Origins of the First Americans
A note about terminology: Take care to notice Eurocentric bias when we discuss the
peopling of the Americas. Often you see "New World" to refer to the Western
Hemisphere (Americas) that dates back to Columbus and his "discovery" of the New
World. That world may have been new to Columbus but not to the people on the shore
when Columbus landed. You know that Columbus confused his geography and thought
that he had landed in the Indies (east Asia) and thus we have the term "Indians." From
another European explorer (Amerigo Vespucci), we gained the term "America."
Continuing to use "New World" to refer to the American continents is Eurocentric and
ignores the long history of the peoples of the Americas that preceded arrival of
Europeans.
Consider also the bias inherent in dating terms such as B.C. and A.D. We commonly
use "B.C." to refer to dates "Before Christ" and "A.D." (meaning anno Domini, the Latin
"in the year of our Lord") for modern dates such as A.D. 1492. Because not everyone is
a Christian, the terms preferred today are B.C.E. and C.E.which stand for "Before the
Common Era" and "Common Era." Much of the world uses the calendar based on the
B.C./A.D. division, but the use of B.C.E. and C.E. neutralizes the religious base for nonChristians around the world.
Where did Indian peoples come from?
Where did Indian peoples come from? Most scientists subscribe to the Bering Land
Bridge theory. The traditional scientific explanation discusses how Pleistocene glacial
episodes resulted in the lowering of sea levels and the emergence of a land bridge
across the Bering Strait called Beringia. That land bridge appeared during glacial
episodes and then disappeared during warmer periods when ice receded and sea levels
rose. It thus provided a number of times when the first migrants could have crossed
from northeast Asia into North America.
Much evidence exists for people being in the Western Hemisphere twelve thousand
years ago. Disputed evidence exists for occupation by twenty thousand years ago and
some claim evidence from thirty and even forty thousand years ago. Two decades and
more ago, most textbooks reported people in the Americas 12 to 13,000 years ago, but
evidence continues to mount for peoples at dispersed points in the Americas (in the
extreme south in South America, in eastern North America, in Canada) at 20,000 years
ago and earlier. Because the Bering Land Bridge emerged repeatedly during
Pleistocene glaciation and because coastal corridors for migration during those
glaciations are now underwater, evidence for earlier migrations may be very difficult to
locate today.
The PBS program Nova has an interactive map that you can launch from the URL
below to see early archaeological sites in the Americas and how glaciers created a land
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bridge across the Bering Strait between North American and Siberia:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/stoneage/clovis.html
The animated image below illustrates how the land bridge disappeared in the last
21,000 years as glacial ice melted and sea levels rose.
The above "Bering Land Bridge Movie" was provided by the Paleoclimatology branch of
the National Climatic Data Center of NOAA, the National Oceanographic and
Atmospheric Adminstration of the federal government.
The simple map below gives you an idea of the land exposed during the Ice Ages and
possible migration routes for early peoples between northeast Asia and northwest North
America. "Folsom" and "Clovis" refer to the location of archaeological sites where
spearpoints and evidence of butchering of large mammals (such as mammoths,
mastodons and bison) were discovered dating to 11,000 years ago and later and
indicating a peoples with a sophisticated hunting tradition.
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Rejection of Bering Land Bridge Theory
Some contend that scientists’ insistence on an Asian origin for American Indian peoples
is yet another racist assumption that denies these indigenous peoples their own
heritage. An eloquent proponent of this position was American Indian lawyer, noted
Native advocate, history professor at the University of Colorado, and oft-published
author Vine Deloria, Jr. In Red Earth, White Lies: Native Americans and the Myth of
Scientific Fact, Deloria challenged the scientific community by disputing the Bering Land
Bridge theory for populating the Americas, condemning this theory as “scientific folklore”
that contradicted the creation accounts of some American Indian peoples documenting
no such migration. Deloria contended that scientific focus on demonstrating that Indian
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people came from somewhere else perpetuated the denial of Indian people's own
history just as the term "New World" does.
Deloria, Vine, Jr., Red Earth, White Lies: Native Americans and the Myth of Scientific
Fact. NY: Scribner, 1995. Print.
[The above is the correct MLA citation.]
© 2009 Susan Vetter
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