Paleo Indians
Encyclopedia
Paleo-Indians or Paleoamericans is a classification term given to the first peoples
who entered, and subsequently inhabited, the American continent during the final glacial episodes
of the late Pleistocene period
. The prefix "paleo" comes from the Greek
adjective palaios (παλαιός) meaning "old." The term Paleo-Indians applies specifically to the lithic period
in the Western Hemisphere
and is distinct from the term Paleolithic
.
Evidence suggests big-game hunters crossed the Bering Strait
from Asia (Eurasia) into North America over a land and ice bridge (Beringia), that existed between 45,000 BCE
– 12,000 BCE (47,000 – 14,000 years ago). Small isolated groups of hunter-gatherer
s migrated alongside herds of large herbivores far into Alaska
. From 16,500 BCE – 13,500 BCE (18,500 – 15,500 years ago), ice-free corridors developed along the Pacific coast and valleys of North America. This allowed animals, followed by humans, to migrate south into the interior. The people went on foot or used primitive boats along the coastline. The precise dates and routes of the peopling of the New World
are subject to ongoing debate.
Stone tools, particularly projectile points and scraper
s, are the primary evidence of the earliest human activity in the Americas. Crafted lithic flake
d tools are used by archaeologists and anthropologists to classify cultural periods. Scientific evidence links indigenous Americans
to Asian peoples, specifically eastern Siberian populations
. Indigenous peoples of the Americas have been linked to North Asian populations by linguistic factors
, the distribution of blood types, and in genetic composition
as reflected by molecular
data, such as DNA
. Between 8000 BCE – 7000 BCE (10,000 – 9,000 years ago) the climate stabilized, leading to a rise in population and lithic technology
advances, resulting in a more sedentary lifestyle
.
. These people are believed to have followed herds of now-extinct pleistocene
megafauna
along ice-free corridors that stretched between the Laurentide
and Cordilleran
ice sheets. Another route proposed is that, either on foot or using primitive boats, they migrated down the Pacific coast to South America. Evidence of the latter would since have been covered by a sea level rise of hundreds of meters following the last ice age.
Archaeologists contend that Paleo-Indians migration out of Beringia (eastern Alaska
), ranges from 40,000 to around 16,500 years ago. This time range is a hot source of debate and promises to continue as such for years to come. The few agreements achieved to date are the origin from Central Asia
, with widespread habitation of the Americas during the end of the last glacial period, or more specifically what is known as the late glacial maximum, around 16,000 – 13,000 years before present. However, alternative theories
exist, including migration from Europe.
Sites in Alaska (East Beringia) are where some of the earliest evidence has been found of Paleo-Indians, followed by archaeological sites in northern British Columbia
, western Alberta
and the Old Crow Flats
region in the Yukon
. The Paleo-Indian would eventually flourish all over the Americas, primarily based in the Great Plains
of the United States
and Canada
, with offshoots as far east as mainland Nova Scotia
on the Atlantic coast
, and as far south as Chile
, Monte Verde
. 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 identifiable. This early Paleo-Indian period lithic reduction
tool adaptations have been found across the Americas, utilized by highly mobile bands consisting of approximately 20 to 60 members of an extended family. Food would have been plentiful 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 root
s could be found in the forests and marshes. The fall would have been 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.
Late ice age climatic changes caused plant communities and animal populations to change. Groups moved from place to place as preferred resources were depleted and new supplies were sought. Small bands utilized hunting and gathering during the spring and summer months, then broke into smaller direct family groups for the fall and winter. Family groups moved every 3–6 days, possibly covering up to 360 km (223.7 mi) a year. Diets were often sustaining and rich in protein due to successful hunting. Clothing was made from a variety of animal hides that were also used for shelter construction. During much of the Early and Middle Paleo-Indian periods, inland bands are thought to have subsisted primarily through hunting now-extinct megafauna
. Large pleistocene mammals were the giant beaver
, steppe wisent
, musk ox
, mastodons, woolly mammoths and ancient reindeer
(early caribou).
The Clovis culture
appearing around 11,500 BCE (13,500 years ago), undoubtedly did not rely exclusively on megafauna for subsistence. Instead, they employed a mixed foraging strategy that included smaller terrestrial game, aquatic animals, and a variety of flora. Paleo-Indian groups were efficient hunters and carried a variety of tools. These included highly efficient fluted style
spear points, as well as microblades
used for butchering and hide processing. Projectile points and hammerstone
s made from many sources are found traded or moved to new locations. Stone tools were traded and/or left behind from North Dakota
and Northwest Territories
, to Montana
and Wyoming
. Trade routes also have been found from the British Columbia Interior
to the coast of California
.
The glaciers
that covered the northern half of the continent began to gradually melt, exposing new land for occupation starting from 17,500 to 14,500 years ago. At the same time as this was occurring, world wide extinction
s among the large mammals began. In North America, camels and horses eventually died off, the latter not to reappear on the continent until the Spanish
reintroduced the species near the end of the 15th century CE
. As the Quaternary extinction event was happening the Late Paleo-Indians would have relied more on other means of subsistence pattern.
10,500 BCE – 9,500 BCE (12,500 – 11,500 years ago), the broad-spectrum big game hunters of the great plains begun to focus on a single animal species: the bison
(an early cousin of the American Bison
). The earliest known of these bison oriented hunting traditions is the Folsom tradition
s. 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 precessing some meat, then moving on. Paleo-Indian were not numerous and population densities were quite low.
The Archaic period in the Americas saw a changing environment featuring a warmer more arid
climate and the disappearance of the last megafauna. The majority of population groups at this time were still highly mobile hunter-gatherers, but now individual groups started to focus on resources available to them locally. Thus with the passage of time there is a pattern of increasing regional generalization like the Southwest, Arctic
, Poverty
, Dalton
and Plano
traditions. These regional adaptations would become the norm, with reliance less on hunting and gathering, and a more mixed economy
of small game, fish
, seasonally wild vegetables
and harvested plant foods. Many groups continued as big game hunters, but their hunting traditions became more varied and meat procurement methods more sophisticated. The placement of artifacts and materials within an Archaic burial site indicated social differentiation based upon status in some groups.
or lithic core
"styles" and by regional adaptations. 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. The point was then tied onto a spear of wood or bone. As the environment changed due to the ice age ending around 16,000 – 14,000 years ago, many animals migrated over the land 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. But, Pacific coastal groups of the period would have relied on fishing as the prime source of sustenance.
Archaeologists are piecing together evidence that the earliest human settlements in North America were thousands of years before the appearance of the current Paleo-Indian time frame (before the late glacial maximum 20,000 plus years ago). Evidence indicates that peoples were living as far east as northern Yukon, in the glacier-free zone called Beringia before 30,000 BCE (32,000 years ago). Until recently, it was generally believed that the first Paleo-Indian peoples to arrive in North America belonged to the Clovis culture. This archaeological phase was named after the town of Clovis, New Mexico
, where in 1936 unique Clovis point
s were found in situ at the site of Blackwater Draw
, where they were directly associated with the bones of Pleistocene
animals.
Recent 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 located near Cactus Hill
in Virginia
, Meadowcroft Rockshelter in Pennsylvania
, Monte Verde
in Chile
, Topper
in South Carolina
, and Quintana Roo
in Mexico
have generated 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. Geological evidence suggests the Pacific coastal route was open for overland travel before 23,000 years ago and after 16,000 years ago.
s, lowfrontals, marked post-orbital constriction, prominent and protruding occipitals
, small mastoids
, long crania and a relatively narrow bizygomatic breadth".
most commonly associated with indigenous Amerindian genetics is Haplogroup Q1a3a (Y-DNA). Y-DNA, like (mtDNA), differs from other nuclear chromosome
s 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 Indigenous Amerindians
experienced two very distinctive genetic episodes; first with the initial peopling of the Americas
, and secondly with European colonization of the Americas
. The former is the determinant factor for the number of gene
lineages and founding haplotype
s present in today's Indigenous Amerindian populations
.
Human settlement of the New World
occurred in stages from the Bering sea coast line
, with an initial 20,000-year 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 been isolated since the initial colonization of the region. The Na-Dené, Inuit
and Indigenous Alaskan
populations, however, exhibit haplogroup Q (Y-DNA)
mutations that are distinct from other indigenous Amerindians with various mtDNA mutations. This suggests that the earliest migrants into the northern extremes of North America and Greenland
derived from later migrant populations.
Indigenous peoples
Indigenous peoples are ethnic groups that are defined as indigenous according to one of the various definitions of the term, there is no universally accepted definition but most of which carry connotations of being the "original inhabitants" of a territory....
who entered, and subsequently inhabited, the American continent during the final glacial episodes
Quaternary glaciation
Quaternary glaciation, also known as the Pleistocene glaciation, the current ice age or simply the ice age, refers to the period of the last few million years in which permanent ice sheets were established in Antarctica and perhaps Greenland, and fluctuating ice sheets have occurred elsewhere...
of the late Pleistocene period
Late Pleistocene
The Late Pleistocene is a stage of the Pleistocene Epoch. The beginning of the stage is defined by the base of the Eemian interglacial phase before the final glacial episode of the Pleistocene 126,000 ± 5,000 years ago. The end of the stage is defined exactly at 10,000 Carbon-14 years BP...
. The prefix "paleo" comes from the Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
adjective palaios (παλαιός) meaning "old." The term Paleo-Indians applies specifically to the lithic period
Lithic stage
In the sequence of North American prehistoric cultural stages first proposed by Gordon Willey and Philip Phillips in 1958, the Lithic stage was the earliest period of human occupation in the Americas, accruing during the Late Pleistocene period, to time before 8,000 B.C....
in the Western Hemisphere
Western Hemisphere
The Western Hemisphere or western hemisphere is mainly used as a geographical term for the half of the Earth that lies west of the Prime Meridian and east of the Antimeridian , the other half being called the Eastern Hemisphere.In this sense, the western hemisphere consists of the western portions...
and is distinct from the term Paleolithic
Paleolithic
The Paleolithic Age, Era or Period, is a prehistoric period of human history distinguished by the development of the most primitive stone tools discovered , and covers roughly 99% of human technological prehistory...
.
Evidence suggests big-game hunters crossed the Bering Strait
Bering Strait
The Bering Strait , known to natives as Imakpik, is a sea strait between Cape Dezhnev, Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Russia, the easternmost point of the Asian continent and Cape Prince of Wales, Alaska, USA, the westernmost point of the North American continent, with latitude of about 65°40'N,...
from Asia (Eurasia) into North America over a land and ice bridge (Beringia), that existed between 45,000 BCE
Common Era
Common Era ,abbreviated as CE, is an alternative designation for the calendar era originally introduced by Dionysius Exiguus in the 6th century, traditionally identified with Anno Domini .Dates before the year 1 CE are indicated by the usage of BCE, short for Before the Common Era Common Era...
– 12,000 BCE (47,000 – 14,000 years ago). Small isolated groups of hunter-gatherer
Hunter-gatherer
A hunter-gatherer or forage society is one in which most or all food is obtained from wild plants and animals, in contrast to agricultural societies which rely mainly on domesticated species. Hunting and gathering was the ancestral subsistence mode of Homo, and all modern humans were...
s migrated alongside herds of large herbivores far into Alaska
Alaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
. From 16,500 BCE – 13,500 BCE (18,500 – 15,500 years ago), ice-free corridors developed along the Pacific coast and valleys of North America. This allowed animals, followed by humans, to migrate south into the interior. The people went on foot or used primitive boats along the coastline. The precise dates and routes of the peopling of the New World
New World
The New World is one of the names used for the Western Hemisphere, specifically America and sometimes Oceania . The term originated in the late 15th century, when America had been recently discovered by European explorers, expanding the geographical horizon of the people of the European middle...
are subject to ongoing debate.
Stone tools, particularly projectile points and scraper
Scraper (archaeology)
In archaeology, scrapers are unifacial tools that were used either for hideworking or woodworking purposes. Whereas this term is often used for any unifacially flaked stone tool that defies classification, most lithic analysts maintain that the only true scrapers are defined on the base of...
s, are the primary evidence of the earliest human activity in the Americas. Crafted lithic flake
Lithic flake
In archaeology, a lithic flake is a "portion of rock removed from an objective piece by percussion or pressure," and may also be referred to as a chip or spall, or collectively as debitage. The objective piece, or the rock being reduced by the removal of flakes, is known as a core. Once the proper...
d tools are used by archaeologists and anthropologists to classify cultural periods. Scientific evidence links indigenous Americans
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
to Asian peoples, specifically eastern Siberian populations
Indigenous peoples of Siberia
Including the Russian Far East, the population of Siberia numbers just above 40 million people.As a result of the 17th to 19th century Russian conquest of Siberia and the subsequent population movements during the Soviet era, the demographics of Siberia today is dominated by native speakers of...
. Indigenous peoples of the Americas have been linked to North Asian populations by linguistic factors
Indigenous languages of the Americas
Indigenous languages of the Americas are spoken by indigenous peoples from Alaska and Greenland to the southern tip of South America, encompassing the land masses which constitute the Americas. These indigenous languages consist of dozens of distinct language families as well as many language...
, the distribution of blood types, and in genetic composition
Genetic code
The genetic code is the set of rules by which information encoded in genetic material is translated into proteins by living cells....
as reflected by molecular
Molecule
A molecule is an electrically neutral group of at least two atoms held together by covalent chemical bonds. Molecules are distinguished from ions by their electrical charge...
data, such as DNA
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...
. Between 8000 BCE – 7000 BCE (10,000 – 9,000 years ago) the climate stabilized, leading to a rise in population and lithic technology
Lithic Technology
In archeology, lithic technology refers to a broad array of techniques and styles to produce usable tools from various types of stone. The earliest stone tools were recovered from modern Ethiopia and were dated to between two-million and three-million years old...
advances, resulting in a more sedentary lifestyle
Sedentary lifestyle
Sedentary lifestyle is a medical term used to denote a type of lifestyle with no or irregular physical activity. A person who lives a sedentary lifestyle may colloquially be known as a couch potato. It is commonly found in both the developed and developing world...
.
Migration into the Americas
The specifics of Paleo-Indian migration to and throughout the Americas, including the exact dates and routes traveled, are subject to ongoing research and discussion. The traditional theory has been that these early migrants moved into the Beringia land bridge between eastern Siberia and present-day Alaska around 40,000 – 17,000 years ago, when sea levels were significantly lowered due to the Quaternary glaciationQuaternary glaciation
Quaternary glaciation, also known as the Pleistocene glaciation, the current ice age or simply the ice age, refers to the period of the last few million years in which permanent ice sheets were established in Antarctica and perhaps Greenland, and fluctuating ice sheets have occurred elsewhere...
. These people are believed to have followed herds of now-extinct pleistocene
Pleistocene
The Pleistocene is the epoch from 2,588,000 to 11,700 years BP that spans the world's recent period of repeated glaciations. The name pleistocene is derived from the Greek and ....
megafauna
Megafauna
In terrestrial zoology, megafauna are "giant", "very large" or "large" animals. The most common thresholds used are or...
along ice-free corridors that stretched between the Laurentide
Laurentide ice sheet
The Laurentide Ice Sheet was a massive sheet of ice that covered hundreds of thousands of square miles, including most of Canada and a large portion of the northern United States, multiple times during Quaternary glacial epochs. It last covered most of northern North America between c. 95,000 and...
and Cordilleran
Cordilleran Ice Sheet
The Cordilleran ice sheet was a major ice sheet that covered, during glacial periods of the Quaternary, a large area of North America. This included the following areas:*Western Montana*The Idaho Panhandle...
ice sheets. Another route proposed is that, either on foot or using primitive boats, they migrated down the Pacific coast to South America. Evidence of the latter would since have been covered by a sea level rise of hundreds of meters following the last ice age.
Archaeologists contend that Paleo-Indians migration out of Beringia (eastern Alaska
Geography of Alaska
Alaska is one of two U.S. states not bordered by another state; Hawaii the other. Alaska has more ocean coastline than all of the other U.S. states combined. About of Canadian territory separate Alaska from Washington State. Alaska is thus an exclave of the United States that is part of the...
), ranges from 40,000 to around 16,500 years ago. This time range is a hot source of debate and promises to continue as such for years to come. The few agreements achieved to date are the origin from Central Asia
Central Asia
Central Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...
, with widespread habitation of the Americas during the end of the last glacial period, or more specifically what is known as the late glacial maximum, around 16,000 – 13,000 years before present. However, alternative theories
Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact
Theories of Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact are those theories that propose interaction between indigenous peoples of the Americas who settled the Americas before 10,000 BC, and peoples of other continents , which occurred before the arrival of Christopher Columbus in the Caribbean in 1492.Many...
exist, including migration from Europe.
Paleo-Indian periods
- See also: Paleo-Indians period (Canada) and History of Mesoamerica (Paleo-Indian)History of Mesoamerica (Paleo-Indian)In the History of Mesoamerica, the stage known as the Paleo-Indian period is the era in the scheme of Mesoamerican chronology which begins with the very first indications of human habitation within the Mesoamerican region, and continues until the general onset of the development of agriculture...
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...
, western Alberta
Alberta
Alberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...
and the Old Crow Flats
Old Crow Flats
Old Crow Flats is a wetland complex in northern Yukon, Canada. It is north of the Arctic Circle and south of the Beaufort Sea, and is nearly surrounded by mountains. The site is protected by the Yukon Wildlife Ordinance and Migratory Birds Convention Act...
region in the Yukon
Yukon
Yukon is the westernmost and smallest of Canada's three federal territories. It was named after the Yukon River. The word Yukon means "Great River" in Gwich’in....
. The Paleo-Indian would eventually flourish all over the Americas, primarily based in the Great Plains
Great Plains
The Great Plains are a broad expanse of flat land, much of it covered in prairie, steppe and grassland, which lies west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States and Canada. This area covers parts of the U.S...
of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, with offshoots as far east as mainland Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the most populous province in Atlantic Canada. The name of the province is Latin for "New Scotland," but "Nova Scotia" is the recognized, English-language name of the province. The provincial capital is Halifax. Nova Scotia is the...
on the Atlantic coast
Atlantic Coast
The Atlantic Coast is any coast fronting the Atlantic Ocean. The term differentiates the coasts of countries or continents with coastlines on more than one body of water, such as North America, South America, Africa and Europe.-See also:*Indian Ocean...
, and as far south as Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
, Monte Verde
Monte Verde
Monte Verde is an archaeological site in southern Chile, located in the northern Patagonia near Puerto Montt, Chile, which has been dated to 14,800 years BP . This dating adds to the evidence showing that settlement in the Americas pre-dates the Clovis culture by roughly 1000 years...
. 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 identifiable. This early Paleo-Indian period lithic reduction
Lithic reduction
Lithic reduction involves the use of a hard hammer precursor, such as a hammerstone, a soft hammer fabricator , or a wood or antler punch to detach lithic flakes from a lump of tool stone called a lithic core . As flakes are detached in sequence, the original mass of stone is reduced; hence the...
tool adaptations have been found across the Americas, utilized by highly mobile bands consisting of approximately 20 to 60 members of an extended family. Food would have been plentiful during the few warm months of the year. Lakes and rivers were teeming with many species of fish, birds and aquatic mammals. Nuts
Nut (fruit)
A nut is a hard-shelled fruit of some plants having an indehiscent seed. While a wide variety of dried seeds and fruits are called nuts in English, only a certain number of them are considered by biologists to be true nuts...
, berries and edible root
Root
In vascular plants, the root is the organ of a plant that typically lies below the surface of the soil. This is not always the case, however, since a root can also be aerial or aerating . Furthermore, a stem normally occurring below ground is not exceptional either...
s could be found in the forests and marshes. The fall would have been a busy time because foodstuffs would have to be stored and clothing
Clothing
Clothing refers to any covering for the human body that is worn. The wearing of clothing is exclusively a human characteristic and is a feature of nearly all human societies...
made ready for the winter. During the winter coastal fishing groups moved inland to hunt and trap fresh food and furs.
Late ice age climatic changes caused plant communities and animal populations to change. Groups moved from place to place as preferred resources were depleted and new supplies were sought. Small bands utilized hunting and gathering during the spring and summer months, then broke into smaller direct family groups for the fall and winter. Family groups moved every 3–6 days, possibly covering up to 360 km (223.7 mi) a year. Diets were often sustaining and rich in protein due to successful hunting. Clothing was made from a variety of animal hides that were also used for shelter construction. During much of the Early and Middle Paleo-Indian periods, inland bands are thought to have subsisted primarily through hunting now-extinct megafauna
Megafauna
In terrestrial zoology, megafauna are "giant", "very large" or "large" animals. The most common thresholds used are or...
. Large pleistocene mammals were the giant beaver
Giant Beaver
Castoroides ohioensis was a species of giant beaver, huge members of the family Castoridae , endemic to North America during the Pleistocene epoch .-Morphology:...
, steppe wisent
Steppe Wisent
The Steppe Bison or steppe wisent was a bison found on steppes throughout Europe, Central Asia, Beringia, and North America during the Quaternary...
, musk ox
Musk Ox
The muskox is an Arctic mammal of the family Bovidae, noted for its thick coat and for the strong odor emitted by males, from which its name derives. This musky odor is used to attract females during mating season...
, mastodons, woolly mammoths and ancient reindeer
Queen Charlotte Islands caribou
The Queen Charlotte Islands Caribou or Dawson's Caribou is an extinct subspecies of the caribou that once lived on Graham Island, the largest of the Queen Charlotte Islands in British Columbia, Canada. Possible causes of extinction include habitat destruction, introduced disease and overhunting....
(early caribou).
Clovis culture
The Clovis culture is a prehistoric Paleo-Indian culture that first appears 11,500 RCYBP , at the end of the last glacial period, characterized by the manufacture of "Clovis points" and distinctive bone and ivory tools...
appearing around 11,500 BCE (13,500 years ago), undoubtedly did not rely exclusively on megafauna for subsistence. Instead, they employed a mixed foraging strategy that included smaller terrestrial game, aquatic animals, and a variety of flora. Paleo-Indian groups were efficient hunters and carried a variety of tools. These included highly efficient fluted style
Fluting (architecture)
Fluting in architecture refers to the shallow grooves running vertically along a surface.It typically refers to the grooves running on a column shaft or a pilaster, but need not necessarily be restricted to those two applications...
spear points, as well as microblades
Microblade technology
Microblade technology is a period of technological development marked by the creation and use of small stone blades, which are produced by chipping silica-rich stones like chert, quartz, or obsidian. Blades are a specialized type of lithic flake that are at least twice as long as they are wide...
used for butchering and hide processing. Projectile points and hammerstone
Hammerstone
In archaeology, a hammerstone is a hard cobble used to strike off lithic flakes from a lump of tool stone during the process of lithic reduction. The hammerstone is a rather universal stone tool which appeared early in most regions of the world including Europe, India and North America...
s made from many sources are found traded or moved to new locations. Stone tools were traded and/or left behind from North Dakota
North Dakota
North Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States of America, along the Canadian border. The state is bordered by Canada to the north, Minnesota to the east, South Dakota to the south and Montana to the west. North Dakota is the 19th-largest state by area in the U.S....
and Northwest Territories
Northwest Territories
The Northwest Territories is a federal territory of Canada.Located in northern Canada, the territory borders Canada's two other territories, Yukon to the west and Nunavut to the east, and three provinces: British Columbia to the southwest, and Alberta and Saskatchewan to the south...
, to Montana
Montana
Montana is a state in the Western United States. The western third of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges. Smaller, "island ranges" are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains. This geographical fact is reflected in the state's name,...
and Wyoming
Wyoming
Wyoming is a state in the mountain region of the Western United States. The western two thirds of the state is covered mostly with the mountain ranges and rangelands in the foothills of the Eastern Rocky Mountains, while the eastern third of the state is high elevation prairie known as the High...
. Trade routes also have been found from the British Columbia Interior
British Columbia Interior
The British Columbia Interior or BC Interior or Interior of British Columbia, usually referred to only as the Interior, is one of the three main regions of the Canadian province of British Columbia, the other two being the Lower Mainland, which comprises the overlapping areas of Greater Vancouver...
to the coast of California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
.
The glaciers
Last Glacial Maximum
The Last Glacial Maximum refers to a period in the Earth's climate history when ice sheets were at their maximum extension, between 26,500 and 19,000–20,000 years ago, marking the peak of the last glacial period. During this time, vast ice sheets covered much of North America, northern Europe and...
that covered the northern half of the continent began to gradually melt, exposing new land for occupation starting from 17,500 to 14,500 years ago. At the same time as this was occurring, world wide extinction
Extinction
In biology and ecology, extinction is the end of an organism or of a group of organisms , normally a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and recover may have been lost before this point...
s among the large mammals began. In North America, camels and horses eventually died off, the latter not to reappear on the continent until the Spanish
Spanish people
The Spanish are citizens of the Kingdom of Spain. Within Spain, there are also a number of vigorous nationalisms and regionalisms, reflecting the country's complex history....
reintroduced the species near the end of the 15th century CE
Common Era
Common Era ,abbreviated as CE, is an alternative designation for the calendar era originally introduced by Dionysius Exiguus in the 6th century, traditionally identified with Anno Domini .Dates before the year 1 CE are indicated by the usage of BCE, short for Before the Common Era Common Era...
. As the Quaternary extinction event was happening the Late Paleo-Indians would have relied more on other means of subsistence pattern.
10,500 BCE – 9,500 BCE (12,500 – 11,500 years ago), the broad-spectrum big game hunters of the great plains begun to focus on a single animal species: the bison
Bison
Members of the genus Bison are large, even-toed ungulates within the subfamily Bovinae. Two extant and four extinct species are recognized...
(an early cousin of the American Bison
American Bison
The American bison , also commonly known as the American buffalo, is a North American species of bison that once roamed the grasslands of North America in massive herds...
). The earliest known of these bison oriented hunting traditions is the Folsom tradition
Folsom tradition
The Folsom Complex is a name given by archaeologists to a specific Paleo-Indian archaeological culture that occupied much of central North America...
s. 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 precessing some meat, then moving on. Paleo-Indian were not numerous and population densities were quite low.
Archaic periods
The Archaic period in the Americas saw a changing environment featuring a warmer more arid
Arid
A region is said to be arid when it is characterized by a severe lack of available water, to the extent of hindering or even preventing the growth and development of plant and animal life...
climate and the disappearance of the last megafauna. The majority of population groups at this time were still highly mobile hunter-gatherers, but now individual groups started to focus on resources available to them locally. Thus with the passage of time there is a pattern of increasing regional generalization like the Southwest, Arctic
Paleo-Arctic Tradition
The Paleo-Arctic Tradition is the name given by archaeologists to the cultural tradition of the earliest well-documented human occupants of the North American Arctic, which date from the period 8000–5000 BC...
, Poverty
Poverty Point culture
Poverty Point culture is an archaeological culture that corresponds to an ancient group of Indigenous peoples who inhabited the area of the lower Mississippi Valley and surrounding Gulf coast from about 2200 BCE - 700 BCE...
, Dalton
Dalton Tradition
The Dalton Tradition is a Late Paleo-Indian and Early Archaic projectile point tradition. These points appeared in most of Southeast North America around 8500-7900 BC.-References:*Fagan, Brian. Ancient North America. Thames & Hudson Ltd: London. 2005...
and Plano
Plano cultures
The Plano cultures is a name given by archaeologists to a group of disparate hunter-gatherer communities that occupied the Great Plains area of North America during the Paleo-Indian period in the United States and the Paleo-Indian or Archaic period in Canada....
traditions. These regional adaptations would become the norm, with reliance less on hunting and gathering, and a more mixed economy
Economy
An economy consists of the economic system of a country or other area; the labor, capital and land resources; and the manufacturing, trade, distribution, and consumption of goods and services of that area...
of small game, fish
Fish
Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...
, seasonally wild vegetables
Vegetable
The noun vegetable usually means an edible plant or part of a plant other than a sweet fruit or seed. This typically means the leaf, stem, or root of a plant....
and harvested plant foods. Many groups continued as big game hunters, but their hunting traditions became more varied and meat procurement methods more sophisticated. The placement of artifacts and materials within an Archaic burial site indicated social differentiation based upon status in some groups.
Classification
Paleo-Indians are generally classified by lithic reductionLithic reduction
Lithic reduction involves the use of a hard hammer precursor, such as a hammerstone, a soft hammer fabricator , or a wood or antler punch to detach lithic flakes from a lump of tool stone called a lithic core . As flakes are detached in sequence, the original mass of stone is reduced; hence the...
or lithic core
Lithic core
In archaeology, a lithic core is a distinctive artifact that results from the practice of lithic reduction. In this sense, a core is the scarred nucleus resulting from the detachment of one or more flakes from a lump of source material or tool stone, usually by using a hard hammer percussor such...
"styles" and by regional adaptations. Lithic technology
Lithic Technology
In archeology, lithic technology refers to a broad array of techniques and styles to produce usable tools from various types of stone. The earliest stone tools were recovered from modern Ethiopia and were dated to between two-million and three-million years old...
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
Fluting (architecture)
Fluting in architecture refers to the shallow grooves running vertically along a surface.It typically refers to the grooves running on a column shaft or a pilaster, but need not necessarily be restricted to those two applications...
". The spear points would typically be made by chipping a single flake from each side of the point. The point was then tied onto a spear of wood or bone. As the environment changed due to the ice age ending around 16,000 – 14,000 years ago, many animals migrated over the land 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. But, Pacific coastal groups of the period would have relied on fishing as the prime source of sustenance.
Archaeologists are piecing together evidence that the earliest human settlements in North America were thousands of years before the appearance of the current Paleo-Indian time frame (before the late glacial maximum 20,000 plus years ago). Evidence indicates that peoples were living as far east as northern Yukon, in the glacier-free zone called Beringia before 30,000 BCE (32,000 years ago). Until recently, it was generally believed that the first Paleo-Indian peoples to arrive in North America belonged to the Clovis culture. This archaeological phase was named after the town of Clovis, New Mexico
Clovis, New Mexico
Clovis is the county seat of Curry County, New Mexico, United States. Its population was 32,667 at the 2000 census; according to 2010 Census Bureau estimates, the population had risen to 37,775....
, where in 1936 unique Clovis point
Clovis point
Clovis points are the characteristically-fluted projectile points associated with the North American Clovis culture. They date to the Paleoindian period around 13,500 years ago. Clovis fluted points are named after the city of Clovis, New Mexico, where examples were first found in 1929.At the right...
s were found in situ at the site of Blackwater Draw
Blackwater Draw
Blackwater Draw is a dry stream channel about long, heading in Curry County, New Mexico, about southwest of Texico, New Mexico and trending generally southeastward across the Llano Estacado to the city of Lubbock, Texas, where it joins Yellow House Draw to form Yellow House Canyon at the head of...
, where they were directly associated with the bones of Pleistocene
Pleistocene
The Pleistocene is the epoch from 2,588,000 to 11,700 years BP that spans the world's recent period of repeated glaciations. The name pleistocene is derived from the Greek and ....
animals.
Recent 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 located near Cactus Hill
Cactus Hill
Cactus Hill is an archaeological site in southeastern Virginia, United States. The site sits on sand dunes above the Nottoway River and lies about 45 miles south of Richmond. The site is owned by the International Paper Corporation....
in Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
, Meadowcroft Rockshelter in Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
, Monte Verde
Monte Verde
Monte Verde is an archaeological site in southern Chile, located in the northern Patagonia near Puerto Montt, Chile, which has been dated to 14,800 years BP . This dating adds to the evidence showing that settlement in the Americas pre-dates the Clovis culture by roughly 1000 years...
in Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
, Topper
Topper (archaeological site)
Topper is an archaeological site located along the Savannah River in Allendale County, South Carolina in the United States. It is noted as the location of controversial artifacts believed by some archaeologists to indicate human habitation of the New World earlier than the Clovis culture,...
in South Carolina
South Carolina
South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...
, and Quintana Roo
Quintana Roo
Quintana Roo officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Quintana Roo is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 10 municipalities and its capital city is Chetumal....
in Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
have generated 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. Geological evidence suggests the Pacific coastal route was open for overland travel before 23,000 years ago and after 16,000 years ago.
Features
Dr. Marta Mirazon Lahr of the Department of Biological Anthropology at Cambridge University said the "Paleoindian" has "proto-Mongoloid" "morphology" such as "pronounced development of supraorbital ridgeSupraorbital ridge
The supraorbital ridge, or brow ridge, refer to a bony ridge located above the eye sockets of all primates. In Homo sapiens sapiens the eyebrows are located on their lower margin.Other terms in use are:* supraorbital arch...
s, lowfrontals, marked post-orbital constriction, prominent and protruding occipitals
Occipital bone
The occipital bone, a saucer-shaped membrane bone situated at the back and lower part of the cranium, is trapezoidal in shape and curved on itself...
, small mastoids
Mastoid process
The mastoid process is a conical prominence projecting from the undersurface of the mastoid portion of the temporal bone. It is located just behind the external acoustic meatus, and lateral to the styloid process...
, long crania and a relatively narrow bizygomatic breadth".
Archaeogenetics
The haplogroupHaplogroup
In the study of molecular evolution, a haplogroup is a group of similar haplotypes that share a common ancestor having the same single nucleotide polymorphism mutation in both haplotypes. Because a haplogroup consists of similar haplotypes, this is what makes it possible to predict a haplogroup...
most commonly associated with indigenous Amerindian genetics is Haplogroup Q1a3a (Y-DNA). Y-DNA, like (mtDNA), differs from other nuclear chromosome
Chromosome
A chromosome is an organized structure of DNA and protein found in cells. It is a single piece of coiled DNA containing many genes, regulatory elements and other nucleotide sequences. Chromosomes also contain DNA-bound proteins, which serve to package the DNA and control its functions.Chromosomes...
s in that the majority of the Y chromosome is unique and does not recombine during meiosis
Meiosis
Meiosis is a special type of cell division necessary for sexual reproduction. The cells produced by meiosis are gametes or spores. The animals' gametes are called sperm and egg cells....
. This allows the historical pattern of mutations to be easily studied. The pattern indicates Indigenous Amerindians
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
experienced two very distinctive genetic episodes; first with the initial peopling of the Americas
Americas
The Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...
, and secondly with European colonization of the Americas
European colonization of the Americas
The start of the European colonization of the Americas is typically dated to 1492. The first Europeans to reach the Americas were the Vikings during the 11th century, who established several colonies in Greenland and one short-lived settlement in present day Newfoundland...
. The former is the determinant factor for the number of gene
Gene
A gene is a molecular unit of heredity of a living organism. It is a name given to some stretches of DNA and RNA that code for a type of protein or for an RNA chain that has a function in the organism. Living beings depend on genes, as they specify all proteins and functional RNA chains...
lineages and founding haplotype
Haplotype
A haplotype in genetics is a combination of alleles at adjacent locations on the chromosome that are transmitted together...
s present in today's Indigenous Amerindian populations
Population history of American indigenous peoples
The population figures for Indigenous peoples in the Americas before the 1492 voyage of Christopher Columbus have proven difficult to establish and rely on archaeological data and written records from European settlers...
.
Human settlement of the New World
New World
The New World is one of the names used for the Western Hemisphere, specifically America and sometimes Oceania . The term originated in the late 15th century, when America had been recently discovered by European explorers, expanding the geographical horizon of the people of the European middle...
occurred in stages from the Bering sea coast line
Bering Sea
The Bering Sea is a marginal sea of the Pacific Ocean. It comprises a deep water basin, which then rises through a narrow slope into the shallower water above the continental shelves....
, with an initial 20,000-year layover on Beringia for the founding population
Founder effect
In population genetics, the founder effect is the loss of genetic variation that occurs when a new population is established by a very small number of individuals from a larger population. It was first fully outlined by Ernst Mayr in 1942, using existing theoretical work by those such as Sewall...
. The micro-satellite diversity and distributions of the Y lineage specific to South America indicates that certain Amerindian populations have been isolated since the initial colonization of the region. The Na-Dené, Inuit
Inuit
The Inuit are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic regions of Canada , Denmark , Russia and the United States . Inuit means “the people” in the Inuktitut language...
and Indigenous Alaskan
Alaska Natives
Alaska Natives are the indigenous peoples of Alaska. They include: Aleut, Inuit, Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, Eyak, and a number of Northern Athabaskan cultures.-History:In 1912 the Alaska Native Brotherhood was founded...
populations, however, exhibit haplogroup Q (Y-DNA)
Haplogroup Q (Y-DNA)
In human genetics, Haplogroup Q is a Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup.-Origins:Haplogroup Q is one of the two branches of haplogroup P . Haplogroup Q is believed to have arisen in Central Asia approximately 15,000 to 20,000 years ago. It has had multiple origins proposed...
mutations that are distinct from other indigenous Amerindians with various mtDNA mutations. This suggests that the earliest migrants into the northern extremes of North America and Greenland
Greenland
Greenland is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe for...
derived from later migrant populations.
See also
- Arlington Springs Man – (Human remains)
- Adams County Paleo-Indian DistrictAdams County Paleo-Indian DistrictThe Adams County Paleo-Indian District is an archaeological site near Sandy Springs in Green Township, Adams County, Ohio, United States.-Excavation:...
– (Archeological site) - Blackwater DrawBlackwater DrawBlackwater Draw is a dry stream channel about long, heading in Curry County, New Mexico, about southwest of Texico, New Mexico and trending generally southeastward across the Llano Estacado to the city of Lubbock, Texas, where it joins Yellow House Draw to form Yellow House Canyon at the head of...
– (Archeological site) - Borax Lake SiteBorax Lake SiteBorax Lake Site, also known as Borax Lake--Hodges Archaeological Site is an archaeological site near Clearlake, California.In 2006, a National Park Service statement about it read:It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 2006....
– (Archeological site) - Buhl womanBuhl womanBuhla is the name for a skeleton of a prehistoric woman found in a quarry near Buhl, Idaho, United States, in January 1989. The skeleton's age has been estimated by radiocarbon dating at 10,675 ± 95 BCE , which confirms this as one of the oldest human remains found in the Americas...
– (Human remains) - Calico Early Man SiteCalico Early Man SiteThe Calico Early Man Site is a series of stone tool workshop and quarry sites located near Barstow in San Bernardino County in the central Mojave Desert of southern California...
– (Archeological site) - Cody complexCody complexThe Cody complex is a Paleo-Indian culture group first identified at a bison antiquus kill site near Cody, Wyoming in 1951.The tradition is generally attributed to the North American, primarily in the High Plains portion of the American Great Plains. The discovery of the Cody complex broadened the...
- (Culture group) - Cueva de las ManosCueva de las ManosCueva de las Manos is a cave or a series of caves located in the province of Santa Cruz, Argentina, 163 km south of the town of Perito Moreno. It is famous for the paintings of hands, made by the indigenous inhabitants some 9,000 years ago...
– (Cave paintings) - East Fork SiteEast Fork SiteThe East Fork Site is an archaeological site in the southwestern part of the U.S. state of Ohio. Located south of Batavia, it has yielded artifacts from more cultures than has any other site in Clermont County....
– (Archeological site) - Fort Rock CaveFort Rock CaveFort Rock Cave was the site of the earliest evidence of human habitation in the U.S. state of Oregon prior to excavation of Paisley Caves. Fort Rock Cave featured numerous well-preserved sagebrush sandals, ranging from 9,000 to 13,000 years old....
– (Archeological site) - Hiscock SiteHiscock SiteThe Hiscock Site is an archaeological site in Byron, Western New York, United States that has yielded many mastodon and paleo-Indian artifacts. Now owned by the Buffalo Museum of Science, it has been studied by archeological excavation and analysis since 1983....
– (Archeological site)
- Lehner Mammoth-Kill SiteLehner Mammoth-Kill SiteThe Lehner Mammoth-Kill Site is a site in southern Arizona that is significant for its association with evidence that mammoths were killed here by Paleo-Indians 9000 years BCE....
– (Archeological site) - Lindenmeier SiteLindenmeier SiteThe Lindenmeier Site is a stratified multi-component archaeological site most famous for its Folsom component. It is located on the former Lindenmeier Ranch, now the Soapstone Prairie Natural Area, in northeastern Larimer County, Colorado, United States. The site contains the most extensive...
– (Archeological site) - Luzia WomanLuzia Womanright|thumb|250px|Reconstruction of her faceLuzia Woman is the name for the skeleton of a woman found in a cave in Brazil, South America. Some archaeologists believe the young woman may have been part of the first wave of immigrants to South America...
– (Human remains) - Mastodon State Historic SiteMastodon State Historic SiteMastodon State Historic Site is an archaeological and paleontological site in Imperial, Missouri, containing the Kimmswick Bone Bed. Bones of mastodons and other now-extinct animals were first found here in the early 19th century...
– (Archeological site) - Marmes RockshelterMarmes RockshelterThe Marmes Rockshelter is an archaeological site first excavated in 1962, near the confluence of the Snake and Palouse Rivers, in Franklin County, southeastern Washington. This rockshelter is remarkable in the level of preservation of organic materials, the depth of stratified deposits, and the...
- (Archeological site) - Mummy CaveMummy CaveMummy Cave is a rock shelter and archeological site in Park County, Wyoming, United States, near the eastern entrance to Yellowstone National Park. The site is adjacent to the concurrent U.S...
– (Archeological site) - Paisley CavesPaisley CavesThe Paisley Caves complex is a system of four caves in an arid, desolate region of south-central Oregon, United States. One of the caves may contain archaeological evidence of the oldest definitively-dated human presence in North America. The site was first studied by archeologists in the 1930s...
– (Archeological site) - Post PatternPost PatternThe Post Pattern refers to a Paleo-Indian archaeological culture of artifacts found in northwest California dating between 9,000-13,000 years ago. Excavation sites are around Clear Lake and Borax Lake. The Post Pattern is a local manifestation of the Western Pluvial Lakes Tradition.It is believed...
– (Archaeological culture) - San Dieguito Complex – (Archeological site)
- X̲á:ytem – (Archeological site)
External links
- Atlas of the Human Journey, Genographic Project, National Geographic
- Journey of Mankind - Genetic Map - Bradshaw FoundationJohn Robinson (sculptor)John Robinson was a British sculptor and co-founder of the . Accounts of his work may be seen at the , the website of the and the June and July 2007, issues of...
- The Paleoindian Period - United States Department of the Interior, National Park ServiceNational Park ServiceThe National Park Service is the U.S. federal agency that manages all national parks, many national monuments, and other conservation and historical properties with various title designations...
- Alabama Archaeology: Prehistoric Alabama - The University of Alabama, Department of ArchaeologyUniversity of AlabamaThe University of Alabama is a public coeducational university located in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, United States....
- The Paleoindian Database - The University of Tennessee, Department of AnthropologyUniversity of TennesseeThe University of Tennessee is a public land-grant university headquartered at Knoxville, Tennessee, United States...
. - Paleoindians and the Great Pleistocene Die-Off - American Academy of Arts and Sciences, National Humanities CenterNational Humanities CenterThe National Humanities Center is an independent institute for advanced study in the humanities. It is the only major independent institute for advanced study in all fields of the humanities in the United States. The NHC operates as a privately incorporated nonprofit and is not part of any...