First Settlers Of America: Who Were They, And How And When Did They Arrive?
When was America first settled? This has been a question whose answer continues to be a subject of debate, although there is plenty of archaeological evidence that suggests that the first settlers of America did not come all at once or colonize the entire continent.
There are several theories about who were the first to set foot on the American continent, when they did so, and how they expanded. There is even a theory that maintains that, in a similar way to what happened in Europe with the Neanderthals, there was some type of hominid interbreeding.
Whatever theory is preferred, today we are going to talk about the debate surrounding who were the first settlers of America and what dates are proposed as the first moments in which this great territory was inhabited, which seems to have been earning the nickname of being the New World since ancient times.
Understanding who the first settlers of America were and how they got there is a topic that has sparked a wide and arduous debate in the international scientific community. There are several theories that have been put forward to explain how the American continent was populated, when it happened and in what way. There are those who believe it was about 15,000 years ago and others much earlier, almost 40,000 years ago
One of the most shared and famous theories is that the first humans set foot in America at most 20,000 years ago, through the Bering Strait, coming from Asia. Others, however, consider that this does not explain how the south of the continent could be inhabited so quickly after such an event and that, in fact, everything indicates that there were already people living in South America, coming from Polynesia and Australasia.
The hypotheses about the occupation of America
The human beings who first set foot on the American continent are considered the ancestors of the famous Inca, Mayan, Aztec and Native American cultures of the United States and Canada, among other ethnic groups. However, The moment in which they set foot on the continent is something that has always sparked great debate and has required a lot of scientific effort to elucidate how the first colonization occurred of the continent.
Native mythology, although rich and fascinating, does not clarify things much for us. For example, if we ask the Navajo culture, they maintain that the first men emerged from the earth, that their people have been living there forever and that they have never, ever, been able to come from outside. They, and other Amerindian tribes, believe in their respective worldviews that their lineages go back to the creation of the Earth and that that was precisely the continent where they lived, and that they have not moved from there.
This belief in coming from the earth is proof of how very old their cultures are, that they no longer even remember where they come from but rather attribute that they have always been there. But, of course, that’s not the case, they had to come from somewhere, and Archaeology, paleontology and population genetics have provided evidence of the origins of the different pre-Columbian ethnic groups
Based on the different discoveries made on the continent, three main theories have been considered that would explain how human beings first arrived in America.
Isolationist or evolutionary position
This theory suggests that, in one way or another, American civilizations originated on the continent itself as a result of the evolution of hominids that were found there That is, before the Homo sapiensother hominids were already found on the continent and, evolving and hybridizing with more modern humans, they created human cultures of unique lineages, something similar to what happened in Europe with the Neanderthals.
The defenders of these theories, among the most controversial, use as evidence of these hypotheses the cultivation of cassava, corn, potatoes, quinoa, chili and cocoa, plants unknown on other continents.
Among the main representatives of this theory we find the Argentine paleontologist Florentino Ameghino (1853-1911) and Charles Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg (1814-1874). These ideas had some acceptance in the scientific community, since fossil remains of hominids not belonging to the species have been found. Homo sapiensmore than 130,000 years old.
Diffusionist positions
The diffusionist positions They maintain, mainly, that Paleolithic cultures arrived in America by crossing the Bering Strait, between the Russian autonomous district of Chukotka and the US state of Alaska. The first Americans themselves used as a bridge the ice route that had been created between Siberia and North America, formed from the last ice age.
Within this position there are also theories that maintain that human beings came from Polynesia. These contingent waves of humans spread across the continent for hundreds of years. According to the theory, They would be humans from regions such as Oceania, Europe and Asia, something that would explain certain genetic characteristics of some groups of Native Americans that still remain
eclectic position
Finally we find a more eclectic position, in which approaches from the two positions previously stated are combined This considers that there are certain cultural traits that are indigenous to America but that, also, there had to be some type of influence from outside, contributions from other cultures that, when merged with the humans who lived there, created the truly Amerindian.
Theories of multiple migrations
It was long believed that the first settlers of America were the Clovis culture, the name given to the human group from Asia that had crossed the Bering Strait and arrived in North America. This culture would have first set foot in the current United States and Canada at the earliest about 20,000 years ago, a date that North American academics claimed was the oldest time in which the American continent had been populated.
However, while this would be true for North America, it could not be extrapolated to the rest of the continent. Findings from other places further south confirm that there were human beings before those 20,000 years, with some considering that there could have been human activity about 40,000 years ago Genetics also refutes the idea that they reached northern America and from there they spread throughout the rest of the continent.
There is a marked decoupling between the native cultures of North and South America, evidenced in linguistic, geographical and even genetic differences, a fact that confirms that The American peoples prior to the arrival of the Europeans were the result of different migrations In Peru, for example, genetic lineages of Polynesian origin have been found. Thus, many scientists consider that the American continent was originally populated in several batches, a theory which is called the theory of multiple migrations.
In Brazil, for example, objects from more than 30,000 years ago have been found; in Venezuela, tools from 14,000 years ago; In Chile there are human remains that are about 30,000 years old, while in North America they are only 10,000 and 12,000 years old. That is, there seems to be evidence that, Although the first settlers of the current United States and Canada did so by crossing the Bering Strait, in the south of the continent the first humans would have reached there through other steps, from the Pacific, Asia and Oceania. The discoveries in southern Mexico would confirm this idea.
In July 2020, a new discovery was made in the Mexican state of Zacatecas, in the Chiquihuite cave. What was found there suggests that humans inhabited the continent about 15,000 years earlier than previously believed, because thanks to radiocarbon and optically stimulated luminescence techniques, Scientists were able to determine the age of the remains, estimated at about 33,000 years This confirms the idea that there were people there before the end of the Last Glacial Maximum (20,000 years ago).
The skeleton of Chan Hol ll
One of the most important archaeological finds to determine when the first settlers of America lived is the skeleton of Chan Hol II, in the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico.
The bone remains found dated back to the late Pleistocene, during the last ice age The team in charge of the discovery was led by Professor Dr. Wolfgang Stinnesbecl and biologist Arturo González González, dating the skeleton to at least 13,000 years ago based on a stalagmite that had grown in the hip bone.
The human fossils were discovered in a flooded cave system near Tulum, Quintana Roo. After the first discovery in the area, more human remains were found, each one named with a characteristic nickname: The Woman of Naharon, The Woman of the Palms, The Man of the Temple, Naia and the skeleton of Chan Hol II.
According to scientists, this cave system was above sea level. However, following the global rise in sea levels at the end of the Ice Age, The caves remained under water, protecting in good condition the bone remains of ancient settlers of the American continent, bones that have been of great scientific relevance on the question of when and how the first settlers of America lived.
