Finding America: The Arrival of the First Americans

[Music] few topics in ancient american history are fraught with as much controversy as the settlement of the americas this controversy isn't anything new this is a question for which there's been an unclear answer for centuries when columbus first encountered the americas in 1492 this question wasn't really on his mind he thought he had landed off the coast of asia and believed that he had encountered the people of the west indies as further spanish exploration followed up columbus's fateful expedition people began to realize that they weren't in asia but somewhere completely new an undiscovered world full of new people and new civilizations that realization brought a puzzling question to everyone's mind that has since lingered to today where did the first americans come from and how long have they been here now this episode is meant to be an overview of the topic it could be much longer and much more in depth heck you could make many episodes about this topic that said i've condensed this as best i could and still failed spectacularly by making an almost 30 minute episode hooray but before we can continue there's an elephant in the room that we need to address and that is how to refer to the indigenous peoples of the americas as a whole in my past videos i've usually had the fortune of being able to refer to people of a specific culture but in this video i'm afforded no such leeway here in an ideal world there would be consensus among all indigenous peoples on how they should be referred to but alas there is not and that has generated some controversy the four terms that i see most of the time are indian native american amerindian and indigenous people now each of these have their pros and cons many indigenous people do identify as indians although we all know that the name is a misnomer native american is a good concise term but actually it isn't used that much outside of the united states also american is a european designation that comes from the name amerigo vespucci so even that has its own baggage amerindian is what gets used a lot in the scientific literature but that hasn't penetrated very far outside of it another version of this that you'll see when you read about this specific topic is paleo indian but like amber indian it doesn't see much light outside the pages of scientific literature indigenous people is the latest term that's really gaining traction all around the point i want to make here is that there isn't a solid consensus and you can make a case for each term i personally prefer the terms native american and indigenous peoples and until now i haven't heard any objection to the terms when i've used them in my videos so those are what you're going to hear in this episode you'll probably hear the term paleo indian a few times as well well without further ado let's proceed by discussing the previous theories about the settlement of the americas throughout the centuries and even today lots of theories have floated around about the origins of native americans one of the first people to give an explanation was a jesuit missionary in mexico jose de acosta de acosta proposed that the indigenous people had migrated to america from asia and that there was an unknown land route uniting both continents for 16th century thinking this was pretty good and de acosta was on the right track unfortunately de acosta's ideas did not take off for the wider public and instead a popular theory that the first americans were descended from the lost tribes of israel took root now these were the tribes that were deported from israel after the assyrian conquest this might sound pretty far-fetched today but this theory was all the rage for a time and it got lots of high-profile endorsement from men like william penn cotton mather and joseph smith using this theory as a basis many naturalists concluded that humans must have arrived in america around 3000 bce when you think about it that's insanely recent but such a few couldn't last forever and as archaeology began to develop in america a new picture began to emerge the turning point came in 1908 when george mcjunkin a former slave turned cowboy and self-educated geologist discovered the skeleton of a bison antiquis in a washed-out gully outside of folsom new mexico bison antiquis was a larger version of the modern bison dating back to the pleistocene they were already well known in the scientific community but what made this discovery so sensational was that mcjunkin found a spear point in the remains meaning that the bison had been killed by a human this and similar discoveries that followed changed everything this was irrefutable proof that humans had coexisted in america with the creatures of the ice age as time went on more and more sites were discovered with ancient tools and spear points and archaeologists began to see patterns in these different tools different prehistoric cultures all over the world have distinct styles of tools and this can help identify different cultures at various periods most tools being found in north america during that time were folsom points which are characterized by their small size subtle tails and fluted heads these types of tools are unique to north america and they're not found anywhere else in the world however it wasn't long before an older type of tool was discovered at the site of clovis new mexico the clovis point clovis points were larger with a slightly different design scientists and archaeologists eventually determined that they were the oldest type of points in the americas another thing that they noticed was that all clovis sites dated to a very small window from about thirteen thousand five hundred to twelve thousand nine hundred years bp like their folsom counterparts clovis points are a uniquely american invention they're not found anywhere else in the world just an fyi bp means before present and it's the dating convention that's used in these contexts when you're talking about really old dates if you want to convert a date from bp to bce just subtract 2 000 years and you'll get the rough bce date with these dates in hand a consensus emerged that the earliest people arrived in america no earlier than 13 500 years bp later named the clovis first theory this theory was first championed by c vance haynes in the 1960s he based his theory not just on the archaeological record but also on an important geological event the last glacial maximum or lgm as it's abbreviated during the last glacial maximum the earth was cooler and more water was locked up in the ice caps these glaciers stretched across north america coast to coast cutting off the interior of the americas from any contact with eurasia at the time eurasia and the americas were actually connected via a land bridge known as barangia this region was ice free at the time and fully capable of supporting humans what haines really focused on was the timing of the glacial retreat which began about 15 000 years bp you'll notice that that's not much farther back than the earliest clovis remains hanes's theory was that humans had entered barangia during the last glacial maximum but were halted from further migration by the glaciers the lgm kept north and south america a virgin landscape free of any human impact all that changed when the earth began to warm back up and the glaciers began to retreat eventually a lane would have opened up in the ice sheets allowing people to migrate from barangia into the unpopulated interiors of the continent to settle the vast landscape these areas would have been dominated by mammoths mastodons armored rhinos camelids horses and giant sloths just to name a few other supporters of this theory would later point out that these megafauna vanished from the archaeological record at the same time that clovis tools do thus they theorized paleo-indians arrived in the americas clovis tools in tow and overhunted the american megafauna until they were extinct hanes theory was a hit it quickly gained mainstream acceptance and it's easy to see why it matched up with a known archaeological record very nicely it was almost too good to be true for anyone that went to school in the 70s 80s and 90s this is probably what your textbooks taught you if only i was making this video 40 years ago we could roll the credits and get back to our lives but it was not to last by the 1980s that consensus was beginning to come under new pressure as people began to look at a wider array of evidence linguists were puzzled by the enormous diversity of languages in the new world some had concluded that this could have only happened if humans were in the americas for much longer than 13 000 years more importantly genetic studies began to shed new light on the history of human populations and their movements scientists began to challenge the notion that there was one great migration into america after the last glacial maximum their research began to paint a picture of multiple migrations that began long before clovis culture climate researchers began to look at climate data and argue that the extinction of the megafauna was not the result of over hunting but rather the result of climate change and habitat loss they also pointed out that when the corridors first opened through the ice sheets that newly exposed land would have been uninhabitable by humans or animals for centuries and thus not traversable at that supposed 13500 bp date even within the archaeological field new archaeological sites with human evidence that predated the clovis culture were being discovered these discoveries within the archaeological field itself caused a huge stir and things got heated pretty fast such pre-clovis states were criticized heavily and explained way as the result of contamination poor dating techniques and general incompetence until the writing was finally on the wall people really hate to see a good theory go so where does that leave us well in a bit of a mess i'm afraid the picture of human migration into america is far from settled and competing evidence paints very different pictures let's look at the archaeology first as i mentioned before several sites predating the clovis first theory began to emerge one of the most important is the monteverde site in the far south of chile in the 1970s archaeologist thomas dillahay began excavating an ancient paleo-indian campsite and found man-made materials that dated back to between 18500 and 14500 bp now consider the location this is not a site anywhere near the point of entry into the new world this is near the end of the line down in south america the people living there were not johnny come lately's they had been in the americas for centuries by this point and they were well adapted to the environment though very controversial at first these excavations eventually gained wide acceptance and today are almost universally accepted as proof that there were people in the americas before the clovis culture and actually further excavations at the site have also yielded material dating back to over thirty thousand years ago but these conclusions are very disputed and even diligent has acknowledged that more study is needed so take that with a big grain of salt other sites such as paisley caves in oregon the paige ladson site in florida meadowcroft rock shelter in pennsylvania and buttermilk creek in texas all show pre-clovis human settlement meadowcroft rock shelter has remains that have been dated to 16 000 years ago long before clovis albeit not without some controversy paisley cave is also important because it has human remains that date all the way back from 13 000 to 14 000 years bp and by remains i don't mean bones but coprolites which is the scientific term for fossilized poop and now you know and now you'll thank me come trivionite these corpolites can also be analyzed for human dna and compared with modern indigenous populations which is very important in helping reconstruct the genetic history of humans in the americas but more on that later now if you really want to go down the archaeological rabbit hole and ruffle some feathers at the archaeology table you can bring up the sights of bluefish caves in yukon and other sites in the americas that go way back some of these even predate the last glacial maximum and thus are highly controversial bluefish caves the best known have megafauna bones with signs of butchering dating back to 24 000 years bp just this year chikuhida cave in mexico made headlines over the summer when it was announced that stone tools were discovered in layers dating back to over 30 000 years ago this discovery received about as much criticism as you'd expect now i'm not an archaeologist so i'm not going to take a firm stance about the quality of these claims but consider that if just one of these dates is correct it would radically shift the dating of american settlement even if one of these sites is true it means that some group of people did get into the americas whether or not these early settlers survived or died out is another debate entirely another interesting and recent discovery is a pre-clovis tool tradition in the buttermill creek area in texas although we have plenty of compelling evidence from human existence in the americas before the clovis period pre-clovis points can be a bit hard to find so this is an important discovery clovis points are distinct for their fluted designs but these have a stemmed design instead currently there's debate if these represent a precursor to clovis a contemporary or even a competitor but they've been dated to between thirteen thousand five hundred and fifteen thousand five hundred years bp some archaeologists have tried to draw comparisons with them and stemmed point traditions in asia but these are not embraced by most archaeologists it'd be neat if it was true but we don't know with all that archaeology to chew on let's move on to our next type of evidence genetics nothing has revolutionized the study of american migration more than the field of genetics by studying the genetics of modern native american and eurasian populations along with the most ancient human remains found in the americas like those remains of paisley cave we mentioned scientists can discern an incredible amount of detail about the origins of the first americans now before we proceed i just want to say that this is a very active field of study and that our understanding of this is constantly changing and it's very possible that this could be revised in the future also if you read any of these studies you'll be assaulted by a lot of genetic terms and scientific jargon all of this is way outside my expertise and this is not a science show so i'm going to keep this simple for everybody and boil it down as best i can for the layman geneticists mostly agree that native americans descended from a single population that split from the population of east asia approximately 40 000 to thirty thousand years bp although there was sporadic contact with these populations until about twenty thousand years bp what happens next is a bit more complicated this split off population appears to have been isolated from about fifteen thousand to seventy five hundred years it's believed that this is because this proto-paleo-indian group migrated into barangia and remained there with no outside contact this period is usually referred to as the baron gs standstill and during this time there was a severe genetic bottleneck in the population the genetic homogeneity of all native american populations is owed to this bottleneck at some time between 500 years bp and 14 600 years bp this ancestor population diverged into distinct northern and southern native american branches this is important because this split almost certainly happened after humans had arrived in the unglaciated north america and began spreading into the continent note the dates here this is supposedly before the corridor through the glaciers was viable genetic analysis also tells us that this movement into the americas was rapid rather than gradual now it's important to bear in mind that this is not necessarily a hard date of first entry it is theoretically possible for people to have migrated earlier only to have eventually died out leaving no genetic evidence in the modern gene pool genetics like any other field of science has its limits interesting side note by the way this asian origin is also borne out by linguistics the not deny languages which include tinglet and ayak in the north and the apache and navajo languages further south bear striking and unique similarities to the languages of siberia if you know where to look along the yenaze river in russia there's a family of languages appropriately called the yanezian languages these languages only one of which survives today are incredibly distinct and complex i'm not going to get into all the linguistic specifics but suffice to say these unique features are not shared by any other languages in siberia but they do appear in several of the non-deny languages in north america how crazy is that i thought it was interesting at least if you're a language nerd i highly recommend reading up on it of course all this evidence about when people entered the americas leaves us with another important consideration how did the first americans get into the americas now as i mentioned earlier the ability to get into the americas overland hinges on the glacial barriers and their retreat now in researching this episode i came across a lot of varying opinions on this i've seen scientists claim that an overland route through the thawing glaciers was possible before the 13 500 year bp mark but i've read from others who have stated that this is very unlikely although an overland cross was certainly possible at some point the exact timing of that ice-free corridor and its viability seem to be a bit disputed remember it's not enough to just have a corridor it must have enough flora and fauna to make a passage possible if that ice-free corridor is a bit problematic for you there's good news a newer theory that's been gaining more and more attention is the coastal migration theory this theory is exactly what it sounds like that people originally migrated down the pacific coast past the glaciers and into the americas previously it was thought that boats were not invented until about 10 000 years ago but evidence from islands in southeast asia and australia show human habitation dating back from 50 000 years ago in these cases the islands have never been connected to the mainland and could have only been reached by boat the seas are just as bountiful as the forests and plains and a migration may have been more sustainable than initially thought these routes down the pacific coast are sometimes referred to as kelp highways the biggest problem with testing this theory is that since the glaciers melted the sea levels have risen hundreds of feet and any old coastal sites are now underwater there's been a lot of recent work in the past several years trying to identify possible sites to excavate underwater but this is an ongoing process hopefully more on that in a few years others have searched elsewhere for an entry path into the americas a controversial theory called the silutrian hypothesis theorizes that humans came to the americas from europe more specifically that people from the solutrean cultures of europe sailed up along the glaciers and across the north atlantic they point out that many pre-clovis sites are in the eastern united states although it has its vocal supporters this theory has not enjoyed mainstream attention and most archaeologists agree that a northern crossing would have been extremely difficult if not impossible genetic studies have also not reinforced the idea of a european origin for indigenous americans other critics point out that clovis tools bear little similarity between the stone tools of the solution culture in europe more likely these eastern pre-clovis sites are just the result of habitation and not indicative of a migration route others have proposed a passage through the pacific by polynesians or aboriginal australians proponents of this theory point to early human remains in the americas that have similar cranial features to the aboriginal and polynesian peoples but craniology has its limits and its critics while it has been proven genetically that polynesians did eventually make contact with south america the evidence shows that this would have happened about 800 years ago long after the americas were densely populated but wait there's more on the controversial front drawing upon those pre-lgm sites i've mentioned earlier steven and kathleen holland have recently suggested a migration of people into the americas between forty thousand and thirty thousand years ago called the mammoth step hypothesis they theorized that east asian populations would have followed the megafauna across asia through barangia into the american steps before the last glacial maximum at the time these steps would have represented the largest biome on earth connecting europe siberia and the great plains of the americas this would explain those very early but controversial sites in north america again this hasn't garnered mainstream acceptance but it's still an interesting theory as you can see there's no perfect theory that fits all the evidence we have which is what makes this topic so fascinating it's the rare instance where many different theories can be entertained as time goes on i'm sure we'll see this picture change as more and more discoveries come to the fore if you're curious about what i personally think i'm a sucker for the coastal migration theory water transportation can be done rapidly and enterprising mariners can make good use of the ocean's resources if viking exploration has shown us anything it's that the glaciers of greenland and the arctic didn't hold back determined voyagers from reaching america but that's an imperfect and problematic comparison i'm certainly no expert just another enthusiastic amateur on the internet let me know in the comments how you think the americas were reached so who were these people it's impossible to fully reconstruct their identity and culture but archaeology does give us a few clues contrary to the old image of nomadic hunter-gatherers slowly hunting all the big game in the americas to extinction the first americans were likely clan-based hunter-gatherers living on a variety of food interestingly across different clovis sites the most common bones don't come from large megafauna but instead from smaller game stone tools even in clovis culture show an incredible variety beyond just hunting and butchering there are even clovis tools that were designed to cut grass and foliage south america has several distinct tool traditions of its own that reflect lifestyles adapted to the different environments later cultures show a preference for smaller lighter points probably because they value their mobility one extremely puzzling fact about the first americans is the rarity of human remains while early homo sapiens skeletons can be found in africa eurasia and australia they're very rare in the americas which denies us important burial evidence some archaeologists have tried to draw conclusions from this trend and speculate that the first americans cremated their dead or did not practice ritual burial but no one's really certain it could just as easily be that we're looking in the wrong places and that we just haven't found that many yet ultimately it's very hard to reconstruct the culture of a diverse people from such limited evidence regardless of who they were and where they came from the first americans were incredibly successful within just a few thousand years they had spread to every corner of north and south america from a founding population of perhaps only a thousand individuals they transformed the land and changed the history of the world all while being cut off from their ancestors in the old world in time that plucky group of explorers would become the pueblo the choctaw the mashika the maya the zapotecs the moiska the chimu the inca the mapuche and so many more what i would give to know what the first americans thought as they stood on the edge of the old world and decided to take that first step into the undiscovered americas did they have any idea that they would be the beginning of something so incredible if only we could know thank you for watching and don't forget to like and subscribe and support us on patreon and follow us on facebook i'll be releasing another video shortly after this one with some channel updates so don't miss it take care and see you later [Music] [Music]

Channel: Ancient Americas

Views: 56,468

Rating: 4.7971392 out of 5

Keywords: Ancient, America, Americas, Settlement, Clovis, Migration, first americans, first american, ancient america, ancient americas

Id: NYK425sWziA

Length: 25min 29sec (1529 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 20 2020