migration of tribal groups from asia – america during the ice age

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    Research paper

    Migration of tribal groups from Asia America during the Ice Age

    Much has been said about how the first humans reached the

    Americas and there are several hypotheses that try to explain this

    fact, however, scientists agree on the same idea, the first humans to

    arrive in the New World moved from Asia to the Americas through the

    Bering Strait during the last Ice Age of the Pleistocene, which took

    place approximately between 110,000 to 10,000 years before the

    present time or BP.

    Some theories state that humans might have travelled by boat

    those 55 miles that separate the two continents, as theres evidence

    that others reached Australia about 40,000 years ago, still the

    strongest theory assumes that they did it by land, migrating along a

    pack of ice called Beringia, which connected Siberia to the north west

    of Canada working as a bridge for the migrating humans.

    Even though modern humans crossed the Beringia, it is said it

    took them thousands of years until they reached the north of the

    Americas and finally entered the New World and these certainties are

    proved by genetic archaeologists that state: There is much genetic

    diversity in the first population than was previously thought in

    comparison to the humans in Asia. For according to genetic

    archaeologists humans endured the extremely cold weather in the

    Beringia area for a long period. According to Ripan Malhi, a geneticist

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    in the department of anthropology at the University of Illinois: The

    ancestors of Native Americans who first left Siberia perhaps as much

    as 30,000 years ago, came to a standstill on Beringia, a landmass

    that extended from Northeastern Siberia to Western Alaska, and they

    were isolated long enough as much as 15,000- to maturate and

    differentiate themselves genetically from their Asian brothers.

    Why did the homo sapiens migrate to the north crossing the

    landmass that joined the continents? The answer is: because they

    were following their sustenance, since it is well proved that by that

    time the modern human in Asia and Siberia was a skillful hunter, who

    chased several animals like mammoths, mastodons, bisons and deer,

    which began to migrate to the New World and consequently, led the

    first Natives of America to new lands unknown to them. However,

    these hunters were so fierce that they butchered almost all the

    animals on the area and soon had to move looking for more

    mammals following the herds, therefore, little by little they entered

    the Americas peopling the northwest of the Canadian area known as

    Yukon, where great findings were made in Old Crow Basin such as it

    is stated in the National Geographic Magazine (September 1979):

    And here we emerge from the realm of speculation into

    archaeological acceptance - the earliest widely acknowledged

    occupation site in the New World, carbon dated to at least 27,000

    years ago.. A prominent discovery on this area is a fossil bone from

    a caribou, carbon dated to be 27,000 years old and used as a tool to

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    remove flesh and/or hides from animals, which shows a clear

    evidence of human manufacture

    During this time, Canada and the northern part of United States

    were almost completely covered with ice, nevertheless, there is a

    hypothesis which states that about 25,000 to 10,000 BP there were

    two huge ice sheets called the Laurentiade in the east and the

    Cordilleran in the west, which had a passage in between called the

    Ice free Corridor, this extent was free of ice and early humans could

    follow herds along this corridor to Central North America and

    subsequently, to Central America and South America.

    Some archaeologists believe that the true discoverers of the

    New World and first inhabitants of the Americas were the Clovis

    people, who migrated through Beringia going down along the Ice

    Free Corridor and settling near a town called Clovis, in New Mexico,

    where different types of evidence, including a mammoth fossil

    skeleton with a spear-point in its ribs, were found. However, not all

    archaeologists accept this version, for there are some who claim that

    there have been earlier inhabitants called Pre Clovis in other areas

    such as Dutton and Selby, but there is still no solid evidence to

    support this new argument.

    The Clovis People, who belonged to the early Paleo-Indian Era

    (approximately 12,000 years BP) used the animals hides to make

    their clothes, which they tailored with precision, for protection against

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    the inclement weather. They were also hunters and foragers, they

    hunted animals like mammoth, bison, horse and camel and they did it

    using a highly mobile hunting strategy and fluted spear points as

    weapons which they made and were found much later on the

    discovery area mentioned before. These samples of spear points

    show how developed the Clovis people were, being considered by the

    Wiscosin Historical Society members as ingenious, when they state:

    The Early Paleo-Indian tradition is characterized by the distinct

    production of fluted projectile points, which possess a longitudinal

    groove, or flute on one or both faces. Fluted points are an example of

    the incredible ingenuity and resourcefulness of the early peoples that

    inhabited North America

    All things considered, I strongly believe in the theory developed

    before, since they rely on findings made by professionals. It is a fact

    that human beings are deeply involved in knowing more about their

    past as if this reassured their existence and showed them their

    purpose in life, which would be fundamentally surviving, that is why

    thanks to uncounted researchers we are able to know more about our

    ancestors and it is my belief that the early Natives of the Americas

    have survived throughout history, unintentionally peopling the New

    World. They are then, a sample of the faculty and potential our

    species has and quite deserving, the owners of the title of the most

    developed species in the world.

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    Sources

    http://www.geneticarchaeology.com/research/researchers posit new ideas.

    National Geographic Magazine, September 1979, pages 330 363.

    http://yukon.taiga.net/vuntutrda/archaeol/pleis.htm

    http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/museum/artifacts

    http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/08071193203.htm

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    http://www.geneticarchaeology.com/research/researchershttp://www.wisconsinhistory.org/museum/artifactshttp://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/08071193203.htmhttp://www.geneticarchaeology.com/research/researchershttp://www.wisconsinhistory.org/museum/artifactshttp://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/08071193203.htm