunting of large and small ani-
145 mals; the Page/Ladson site (Gulf of Mexico, Florida),
146 which dates to ca. 12,400 14C yr BP and shows a
147 good association of extinct megafauna with tools;
148 and Arroyo Seco 2 (Pampas of Argentina), where the
149 oldest archeological component dates to ca. 12,200
150 14
C yr BP. Therefore, new archeological data are push-
151 ing back the early peopling of the Americas at least
152 1500 years as well as confirming that there were peo-
153 ple in both North and South America before the Clo-
154 vis period. Moreover, in South America, there are
155 sites that are contemporary with Clovis (for exam-
156 ple, Pedra Pintada, Cerro Tres Tetas, Piedra Museo,
157 Quebrada Santa Julia, and so on.) indicating that
158 the major environments of America were already
159 occupied by humans with various adaptive strate-
160 gies around 11,000 14C yr BP. A few sites, such as
161 Meadowcroft Rockshelter (Pennsylvania), and other
162 recently excavated sites, such as the Abrigo de Santa
163 Elina (Mato Grosso State, Brazil) and Pubenza (Mag-
164 dalena River, Colombia), could indicate an even ear-
165 lier human occupation, possibly as early as ca. 30,000
166 14
C yr BP. However, these sites have not yet been fully
167 investigated and their analyses have not been fully
168 published, making it difficult to evaluate the existing
169 evidence.
170 Models based on craniofacial evidence comple-
171 ment the picture, although there are also basic dis-
172 agreements. A classic model (originally proposed in
173 the early twentieth century by Aleš Hrdlička and
174 more recently by Joseph Powell) stated that all Native
175 America populations (except Aleutians and Eskimo)
176 descend from only one original Eastern Asian (mon-
177 goloid) stock that entered into the Americas at the
178 end of the Pleistocene. This model explains that the
179 morphological differences are likely the result of ge-
180 netic drift and natural selection rather than different
181 migrations. In contrast, other physical anthropolo-
182 gists (notably, Walter Neves and Hector Pucciarelli)
183 proposed two early entries: one premongoloid mi-
184 gration between 15,000 and 12,500 14C yr BP (the
185 “Paleoamericans”), who likely became extinct, and
186 a second mongoloid migration, between 9000 and
187 8000 14C yrs BP, which gave rise to the modern Na-
188 tive Americans. However, it is essential to elucidate
189 the probable sources of variation of craniofacial mor-
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4 Earliest humans in the Americas

190 phology, including random and nonrandom factors,

191 and to understand the relationships between differ-
192 ences in morphological traits and different ancestry.
193 Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis and other
194 genetic markers (such as blood groups) show strong
195 similarities between Native American populations
196 and those from Central and East Asia, suggesting that
197 the latter could be the ancestors. The mtDNA is a cir-
198 cular DNA duplex, generally 5–10 copies, contained
199 within a mitochondrion. It is maternally inherited
200 since only the egg cell contributes significant num-
201 bers of mitochondria to the zygote, thereby provid-
202 ing examples of DNA lineages that can be followed
203 over long periods of time. The DNA from contempo-
204 rary Native American Indians can be separated into
205 four haplogroups, or lineages, named A, B, C, and
206 D. A fifth haplogroup, X, is less well represented
207 (only in some North American populations) and is
208 known from both Central Asia and Europe. The X
209 haplogroup is a large, diverse haplogroup with many
210 lineages, but the lineage found in Native American
211 Indians is different from those in Eurasia. Genetic re-
212 search suggests that the four founding haplogroups
213 may have differentiated in Asia sometime between
214 45,000 and 15,000 14C yr BP, giving origin to all
215 American populations. Based on the study of ancient
216 mtDNA, from skeletal remains recovered from arche-
217 ological sites, an age of 13,500 14C yr BP has been
218 proposed for the early populations that entered into
219 the Americas.
220 Conclusions. In sum, if an Asiatic origin and a
221 Beringia route of entry for the earliest Americans
222 is accepted as the most probable, it is necessary to
223 take into account that the maximum extension of
224 the ice sheets during the Late Pleistocene was be-
225 tween 18,000 and 14,000 14C yrs BP. During this
226 time, the ice-free corridor did not exist (the Lau-
227 rentide and the Cordilleran ice sheets were joined)
228 and the Pacific coast of northwestern North America
229 was probably still covered by ice. Given the fact that
230 human presence before 18,000 14C yr BP has not
231 been confirmed in the Americas, the most proba-
232 ble date of entry should be around 14,000 14C yr
233 BP following the recently deglaciated Pacific coast.
234 This coincides with the estimation based on con-
235 temporary and ancient mtDNA. These early popu-
236 lations would belong to a single Asiatic population,
237 although later population migration waves from Asia
238 (or even from Europe) cannot be ruled out. Once in
239 America, these groups experienced a rapid process
240 of expansion based on flexible and successfully adap-
241 tive strategies. By 12,500 14C yr BP, they arrived in
242 the Southern Cone (the southernmost areas) of South
243 America; and by 11,000 14C yrs BP, the major envi-
244 ronments of North America were already occupied
245 by humans. At the same time, demographic growth
246 and associated cultural processes produced the Clo-
247 vis culture, one of the first groups who managed to
248 successfully adapt to the North American landscape.
249 For background information see ANTHROPOLOGY;
250 ARCHEOLOGY; DEOXYRIBONUCLEIC ACID (DNA);
251 EARLY MODERN HUMANS; FOSSIL HUMANS; MOLEC-
252 ULAR ANTHROPOLOGY; PALEOINDIAN; PHYSICAL
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Earliest humans in the Americas 5

253 ANTHROPOLOGY; PLEISTOCENE; POPULATION DIS-

254 PERSAL; POPULATION DISPERSION; RADIOCARBON
255 DATING in the McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science
256 & Technology. Gustavo G. Politis
257 Bibliography. M. Faught, Archaeological roots of
258 human diversity in the New World: A compilation of
259 accurate and precise radiocarbon ages from earliest
260 sites, Am. Antiq., 73(4):670–698, 2008; T. Goebel,
261 M. R. Waters, and D. H. O’Rourke, The late Pleis-
262 tocene dispersal of modern humans in the Americas,
263 Science, 319:1497–1502, 2008; W. A. Neves and
264 H. M. Pucciarelli, Extra-continental biological rela-
265 tionships of early South American human remains: A
266 multivariate analysis, Ciên. Cult., 41:566–575, 1989;
267 J. F. Powell, The First Americans: Race, Evolution,
268 and the Origin of Native Americans, Cambridge
269 University Press, Cambridge, U.K., 2005; T. Schurr,
270 The peopling of the new world: Perspectives from
271 molecular anthropology, Annu. Rev. Anthropol.,
272 33:551–583, 2004; J. Steele and G. Politis, AMS 14C
273 dating of early human occupation of South America,
274 J. Archaeol. Sci., 36:419–429, 2009; M. R. Waters and
275 T. W. Stafford, Redefining the age of Clovis: Impli-
276 cations for the peopling of the Americas, Science,
277 315:1122–1126, 2007.
278 URLs
279 Center for the Study of the First Americans
280 http://www.centerfirstamericans.com/
281 Paleoenvironmental Atlas of Beringia
282 http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/parcs/atlas/beringia
283
Paleoindian Database of the Americas
284
http://pidba.utk.edu/main.htm
285
Simon Fraser University Museum of Archaeology and
286
Ethnology
287
http://www.sfu.museum/journey/home1.php
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