Settlement of The Americas

Settlement Of The Americas

The question of how, when and why humans first entered the Americas is of intense interest to archaeologists and anthropologists, and has been a subject of heated debate for centuries. Several models for the Paleo-Indian settlement of America have been proposed by various academic communities. Modern biochemical techniques, as well as more thorough archaeology, have shed progressively more light on the subject.

Current understanding of human migration to and throughout the Americas derives from advances in four interrelated disciplines: archeology, physical anthropology, DNA analysis and linguistics. While there is general agreement that America was first settled from Asia by people who migrated across Beringia, the pattern of migration, its timing, and the place of origin in Asia of the peoples who migrated to America remains unclear.

In recent years researchers have sought to use familiar tools to validate or reject established theories such as Clovis first. As new discoveries come to light, past hypotheses are reevaluated and new theories constructed. The archeological evidence suggests that the Paleo-Indians' first "widespread" habitation of America occurred during the end of the last glacial period or, more specifically, what is known as the late glacial maximum, around 16,500–13,000 years ago.