This paper examines a National Geographic news article pertaining to the history of First Americans called, “On way to New World, First Americans Made a-10,000 Year Pit Stop”. The First Americans may have stayed on the Bering Land Bridge after separating from Siberia, which would explain a few things about the genetic variances between the two groups. Why do researches believe first Americans lived on the Bering Land Bridge? Are the reasons to believe in this justified? This paper attempts to answer such questions.
This National Geographic news article is based off a recent study conducted by Dennis O’Rourke and two colleagues. O’Rourke and colleagues’ study suggests that first Americans may have lived on the Beringia for 10,000 years. (Than, 2014) This idea is not new; it is called the Bearing Standstill Hypothesis. This hypothesis states that the First Americans likely lived somewhere else for a long period of time, after separating from the Siberian population, before landing on Alaska. (Than, 2014) The reasoning behind this hypothesis is that archeological evidence showed the oldest First American site to be about 15,000 years old while genetic evidence shows the First Americans separated from Siberia about 25,000 thousand years ago. (Than, 2014) It was speculated that the First Americans lived on Beringia but there no archeological evidence to support this speculation and Beringia was thought to be inhospitable. However, according to this article O’Rourke and colleagues’ study show Beringia might in fact have been hospitable. Examination of the sediment cores in the Bering Sea and Alaskan Bogs revealed Beringia might have had trees like birch, willow, spruce and alder and bushy shrubs. This setting, according to O’Rourke, ma...
... middle of paper ...
...ge from Siberia to get to America. An argument against Feders’ theory could have been; the First Americans did not come from Siberia because it takes about 25,000 years for DNA to change and the First Americans arrived about 13,000 years ago. This article shows that it is likely the First Americans did come from Siberia.
This article also discusses the Clovis Culture, linking it to the First Americans through genetics. Feder also talks about the Clovis Culture in his book and points out the debate over its origins. However, it seems through genetic proof that shows a young-boy in the Clovis Culture shared DNA with first Americans this debate will end.
In conclusion, it seems very likely that the First Americans did settle Beringia for 10 millennia. This article presents good evidence for the standstill hypothesis while objectively discussing other points of view.
“Tracing a single Native American family from the 1780’s through the 1920’s posed a number of challenges,” for Claudio Saunt, author of Black, White, and Indian: Race and the Unmaking of an American Family. (pg. 217) A family tree is comprised of genealogical data that has many branches that take form by twisting, turning, and attempting to accurately represent descendants from the oldest to the youngest. “The Grayson family of the Creek Nation traces its origins to the late 1700’s, when Robert Grierson, a Scotsman, and Sinnugee, a Creek woman, settled down together in what is now north-central Alabama. Today, their descendants number in the thousands and have scores of surnames.” (pg. 3)
Archeology, which is the study of human activity in the past, has many significant names that discovered important sites to the history of art. One of these names is Heinrich Schliemann. Heinrich Schliemann was born on 6th of January, 1822, and died on December 26th, 1890. Schliemann was a businessman who could speak 15 languages, and he was a world traveler. His father used to read for him Homer’s Iliad when he was eight years old, which made his biggest dream is to become archeological and find about the places that Homer talked about. Schliemann, as a businessman, made a fortune, which was enough for him to retire; then, in 1871, he started to follow his dream and worked on Troy. Heinrich Schliemann work is very important and added a significant value to the history of art. His discoveries in Troy, Mycenae and Tiryns made him a pioneer in archeology.
Who the earliest settlers were in the United States is controversial, as is where they came from and how they got here. A few different scientist has done studies on this and came up with different theories. Some believe they came by foot from Asia across the Bering Strait during the Ice Age while following mammoths for food (Shultz, n.d.). Others believe they came by boat following whales and searching for fish to eat. There are a few different theories. With this said, what we do know is the earliest settlers were the Paleo-Indian; how they got here or from where they came from is basically irrelevant.
What is Beringia? Beringia, also known as, The Bering Strait, is a massive landmass that the first americans crossed over to get to the Americas during the first Ice Age, about 2.6 million years ago. The time period known as Pleistocene Ice Age is when the first Ice Age happened. Many glaciers covered the sea and lowered the sea level about 300 feet. The land that is now covered by water became dry land. This resulted in the massive landmass that connected the continents of Asia and North America. This land bridge formed a flat, grassy, treeless plain that the first Americans used to migrate to the Americas. When the Earth passed into its climate warming cycle, the glaciers began to melt. The melted water levels rose, and submerged Beringia once again.
In Minnesota’s Cottonwood County, Jeffers Petroglyphs stands on rose-colored Sioux quartzite overlooking tallgrass prairies and the Little Cottonwood River. The site is a sacred and spiritual location that has preserved centuries worth of history through images carved on rock surfaces, called petroglyphs. The Minnesota Historical Society and the Indian Advisory Committee along with elders and other members from the “Cheyenne, Ioway, Dakota, Lakota, and Ojibwe tribes, whose ancestors lived and traveled in the prairie-lake region [for the last 350 years], along with the Oto, Ponca, and Omaha,” have all been working together to preserve Jeffers Petroglyphs since 1966 (Connolly). For many Natives, Jeffers Petroglyphs holds cultural and historic knowledge as well as evidence of the presence of Natives living on the land as far back as 5, 000 - 7,000 years ago.
Throughout the 20th century, the Coastal Migration Theory, the “Kelp Highway,” suggested that some of the First Americans colonized the New World by navigating along the North Pacific coastlines from Asia into North and South America. This theory was considered highly unlikely by most archaeologists who at the time did not have access to advanced technology that reliably dated faunal remains. Moreover, archaeologists lacked recent discoveries that supported the Coastal Migration Theory. The evidence available at the time supported the hypothesis which proposed Upper Paleolithic hunters followed big game herds from Siberia to Beringia and down a long, narrow ice-free passageway that opened as the vast ice sheets, Laurentide and Cordilleran,
During the 1930’s, proof of a culture predating any other known at the time in the Americas was discovered. This culture was dubbed the Clovis culture, after the site’s location in Clovis, New Mexico, and existed about 11,000 years ago. Since then, there has been numerous sites found that contain evidence of people in America before Clovis, and they are known as the pre-Clovis culture. The existence of a pre-Clovis culture is still highly debated, with people sticking to the Clovis model of population, but there is a profusion of evidence that suggests the people of the Clovis culture were not the first ones to occupy the Americas.
About 15,000 years ago, a strip of land called the Central Beringia once connected Siberia and Alaska. Due to global warming and the warming of the Earth, the bridge shrunk around the edges causing the sea to rise and the waters to rise. The Siberia people who lived near the bridge began to move to North America due to the bridge being shrunk. People believe that they were colonized by animals and hunting. This is because as the waters rose, they had to move along with it and they moved to the places where they knew that they could find food easily. The first settlement seemed to be sporadic with an untidy process, or even no p...
Native Americans inhabited and foraged in present-day Vermont from 8500 to 7000 BC during the time of the Champlain Sea. Andrscoggin
Quinn, David B. North America From Earliest Discovery to First Settlements. New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1977.
Many people would assume that Christopher Columbus was the first person to settle in the Americas, although they would be wrong. The Vikings or the Norseman migrated to Northern America in search of land because they were over populated. In 1960 “undeniable proof of Vikings in North America came to light at L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, Canada. Several Norse Viking pieces and clear Icelandic- style house foundations gave proof positive that Vikings had indeed landed, and briefly settled, in North America 500 years before Columbus.” The Norse Viking pieces were found where Norse men and women lived and worked over 1,000 years ago. Although there is evidence of Viking settlement the Vikings did not stay for long because they were poorly suited for extensive travel including the North American winter. “L'Anse aux Meadows, located on the northern tip of Newfoundland, Canada, is the only authenticated Norse site in North America.” Hostile relations as well as native pressure between the Vikings and aboriginal population prevented the Vikings from permanently settling in North
The “Clovis First” theory is extremely interesting. The “Clovis First” theory suggests that these people traveled from Siberia to the North America approximately 13,500-12,500 years ago. The sea levels were much lower during this time which exposed a stretch of land called the Bering land bridge. The Bering land bridge connects Siberia to Alaska. Once these people reached Alaska, they were nearly home free. During this time, geological evidence suggests that the Northern part of North America was cover in large glaciers. Possibly due to warm weather, this ice sheet receded creating the Cordilleran and the Laurentide ice sheets. This created a pathway for the Siberians to travel south and spread across North America. Clovis people were hunter-gatherers
America is definitely different than the Ancient Rome, Great Britain, China and any other great civilization. If we look back at the history, the US civilization is not so old comparing to the civilization of Great Britain, China and Rome. The society of United States of America is known as the Western culture or western civilization which has been developing a long time before the United States became a country. The United States is a diverse country with different ethnicity, races and languages since there has been a large number of immigration from the initial period of time from different places of the world that be Asia or Europe or Africa. A lot of influence from Europe can be seen in the civilization of United States, as once it was
The going theory of the First Americans is the ever-popular land bridge hypothesis, which connected Siberia and Alaska. This is believed to have happened at least twice during the ice ages between 32,000 and 36,000 years ago and, again between 13,000 and 28,000 years ago. This repeated connection took place where the eastern and western hemispheres come the closest to one another. The best illustration that I found explaining the land bridge was the analogy made to a seesaw. On one side being the glaciers and on the other side is sea level. When the glaciers get bigger or "go up" the sea level withdraws or "goes down". Basically when all the earth's water is in the form of snow or ice sea level is lowered. At least 180 feet lower to form that Siberian land connection. Direct proof of this...
The most widely accepted theory known as the Beringia theory. It states that the first people crossed the Bering Land Bridge(due to the animals), located in between Siberia and Alaska and when the Laurentide Ice Sheet separated, the first people had new paths to use to get into America. It wouldn’t be very likely that people would cross the very long land bridge just due to the animals, new evidence