Origins
Anthropological and genetic evidence indicates that most of the original population of the Americas descended from migrants from North Asia (Siberia) who entered North America across the Bering Strait in at least three separate waves. DNA analysis has shown that most of those resident in Peru in 1500 were descended from the first wave of Asian migrants, who are believed to have crossed the so-called Bering Land Bridge at the end of the last ice age, around 9000 BC.
Migrants from that first wave around 9000 BC are thought to have reached Peru around 6000 BC, probably entering the Amazon River basin from the northwest. (People of the second and third migratory waves from Siberia, who are thought to have been ancestors of the Athabaskan and Inuit people, apparently did not travel further than the southern United States and Canada, respectively.)
During the pre-Columbian period, the three main linguistic groups that dominated the territory now known as Peru were the Quechua, Jivaro and the Pano. They possessed different organizational structures and distinct languages and cultures.
The origins of these indigenous people are still a matter of dispute. The traditional view, which traces them to Siberian migration to America at the end of the last ice age, has been increasingly challenged by South American archaeologists.
Read more about this topic: Indigenous Peoples In Peru
Famous quotes containing the word origins:
“The settlement of America had its origins in the unsettlement of Europe. America came into existence when the European was already so distant from the ancient ideas and ways of his birthplace that the whole span of the Atlantic did not widen the gulf.”
—Lewis Mumford (1895–1990)
“Grown onto every inch of plate, except
Where the hinges let it move, were living things,
Barnacles, mussels, water weeds—and one
Blue bit of polished glass, glued there by time:
The origins of art.”
—Howard Moss (b. 1922)
“The origins of clothing are not practical. They are mystical and erotic. The primitive man in the wolf-pelt was not keeping dry; he was saying: “Look what I killed. Aren’t I the best?””
—Katharine Hamnett (b. 1948)