This article is about Paleolithic people of the Americas. For Paleolithic people of India, see South Asian Stone Age. For other aspects of the prehistory of the Americas, see Pre-Columbian era.
The Paleo-Indians, also known as the Lithic peoples, are the earliest known settlers of the Americas; the period's name, the Lithic stage, derives from the appearance of lithic flaked stone tools.
Paleo-Indians were the first peoples who tered and subsequtly inhabited the Americas during the final glacial episodes of the late Pleistoce period. The prefix paleo- comes from the Ancit Greek adjective: παλαιός, romanized: palaiós, lit. 'old; ancit'. The term Paleo-Indians applies specifically to the lithic period in the Western Hemisphere and is distinct from the term Paleolithic.
What Is The Clovis Culture?
Traditional theories suggest that big-animal hunters crossed the Bering Strait from North Asia into the Americas over a land bridge (Beringia). This bridge existed from 45, 000 to 12, 000 BCE (47, 000–14, 000 BP).
This allowed animals, followed by humans, to migrate south into the interior of the contint. The people wt on foot or used boats along the coastline. The dates and routes of the peopling of the Americas remain subjects of ongoing debate.
Stone tools, particularly projectile points and scrapers, are the primary evidce of the earliest human activity in the Americas. Archeologists and anthropologists use surviving crafted lithic flaked tools to classify cultural periods.
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Scitific evidce links Indigous Americans to eastern Siberian populations by the distribution of blood types, and getic composition as indicated by molecular data, such as DNA.
From 8000 to 7000 BCE (10, 000–9, 000 BP) the climate stabilized, leading to a rise in population and lithic technology advances, resulting in a more sedtary lifestyle.
Researchers continue to study and discuss the specifics of Paleo-Indian migration to and throughout the Americas, including the dates and routes traveled.
Paleo America & Columbian Exchange
These people are believed to have followed herds of now-extinct pleistoce megafauna along ice-free corridors that stretched betwe the Laurtide and Cordilleran ice sheets.
Evidce of the latter would have be submerged by a sea-level rise of more than a hundred meters following the d of the Last Glacial Period.
The time range of the peopling of the Americas remains a source of substantial debate. Convtional estimates have it that humans reached North America at some point betwe 15, 000 and 20, 000 years ago.
Physiographic Map Of North America With Locations Of Paleoindian...
One of the few areas of agreemt is the origin from Ctral Asia, with widespread habitation of the Americas during the d of the Last Glacial Period, or more specifically what is known as the late glacial maximum, around 16, 000 to 13, 000 years before prest.
The Mammut americanum (American mastodon) became extinct around 12, 000–9, 000 years ago due to human-related activities, climate change, or a combination of both. See Quaternary extinction evt and Holoce extinction.
These peoples were spread over a wide geographical area; thus there were regional variations in lifestyles. However, all the individual groups shared a common style of stone tool production, making knapping styles and progress idtifiable.
The Paleoindian Period
This early Paleo-Indian period's lithic reduction tool adaptations have be found across the Americas, utilized by highly mobile bands consisting of approximately 20 to 60 members of an extded family.
Food would have be pltiful during the few warm months of the year. Lakes and rivers were teeming with many species of fish, birds and aquatic mammals. Nuts, berries and edible roots could be found in the forests and marshes. The fall would have be a busy time because foodstuffs would have to be stored and clothing made ready for the winter. During the winter, coastal fishing groups moved inland to hunt and trap fresh food and furs.
Small bands utilized hunting and gathering during the spring and summer months, th broke into smaller direct family groups for the fall and winter. Family groups moved every 3–6 days, possibly traveling up to 360 km (220 mi) per year.
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Diets were oft sustaining and rich in protein; clothing was made from a variety of animal hides that were also used for shelter construction.
It has be disputed whether the Clovis culture were specialist big-game hunters or employed a mixed foraging strategy that included smaller terrestrial game, aquatic animals, and a variety of flora.
Paleo-Indian groups were efficit hunters and carried a variety of tools. These included highly efficit fluted-style spear points, as well as microblades used for butchering and hide processing.
Paleo Indians Evolution
The glaciers that covered the northern half of the contint began to gradually melt, exposing new land for occupation around 17, 500–14, 500 years ago.
At the same time as this was occurring, worldwide extinctions among the large mammals began. In North America, camelids and equids evtually died off, the latter not to reappear on the contint until the Spanish reintroduced the horse near the d of the 15th ctury CE.
10, 500 – c. 9, 500 BCE (c. 12, 500 – c. 11, 500 BP), the broad-spectrum big game hunters of the Great Plains began to focus on a single animal species: the bison (an early cousin of the American bison).
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The earliest known of these bison-orited hunting traditions is the Folsom tradition. Folsom peoples traveled in small family groups for most of the year, returning yearly to the same springs and other favored locations on higher ground.
There they would camp for a few days, perhaps erecting a temporary shelter, making and/or repairing some stone tools, or processing some meat, th moving on.
Lithic technology fluted spear points, like other spear points, are collectively called projectile points. The projectiles are constructed from chipped stones that have a long groove called a flute. The spear points would typically be made by chipping a single flake from each side of the point.
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The point was th tied onto a spear of wood or bone. As the vironmt changed with the ice age ding around 17–13 Ka BP on short, and around 25–27 Ka BP on the long,
Many animals migrated overland to take advantage of the new sources of food. Humans following these animals, such as bison, mammoth and mastodon, thus gained the name big-game hunters.
Archaeologists are piecing together evidce that the earliest human settlemts in North America were thousands of years before the appearance of the currt Paleo-Indian time frame (before the late glacial maximum 20, 000-plus years ago).
Native American Archaeological Periods
Until rectly, it was gerally believed that the first Paleo-Indian people to arrive in North America belonged to the Clovis culture. This archaeological phase was named after the city of Clovis, New Mexico, where in 1936 unique Clovis points were found in situ at the site of Blackwater Draw, where they were directly associated with the bones of Pleistoce animals.
Rect data from a series of archaeological sites throughout the Americas suggest that Clovis (thus the Paleo-Indians) time range should be re-examined. In particular, sites such as Cooper's Ferry in Idaho,
Have gerated early dates for wide-ranging Paleo-Indian occupation. Some sites significantly predate the migration time frame of ice-free corridors, thus suggesting that there were additional coastal migration routes available, traversed either on foot and/or in boats.
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In South America, the site of Monte Verde indicates that its population was probably territorial and resided in their river basin for most of the year. Some other South American groups, on the other hand, were highly mobile and hunted big-game animals such as gomphotheres and giant sloths. They used classic bifacial projectile point technology, such as Fishtail points.
The primary examples are populations associated with El Jobo points (Vezuela), fish-tail or Magallanes points (various parts of the contint, but mainly the southern half), and Paijan points (Peru and Ecuador) at sites in grasslands, savanna plains, and patchy forests.[65]
The bi-pointed El Jobo projectile points were mostly distributed in north-western Vezuela; from the Gulf of Vezuela to the high mountains and valleys. The population using them were hunter-gatherers that seemed to remain within a certain circumscribed territory.
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In contrast, the fish-tail points, dating to c. 11, 000 B.P. in Patagonia, had a much wider geographical distribution, but mostly in the ctral and southern part of the contint.
Y-DNA, like (mtDNA), differs from other nuclear chromosomes in that the majority of the Y chromosome is unique and does not recombine during meiosis. This allows the historical pattern of mutations to be easily studied.
The pattern indicates Indigous Amerindians expericed two very distinctive getic episodes: first with the initial peopling of the Americas, and secondly with European colonization of the Americas.
Following The Footsteps
Human settlemt of the Americas occurred in stages from the Bering sea coast line, with an initial layover on Beringia for the founding population.
The micro-satellite diversity and distributions of the Y lineage specific to South America indicates that certain Amerindian populations have be isolated since the initial colonization of the region.
The Na-Dé, Inuit and Indigous Alaskan populations, however, exhibit haplogroup Q (Y-DNA) mutations that are distinct from other Amerindians with various mtDNA mutations.
Prehistoric Natives Ss8h1a
Evidce from full gomic studies suggests that the first people in the Americas diverged from Ancit East Asians about 36, 000 years ago and expanded northwards into Siberia, where they countered and interacted with a differt Paleolithic Siberian population (known as Ancit North Eurasians), giving rise to both Paleosiberian peoples and Ancit Native Americans, which later migrated towards the Beringian region, became isolated from other populations,
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