Settling the Americas How did we get here, anyway? Competing Theories: Beringia Land Bridge Ice Free Corridor Clovis First Coastal Route Theory Polynesian Pacific Theory Atlantic

The Clovis First Hypothesis The traditional theory held that the first Americans crossed the land bridge from Siberia to Alaska around 11,500 years ago and followed an "ice-free corridor" between two large Canadian ice sheets (the Laurentide and Cordilleran) to reach unglaciated lands to the south. These first inhabitants, whose archaeological sites are scattered across North and South America, were called the Clovis people, named after the town in New Mexico where their fluted spear points used for hunting mammoth were first found in 1932.

Animation of Shifting Ice/Land http://ows.edb.utexas.edu/site/hight-kreitman/land-bridge-theory

Challenges to Clovis-First Earlier evidence found in Chile, Texas, Washington State, California, etc. Ice sheets would have kept people from passing by land from north early enough to have occupied this area. Perhaps there is another explanation….

Coastal Route Theory Coastal Route Theory:  New research and studies have prompted some anthropologists and archaeologists to present the theory that people from Southeast Asia traveled by boat along the coastline and settled in the Western portion of North America and the Northwestern portion of South America.  The theory also helps to explain how certain artifacts have been found so far from the Bering Strait region dating before and around the supposed time that humans first came into contact with the Americas via the Bering Land Bridge. Map displaying the route that Southeast Asians and Polynesians could have taken to reach the Americas

Solutrean Hypothesis Bradley and Stanford argue that at the time of the Last Glacial Maximum, ca 25,000-15,000 radiocarbon years ago, the Iberian peninsula of Europe became a steppe-tundra, forcing Solutrean populations to the coasts. Maritime hunters then traveled northward along the ice margin up the European coast and around the North Atlantic Sea. They point out that the perennial Arctic ice at the time would have formed an ice bridge connecting Europe and North America. Ice margins have intense biological productivity, and would have provided a major food source.

Great Serpent Mound, Adams County, Ohio (p. 311)   1. The Hopewell Culture and other Mississippi valley cultures were influenced by the Mesoamerican civilizations to the south. Do you see any possible evidence of that influence in this photograph? (Answer: The feathered serpent was a common deity in Mesoamerica. It is possible, though hardly provable, that the serpent mound was influenced by the cultural importance of the feathered serpent to the south. ) 2. Why might one conclude that this mound had a religious, ritual, or artistic significance? (Answer: Simply put, it is hard to imagine a “practical” use that the mound could have had. )

Cahokia (Mississippian)

Ancient or Anscetral Pueblo (Anasazi)

Pre-Incan South America

Geographic Features Rocky Mountains Mississippi River Colorado River Rio Grande River Great Plains Appalachian Mountains Llanos Pampas Brazilian Highlands Lake Titicaca Amazon River Amazon Basin Atacama Desert Andes Mountains