I.

Introduction

First Americans, the earliest humans to arrive in the Americas. The first people to come to the Americas arrived in the Western Hemisphere during the late Pleistocene Epoch (1.6 million to 10,000 years before present). Most scholars believe that these ancient ancestors of modern Native Americans were hunter-gatherers who migrated to the Americas from northeastern Asia.

For much of the 20th century it was widely believed the first Americans were the Clovis people, known by their distinctive spearpoints and other tools found across North America. The earliest Clovis sites date to 11,500 years ago. However, recent excavations in South America show that people have lived in the Americas at least 12,500 years. A growing body of evidence—from other archaeological sites to studies of the languages and genetic heritage of Native Americans—suggests the first Americans may have arrived even earlier.

Many of the details concerning the first settlement of the Americas remain shrouded in mystery. Today the search for answers involves researchers from diverse fields, including archaeology, linguistics, skeletal anatomy, and molecular biology. The challenge for researchers is to find evidence that can help determine when the first settlers arrived, how these people made their way into the Americas, and if migrating groups traveled by different routes and in multiple waves. Some archaeologists and physical anthropologists have suggested that one or more of these migrations originated from places outside of Asia, although this view is not widely accepted.

Whoever they were and whenever they arrived, the first Americans faced extraordinary challenges. These hardy settlers encountered a vast, trackless new world, one rich in animals and plants and yet entirely without other peoples. As they entered new territories, they had to locate essential resources, such as water, food, and materials to make or repair their tools. They had to learn which of the unfamiliar animals and plants would feed or cure them and which might hurt or kill them. Their efforts ultimately proved successful. By the time European exploration of the Americas began in the late 15th century, the descendants of these ancient colonizers numbered in the millions.