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Imran Mannan 04/09/2015
submitted for the High Master’s Prize
Who were the First Americans?
Throughout history, the Americas have hosted countless lineages of the common Homo sapiens. This
has been achieved through generations of immigration - some waves more violent than others. Still,
however, there is mystery surrounding the First Americans - the original immigrants and inhabitants
of the land, their physical and behavioural characteristics, and their location of origin.
Inconsistencies between the skeletons and DNA of these Paleoamericans1 and the modern Native
Americans have led to genuine claims against the direct descent of the modern indigenous people
from their Upper Palaeolithic counterparts.2 It is important to understand our current global
population in the context of the world’s previous inhabitants. Over the last 25 years, several
milestone findings have unearthed some strong evidence regarding the initial colonisation of the
Americas, as well as specifics on the ancestry, features, and descendants of the First Americans. By
far the most debated of these details is the geographical and hereditary descent of these
Paleoamericans, but in order to discover their location of origin, it is first necessary to investigate
how they gained access to the Americas. Once significant archaeological evidence is able to
establish the precise movements of the migrants, then genetic data is used as supplementary
information, in order to solidify the links between the First Americans and their ancestors and
descendants. This essay will explain the origins of the First Americans by considering their migration
routes, different models of immigration and dispersion, and the various archaeological and genetic
discoveries that have shed light upon their roots. It will also outline the evidence for the
homogeneity (that is, the direct ancestry) between the modern Native Americans and their
Paleoamerican counterparts.
For the majority of the 20th century, it was widely accepted that the first settlers in North America
were Asian ‘big-game’ hunters who had followed their prey across Beringia (the land bridge which
connected the two land masses at various times during the Pleistocene ice ages), then South
through an ice-free corridor between the Cordilleran and Laurentide ice sheets, which covered
almost all of North America [Fig. 1]. The strongest evidence for this was discovered in 1908 near
Clovis, New Mexico, consisting of spear points among the bones of an extinct species of giant bison,
dated back to c. 13.5ka3, suggesting an approximate date of settlement [Mathewes et al. 2001].
1
Paleoamericans – the first migrants into the Americas during the late Pleistocene period (the Pleistocene
period was between 128,000-12,000BC)
2
An example being http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/21/native_americans_siberian_dna/ [retrieved
04/09/2015]
3
‘ka’ is short for ‘thousand years ago’
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Figure 1: A diagram
showing the gap
between the Laurentide
and Cordilleran ice
sheets, which was open
from 13ka. Beringia is
visible at the top left of
the picture.
Source:
http://www.ic.arizona.e
du/~mmap/images/Slid
es/icesheets.jpg%22
This ‘Clovis First’ theory eventually fell apart in 1997 when an ancient village dated back to 14.8ka
was discovered at Monte Verde, Chile [Dillehay, TD. 1997]. Like all ‘Pre-Clovis’ theories had been
before, it was initially controversial, but several independent investigations all achieved similar
carbon dating results (although claims of fireplace remains dating back to over 30,000ka are less
accepted) [Taylor et al. 1999]. A few other sites contain convincing evidence of ‘Pre-Clovis’ human
hunting and scavenging: the Schafer and Hebior sites in Wisconsin both contain “disarticulated
remains of a single mammoth… sealed in pond clay…with unequivocal stone artefacts” [Goebel et al.
2008]. There are also examples of potentially older artefacts scattered around various sites,
including Mammoth bones at La Sena, but there have been some inconsistencies (the bones date
back to 19-22ka and show evidence of quarrying and flaking, which is characteristic of the Clovis
people, but no stone tools are present) [Smallwood and Jennings, 2014]. Nevertheless, these human,
animal and building remains discovered at these sites proved the presence of Homo sapiens over
1000 years before the Clovis hunters.
These revelations proved highly problematic. Contemporary studies of the Cordilleran and
Laurentide ice sheets have shown that for the 7000 years before 13ka, the ice-free corridor was
sealed: there was no way that the Monte Verde people had travelled to Chile via an overland route
across Beringia 17-14ka. It is possible, however, that the First Americans had used the ice-free
corridor as a migration route over 20ka, as the access route did not close until around then [Jackson
et al. 1997]. This theory is supported by the very strong case for the presence of human foragers at
the Western end of Beringia by c.30ka as well as a collection of “small unifacial tools… possibly used
for working wood or bone” dated back to at least 15ka, which were quite unlike known Palaeolithic
technologies, and appeared similar to artefacts “dating in excess of 50ka” found in North Africa
[Goebel et al. 2008]. Further investigation, however, is required to confirm the validity of the small
amount of evidence.
This led to two other main schools of thought, as detailed by Masden [2015]; Bradley et al.
proposed the Atlantic ice shelf model (also known as the Solutrean Hypothesis), which compares the
similarities between the lithic production (stone tools) of the Solutrean (European) and Clovis
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peoples, potentially suggesting a migration flow from Europe along the margins of the North Atlantic
ice shelves (explaining the model’s name). While an interesting solution, a lack of evidence either
for or against this proposition means we cannot be confident of anything more than the convergent
development of these two peoples [2010]. The alternative proposal is the Pacific coast model:
humans may have travelled by boat from either Asia or Beringia down the Pacific coast of the
Americas around 17-15ka.
Recently, there have been several relevant archaeological discoveries which have bolstered the
Pacific coast migration model, which currently seems the most plausible of the three discussed
suggestions. The model was initially little more than a hypothesis [Fladmark 1979], but some strong,
widespread ancillary data has appeared, leading to a more developed and precise model,
championed by Erlandson et al. [2011]. As mentioned previously, we know that Beringia was
inhabited by c.30ka – Ikawa-Smith has shown that foragers had been voyaging between the
Japanese islands in the north-western Pacific at the same time [2004]. It is entirely possible,
although still purely speculation, that these populations could have migrated along the Aleutian
Islands and down along the American coast. This is supported by the similarity between the
stemmed points used for hunting found in both sites along the west coast of North America and
Upper Palaeolithic Japan, suggesting a movement of people from Japan to the Americas [Erlandson
et al. 2011].
There is also some evidence which suggests the use of coastal resources (and therefore human
population) along the coasts of both North and South America, dating to around 13-11ka [Lavallée et
al. 2011]. Research into some fossilised vegetation (including seaweed and grasses) has shown that
the coastal landscape was likely to have been covered with a significant variety of fauna, and able to
sustain human life from 14ka, unlike the ice-free corridor. Unfortunately, many of the islands that
the migrants were likely to have travelled across have been submerged since the last glacial
maximum (around 19ka), meaning further evidence, especially that which dates to the more
conclusive dates of 17-15ka, may be impossible to recover [Mathewes et al. 2001]. Even the studied
stemmed points may again be a another red herring case of convergent development – flaking a
point to have a stem is an efficient, effective way of sharpening a spear point (in fairness, the flaking
is a more distinct ‘signature’ compared to the similar Paleoamerican and Solutrean lithic production
which forms the entire basis of the Atlantic ice shelf model).
In 2008, however, Dennis Jenkins discovered human coprolites (fossilised excrement), dated back to
14-15ka old, in the Paisley Caves near an ancient lake bed. Recent tests have confirmed that the
materials contain human DNA, and Jenkins suggests that they belonged to mobile hunter-gatherers
making their way inland from the Pacific up either the Columbia or Klamath River [Gilbert et al.
2008]. Although it is possible these examples were contaminated (by human urine for example), it is
unlikely, considering their concealed location. What’s more, these coprolites contained seeds of
desert parsley – which has an edible root over 30cm below the ground – suggesting that these
people knew the land and were an established tribe. These findings suggest that the first humans to
reach the Americas had entry points along the Pacific coast, before migrating inland, explaining why
the older artefacts in North America are all in more Eastern sites such as Kennewick and Arlington
Springs [Reeder et al. 2008].
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With each new finding, this wealth of archaeological data consistently suggested that the very first
wave of immigration into the Americas was by hunter-gatherers from Asia between 17-15ka. Apart
from the potentially misleading spear point discoveries however, there was no supporting evidence
based upon a link between the behavioural or physical characteristics of contemporary Palaeolithic
Asian and American populations. In fact, two independent craniological and facial studies featured
data which suggested that not only did the ‘Amerindians’ have a large variation in hereditary
morphology (and therefore perhaps origin) [Sardi et al. 2004], but that they exhibited features more
characteristic of Australasian/South Pacific populations than of Asian populations [González-José et
al., 2003; Neves, 1991]. Thankfully, technological advances, such as the sequencing of the human
genome, have allowed genetic research to take place over the last few decades, which has led to
some more concrete statistical data that can be used to make stronger links between various
haplogroups4.
Countless papers have contrasted the A, B, C, D and X maternal mitochondrial haplogroups, as well
as the paternal C and Q haplogroups (and several subgroups) found in Native American populations
with global ethnic groups, in order to establish a genetic link between the Paleoamericans and any
other people. While of course this sounds daunting to anyone less than an expert, there are actually
fairly clear genetic signatures belonging to both the Paleoamericans and modern Native Americans –
due to a 12,000-15,000 year isolation from any other population at one point (most likely occurring
on the Bering Strait), the Paleoamericans mutated at a different rate to other populations, which
gives them a distinct genetic trait [Masden, 2015]. In any case, a region around the Altai Mountains
in modern day South Siberia, spanning the border area of Mongolia, China and Russia, has been
pinpointed as the most likely location of origin of the first inhabitants of the Americas [Kemp and
Schurr 2010; Starikovskaya et al. 2005; Volodko et al. 2008). While this is fantastic, reliable, useful
evidence, it has one potentially catastrophic downfall: it is based upon the modern distribution of
populations. As Volodko et al. discuss however, considering the apparent lack of migration, lack of
genetic variation and preservation of cultural traditions among the indigenous Siberian people, it is
more than likely that the population has been stationary for at least 10,000 years [2008]. Further
genetic data also provides similar timelines to the initial spread of people across the Americas as the
Pacific coast model suggests – sometime between 15-13ka [Ray et al., 2009].
What can be concluded from this? Taking into account the archaeological findings and the genetic
evidence, the most plausible theory seems to be that after migrating from Asia to the Bering Strait
around 30ka, the future inhabitants of the Americas endured an isolated standstill of between
12,000 and 15,000 years. This is consistent with both the ‘Clovis First’ and Pacific coast models.
Following this, they probably voyaged by boat around the islands along the Pacific Coast of North
America (many of which were submerged after the last glacial maximum), before eventually
beginning to disperse throughout the Americas 17-14ka. This is, of course, not the last say on the
matter - ‘other genetic research suggests double and even triple entry points through a Pacific
coastal route, an ice-free corridor, or perhaps even an Arctic coastal route’ all around 17-13ka
[Masden 2015]. There is however, overwhelming data supporting the Pacific coast model, which
indeed seems a very viable suggestion. In reality, it is most likely that during a 1000 year period the
Americas were entered from several different access points, not limited to the Pacific coast and the
ice-free corridor; the Atlantic ice shelf model is definitely possible, and would explain the haplogroup
4
Haplogroup - a group of similar haplotypes that share a common ancestor
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variation that Masden comments on [2015] – knowing for certain who the very first colonisers were
is just inconceivable.
There is however one remaining problem: why don’t modern Native Americans look like their
ancestors? This was a dilemma which led generations of archaeologists to conclude that the Modern
Natives had at one point replaced the Paleoamericans through colonisation. Luckily, new findings in
just the last 15 years have finally put any doubts over the heritage of the Native Americans to bed –
in 2007, the remains of a young girl who fell to her death 13-12ka in Hoyo Negro, Mexico were
discovered, so well preserved that even a facial reconstruction and DNA investigations were
possible. ‘Naia’ as she was nicknamed provided the final piece of the puzzle as far as a link between
the Paleoamericans and the modern Natives are is concerned; she had all the skeletal and cranial
characteristics of the Paleoamericans, but contained all of the Native American genetic markers
[Chatters et al. 2014]. It was unequivocal evidence. This finally answers the question proposed at the
start of this paragraph: the Native Americans look different because the Paleoamericans changed
when they arrived. Jim Chatters, co-leader of the Hoyo Negro expedition, explains how originally the
Paleoamericans were extremely violent, with almost all male skeletons featuring significant weapon
wounds, on average slightly larger than their modern counterparts. Meanwhile the females are
much smaller, suggesting they were more diminutive, with a life expectancy of below 30 [2014].
Chatters’ ‘wild-type’ argument is definitely compelling, although must be labelled speculative until
further supporting evidence can be provided. Nonetheless, as Naia proves, the modern Natives are
direct descendants of the Paleoamericans; quite how and why they changed is another mystery yet
to be explained.
Realistically, we are limited to nothing more than good estimates about the First Americans. There
are still some inexplicable findings; the 30,000 year old fireplace, or the tools which look 50,000
years old for example. Are the more unusual artefacts found at the Schafer site examples of ancient
trade, or just one-off items with a passing resemblance to the tools used by people thousands of
miles away? Although we have made significant progress, there is still much to be discovered about
the First Americans.
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References (Bibliography)
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Implications for inland versus coastal migration routes. Quaternary Science Reviews 20: 301-314
Taylor et al. 1999. Radiocarbon Analyses of Modern Organics at Monte Verde, Chile: No Evidence for
a Local Reservoir Effect. American Antiquity (Society for American Archaeology) 64 (3): 455–460
Dillehay, TD. 1997. Monte Verde: A Late Pleistocene Settlement in Chile, Volume 2. Washington, DC:
Smithsonian Institution Press.
Goebel et al. 2008. The Late Pleistocene Dispersal of Modern Humans in the Americas Science 319,
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Smallwood and Jennings. 2014. Clovis: On the Edge of a New Understanding Texas A&M University
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