Current evidence allows multiple models for the peopling of the Americas
Ben A. Pottera✉, James F. Baichtalb, Alwynne B. Beaudoinc, Lars Fehren‐Schmitzd, C. Vance Haynese, Vance T. Hollidaye, Charles E. Holmesa, John W. Ivesf, Robert L. Kellyg, Bastien Llamash, Ripan Singh Malhii, D. Shane Millerj, David Reichk l m, Joshua D. Reuthera n, Stephan Schiffelso, Todd A. Surovellg
- aDepartment of Anthropology, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, AK 99775, USA
- bTongass National Forest, U.S. Forest Service, Thorne Bay, AK 99919, USA
- cRoyal Alberta Museum, Edmonton, Alberta T5J 0G2, Canada
- dUCSC Paleogenomics Lab, Department of Anthropology, University of California at Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA
- eSchool of Anthropology and Department of Geosciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA
- fInstitute of Prairie Archaeology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2R3, Canada
- gDepartment of Anthropology, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071, USA
- hAustralian Centre for Ancient DNA, Environment Institute, School of Biological Sciences, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
- iDepartment of Anthropology and Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 61801, USA
- jDepartment of Anthropology and Middle Eastern Cultures, Mississippi State University, Starkville, MS 39759, USA
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Abstract
Some recent academic and popular literature implies that the problem of the colonization of the Americas has been largely resolved in favor of one specific model: a Pacific coastal migration, dependent on high marine productivity, from the Bering Strait to South America, thousands of years before Clovis, the earliest widespread cultural manifestation south of the glacial ice. Speculations on maritime adaptations and typological links (stemmed points) across thousands of kilometers have also been advanced. A review of the current genetic, archeological, and paleoecological evidence indicates that ancestral Native American population expansion occurred after 16,000 years ago, consistent with the archeological record, particularly with the earliest securely dated sites after ~15,000 years ago. These data are largely consistent with either an inland (ice-free corridor) or Pacific coastal routes (or both), but neither can be rejected at present. Systematic archeological and paleoecological investigations, informed by geomorphology, are required to test each hypothesis.