Settlement of the Americas

Under the settlement of America, the colonization history of the Americas is generally understood, that is the history of the (international ) immigration as opposed to mere discoveries America without branches. It is discussed among linguists, archaeologists, anthropologists, geneticists and anthropologists still a lot, especially what the time, but also with regard to the route. According to the current state of research the Native Americans migrated at the end of the last ice age, referred to in North America as the Wisconsin glaciation (Wisconsin glaciation ), in not more than 15,000 years in several waves a.

Genetic studies show that the ancestors of the recent Americans have reached the continent earlier than 18,000 years ago. For their assessment, the researchers had examined specific regions of the Y chromosome in today's Native Americans. Here they discovered a mutation that also carry today's Asians that occurred in the human genome probably 18,000 years ago. The separation between Asians and Americans would therefore have to be made ​​later.

Theories of first settlement

Since the 1930s, the discovery of the Clovis culture, most scientists assumed that the first settlement of the Americas took place after the end of the Ice Age 11500-10000 years ago about the Beringia land bridge. On the basis of radiocarbon dates are secured finds of the so-called Nenana Complex in Alaska dated to 11,500 BP, which corresponds to a calibrated calendar age of about 11,500 BC. Even older datings were known in 2011 from excavations at the " Debra L. Friedkin Site" in Texas, where Fund layers with stone tools have been dated 15500-13200 years ago. Although therefore the question of immigration over Alaska is archaeologically not used directly, the " Beringiakorridor " is still the generally accepted theory for the colonization of the Americas.

Today, anthropologists and archaeologists tend supported on both genetic analyzes such as linguistic studies of at least three waves of migration from Siberia:

  • The first and by far the most important wave in the late Pleistocene at the end of the Ice Age populated the continent around 15,500 years ago, when only mammoths, horses and ground sloths.
  • The second wave brought the ancestors of the Na - Dene Indians, who settled mainly in Alaska and western Canada. Some groups, the ancestors of the Diné and Apache Indians, attracted over the millennia to the southwest of the present United States.
  • With the third wave, the ancestors of the Inuit, Yupik Unungun and arrived in Alaska.

Some believe because of linguistic analysis between the first and the Na - Dene - wave to another wave, came with the ancestors of the Algonquian to America.

On the origin of the first American settlers following theories have been proposed:

Widely accepted theories

  • The Bering Strait Theory: This theory is the only one for which there is plenty of archaeological evidence and is therefore represented by most scientists. It says that during the last ice age, or until the end of the ice age, ie at least 11,500 years ago ( more than 35,000 years ago) from East Asia coming hunter-gatherers entered the American continent for the first time. Where there is now the Bering Strait, they came across a wide land bridge ( Beringia ), which was caused by the low water level during the last glaciation, of the then deserted continent. However, they were prevented by the Laurentide ice sheet and the glaciers of the Coast Mountains from further hike by the then largely ice-free Alaska to the south. It was only about 11,500 years, an ice-free corridor between the glaciated Coast Mountains and the Laurentide ice sheet in today's Yukon Territory opened. About a thousand years later met one of the first groups on the southern tip of South America.
  • The Coastal Theory: According to this theory, sailors spread 15000-13500 years ago from Japan and Southeast Siberia Coming along the ice-free at that time already Aleutian Islands and the West Coast and eventually populated the whole continent to the southern tip of Tierra del Fuego. Although at that time prevailed until the next cold snap of the Younger Dryas almost interglacial climate conditions, the detection of early coastal settlement is problematic because 15000-13500 years ago, the sea level was much lower than today. Possible sites are underneath water.
  • A combination of Bering Strait and coastal theory holds first - weak - immigration along the coast more than 15,000 years ago, probably followed by a much stronger immigration around 11,500 years ago. With this combined theory can best be all archaeological, anthropological and genetic studies can be reconciled.

Numerous finds in Siberia and America speak for both the Bering Strait theory as well as for coastal theory. To explain the difference in time between the departure into Asia around 25,000 years ago and the arrival of the first humans in the Americas about 15,000 years ago, a long stay in the range of Beringia is discussed. The reason for the delayed train the strong glacier in America and the particular suitability of Beringia for a human settlement apply because by climatic factors prevailing there a tundra -like vegetation, particularly trees and thus firewood offered.

Large uncertainty was created in 1996 by the discovery of the Kennewick Man in Washington state. The Kennewick Man is one to about 7300 BC ( 8410 ± 60 uncal. BP) dated skeleton whose characteristics do not coincide with those of the modern Indians. Contrary to the initial interpretation as " Caucasoid ", ie European, Kennewick Man is rather with the Ainu, the indigenous people of northern Japan to compare. Thus his Fund could support the coastal theory.

In the years 2002/ 03 ( Oregon ) have been found fossilized excrement with human DNA in the Paisley Caves, which are 14,300 years old and their genes have in common with people from Siberia. This tendency was confirmed by the findings in the Buttermilk Creek Complex in Texas, which were dated 2011, an age 15500-13200 years BP and so far are the oldest human finds in America. Other sites, whose age was reported to be more than 13,000 years, such as from NETHE Guidon examined rock art in Brazil, stone tools in the United States or alleged human footprints in Mexico, have been refuted by checking against.

A 2010 published study showed that the Late Pleistocene inhabitants of North America differ significantly ( Paläoindianer ) in morphological features of the skull of the younger Indians, pre-Columbian age. The former correspond to findings of Shandingdong people in Zhoukoudian and Melanesians, the later are more closely related to modern Asians. The authors conclude on two colonization waves whose last common ancestors who lived in Asia.

The most comprehensive analysis of the genetic characteristics of the Indians were published in 2012: support the three-phase theory of immigration across Beringia, confirming earlier genetic, morphological and linguistic theories. Were examined 364 470 individual genetic characteristics of members from 52 nations in all parts of the Americas, 17 ethnic groups of the eastern parts of Asia and 57 other populations in other parts of the world as reference material. Influences of Europeans and African- Americans have been excluded from the data of the Indians and then applied a neighbor-joining algorithm to determine degrees of relationship. The resulting tree is with few exceptions the geographical distribution of the peoples of Siberia and Alaska and continues north to south again, so is consistent with a direct and rapid spread of people to the Americas to the south. Deviations are in Central America, where they refer to secondary movements within this space in reverse direction. For this pattern fall two groups out: The Chipewyan fit only to 90% in this scheme, so that analysts expect a second wave of immigrants and directly over the ice-free corridor between the Laurentide ice sheet and the glaciated coastal mountains in the center of North America the later prairie regions are penetrated. And the inhabitants of the North American Arctic cover only 57% of the genetic data of the first immigrants, so that here the third wave is assumed. 2014 was also the first time a member of the Clovis culture from the only known Clovis grave Anzick at Wilsal, are assigned to immigrants from Asia by DNA Montana.

For more information on the spread of people in North America resulting from a comparative dating of projectile points of various types. Only since the 21st century are from the Paisley Caves before datable finds of so-called Western stemmed points that lie in the Great Basin and elsewhere in the region between the Rocky Mountains to the east and the Pacific near- coastal mountains to the west. They were now recognized as the same time as widespread throughout eastern North America Clovis points. Thus, a wave of immigrants along the coast would have other tools developed than the immigrants in the eastern part of the continent.

Scientific theories discussed

  • Initial colonization of the South American Pacific coast: New finds have according to some researchers suggest that people from the territories of present-day Japan, China and Southeast Asia could be already gone at the end of the last ice age across the Pacific. Controversial dating of up to 15,000 BP fireplaces with stone tools and bones are from the find site of Monte Verde in Chile. The investigated under the direction of archaeologist Tom Dillehay of the University of Kentucky find site offers evidence that colonization of Patagonia and the Chilean coast was. The great age of scientific dating of Monte Verde is controversial, as well as that of South African rock art.
  • Oceania Theory: According sailors had crossed from the Pacific Ocean and South Pacific ago would have landed on the west coasts of North America, or South America. For this theory of 11000-11500 year old women skull of Luzia is used by some in Brazil, where some scientists recognize Austro- Melanesian trains, although this classification by the Brazilian anthropologist from the University of São Paulo Walter Neves, the skull the is analyzed by Luzia rejected. That would mean that the woman is related to the current inhabitants of the Southwest Pacific ( Micronesia, Melanesia, Australia, the Philippines). Due to the well- dated arrival times of the Polynesians on the various Pacific island groups ( the relatively nearby at America archipelagos such as Hawaii or the Easter Island were still not more than 1500 years reached) and a lack of linguistic, genetic and cultural similarities between Polynesians and Indians but excluded that South America was colonized directly from the South Pacific Islands and Australia here. More likely is that the Austro- Melanesian groups formerly lived on the north ( approximately today the " Negritos " of the Philippines ) and from here via North Pacific coasts early America reached ( cf. coastal theory and the theory of the colonization of South America ago ).
  • Some archaeologists make bone finds of the Bluefish Caves in the Yukon Territory claimed to be the oldest settlement in North America evidence. Archaeological research since the 70s have since at least 8000 to demonstrate in these caves, the presence of human BC. The adoption of archaeologists excavating there, even up to 25,000 year old bones are manipulated by people, as well as two respected as deductions stones are rejected by the scientific community archeology continues to be unanimous. Since the up to 30,000 -year-old finds at the Yana Rhinoceros Horn Site (in short: Yana RHS ) near the mouth of the river Jana in Eastern Siberia, the discussion oldest sites in the American Northwest, however, receives a new boost.
  • Kon Tiki: Thor Heyerdahl showed in 1974 by the Kon-Tiki expedition that could be traveled with prehistoric resources of the Pacific Ocean between South East Asia, Easter Island and the central coast of South America. Statements about the actual origins are not involved.
  • Atlantic theory also Solutrean Hypothesis: The stone tools of the Clovis culture have a certain similarity with stone tools of Solutrean culture, a culture that were native to the period of about 22000-16500 ago today in today's areas of France, Portugal and Spain. Therefore, this fact can also be a direct immigration from Europe to consider if you can ignore the fact that a time gap of about 5000 years between the end of the Solutrean and the beginning of the Clovis culture is. According to this theory the immigrants crossed the Atlantic to the far-reaching in the south polar cap along and landed on the east coast of North America. The theory was first represented by linguist Richard Fester, the grounds of which linguistic similarities controversial European and North American languages. A new systematic compilation of archaeological findings occurred in 2012 in the publication " Across Atlantic Ice - The Origin of America's Clovis Culture" of the two archaeologists Dennis Stanford of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington and Bruce Bradley of the University of Exeter. Here in particular, a stone blade tip with all the features of the Solutrean artifacts are presented in detail in addition to the production characteristics and the parallel in the tool Disposal, which was found in the 70's off the coast of New England. The Solutrean theory can not be represented since 2014 after DNA analysis of Clovisfunds of Anzick.

Besides Scientific Theories

Since New and Old World have permanent contact, that is, since the trips of Columbus, numerous hypotheses and theories about possible pre-Columbian contacts have been established. Most of these theories are either canceled or are based on weak evidence and have strong contradictions, so that the scientific community generally rejects this outright. Many of the theories are based on historical revisionist ideas. Some of the most popular or most historically advocated theses are presented here.

  • The Atlantis theory and derived theories: These theories of the 19th and 20th centuries assume that America has been colonized by now-defunct continents such as Atlantis. Such assumptions are based for example on the mythology of the Hopi Indians. The "land -bridge hypothesis " and " areas of eternal spring " are described for millennia ( Atlantis ) and are clearly and scientifically falsifiable. So Greenland is covered with ice for at least 200,000 years ( Greenland Ice Core Project) and a land bridge between Europe and America have been around since the birth of the Atlantic Ocean by continental drift and seafloor spreading since about 135 million years ago, not anymore.
  • The Bible Theory: In colonial times they tried to answer the question of the settlement of America with the help of the Bible. Thus, it was thought, for example, that the Indians are descended from the ten Jewish tribes who were expelled from Israel.
  • The Book of Mormon Theory: In this religious book of Joseph Smith, the settlement of America is described after the Tower of Babel. These first immigrants ( Jaredites ) destroyed itself in civil wars. Next the book tells of two groups of Israelites who, independently BC came with about 600 ships to America. These peoples brought together around 300 BC another. After several splits and reunions, the part which caused the records of the people, destroyed.
  • The Madoc theory: According to legend, the Welsh Prince Madoc is evaded in 1169 a dispute over inheritance and sailed westward. He should be gone on to Mobile Bay in present-day U.S. state of Alabama. Then he returned to Wales to break up again a year later to America. With his group, he is said to have settled in the territory of Georgia, Kentucky or Tennessee. Advocates of this theory see some indications that the Mandan are the descendants of this group. Thus, similar to the language of the Mandan Welsh, their culture have included Welsh elements, their mythology have met about the Madoc story and George Rogers Clark, the brother of William Clark, found a grave stone with the date 1186 in Indiana, 1799. In the stone you exhumed six skeletons that would have put on a chest plate made ​​of brass, the Welsh coat of arms engraved.

Filled later colonization stages

Christopher Columbus

1492 met the Genoese navigator Christopher Columbus in America, in an attempt to find a new sea route to India. This was followed by what is referred to as the European discovery of America. The double continent was taken gradually by European powers in possession and colonized. The indigenous population, including their cultures was thereby often pushed back. European immigrants and their descendants and Africans deported as slaves would mark almost the entire continent.

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