Talk:Peopling of the Americas/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

The Shandong Project

"In 2005, our project identified a few bifacial points which feature the “flute” flaking technique, widely present in North America. If proven to be a true flute technology, similar to the Clovis technique of North America dated to 12,000 – 11,000 BP, it presents additional evidence of the technological connection between Old World and New World." [1] dougweller (talk) 21:59, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Uplift Of Earth's Crust to Create Temporary Land Bridge

This is a distinct possibility that could have even occurred on a global scale. A 'massive body close encounter' could hypothetically create a flexure of the lithosphere by over 6 km. This could account for the arrival of aborigines onto both the Australian and American continents. No boats need to be conjured up in this scenario. They would have simply walked. Evidence of this idea does exist. The Australian rock paintings of Sambar deer, a hooved animal, dated to around 17,500 years ago show that somehow some animals made it across the 'Wallace line' of deep ocean which seperates asian mainland mammals from mainland marsupials.--Mammo2 (talk) 15:43, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

This page is to discuss the article but not the subject. Which means that if you have a reliable source that links this idea with migration to the New World, then you can bring it here or add it to the article. But we shouldn't be having a general discussion on it on Wikipedia. Thanks. dougweller (talk) 17:17, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

The source of this information is Ian Wilson's book 'The Lost World of The Kimberley' which shows the rock paintings of Sambar deer quite clearly. I have sent an email request to the publishers to reproduce the image for Wikipedia. A report on the professional dating of these Bradshaws is Luminescence Dating of Rock Art of North Australia --Mammo2 (talk) 11:54, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, Wilson isn't a reliable source (see WP:RS for such a geological claim. As for the 'sambar deer', I didn't think even Wilson made that claim, although I'd say he isn't qualified to make it. He's basically a popular author. dougweller (talk) 17:43, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

A single line mentioning the logical possibility of a temporary uplift of the land,of unkown cause, doesn't seem too unreasonable hopefully. --Mammo2 (talk) 11:26, 6 March 2009 (UTC) (P.S Wilson does make that claim. Or at least he did at the time of writing his book)

Apologies for not replying, I only got back from holiday in Iceland yesterday pm. I've removed this, see our policy on original research at WP:OR. You really need a credible geologist for a geological claim. As for the deer, you may well be right, I saw a review that said he didn't claim it was a deer. Does he actually call it sambar? I should have added to use copyright stuff you need a bit more than an email, see WP:Copyright. They'd be giving up all rights to whatever was used. dougweller (talk) 11:35, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Assumption of Watercraft Use 40,000 years ago

"There have been well-dated stratigraphic studies that point to people entering Australia some 40,000 years ago. At this period Australia was not connected to another continent, which leads to the assumption that it was reached by watercraft". There is also the logical alternative of an uplift of the Earth's crust creating a temporary land bridge. Early aborigines may have simply walked onto the Australian mainland.--Mammo2 (talk) 10:38, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

The sea journey would have been always within sight of land at that time. [2]. I know the geology of the area has been studied but I don't know the details. It's only a logical possiblity if you know the depths involved, the movements that are known at that time, etc. And as I say above, to say it is a logical possibility requires a citation to an expert in the geology of the area saying that. dougweller (talk) 11:43, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Efforts to delete "unreferenced" material

I reverted a deletion of a large block of material by User:Buzzzsherman. Some of this material contains references, i.e. ref name="Dixon 1999"/, and so should be carefully considered before deletion. Discussion welcome, of course. WBardwin (talk) 02:27, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

You did the right thing, it wasn't unreferenced and although Buzzzsherman seems to be doing a pretty good job it would be nice if he commented on this. I've removed a fringe sourced comment on Penon woman and will replace it with evidence from at least one reliable source about the latest evidence, but it will take me a while to get it. Dougweller (talk) 07:47, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Buzzzsherman sent me a 'thanks' on my talk page -- it was a keyboard error during his clean up and chart making process. No long term damage! Best...........WBardwin (talk) 08:00, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes sorry about that only meant to take out 2 statements and.....opps all gone i did not notice at first. .........I have changed penon women ref with

Buzzzsherman (talk) 08:24, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

copyediting

This thing is a grammatical and stylistic mess. I'll return & do my best, but anybody who wants to get started, have at it. DavidOaks (talk) 05:43, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

would love some help on the old parts of this article...well all of it i guess. I have taking on this highly debated topic updating (hopefully with out bias) and will welcome any new info our edits....I have tried to reference with academic web links(even though books are better) to let people see the info and make their own conclusions. As many sources even debate there own conclusions.I find i had to use some weesal words and would love a copy edit by a new contributor. The clovis section is very dated. Buzzzsherman (talk) 20:46, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for calling attention to this. The grammar is appalling throughout, which leads me to question the veracity of the whole piece. — ℜob C. alias ᴀʟᴀʀoʙ 19:00, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

I dont think i would say " question the veracity of the whole piece ", The topic itself is a debate. Yes grammar is all messed up some parts written with Canadian , American and British styles of grammar and lots of typos. As for the info well from what i can see the first half of the article is referenced well, although i am not sure if all are reliable sources, but then again i guess thats what the article is for to see and understand the arguments. I have looked over many of the referances and the page reflects what is mentioned and debated by todays academic communities. Even the National Geographic Society has a section like this. What we need is a copy edit with an update on sections bellow Land bridge theory. Our section tag saying needs update or copy edit. The article did help me in understanding Y its a debate and even got me reading the reference links for hours. I did some cleaning up before but much needs to be done.174.115.165.184 (talk) 20:42, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Time for an arctic section!

DNA research on remains of a Greenlander 4000 BP indicates a migration route from Siberia across the arctic [3]. Time for a new section. WBardwin (talk) 23:57, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

It is mentioned in the section here under Genetics that says "The Na-Dené, Inuit and Indigenous Alaskan populations exhibit haplogroup Q (Y-DNA) mutations, however are distinct from other indigenous Amerindians with various mtDNA and atDNA mutations. This suggests that the earliest migrants into the northern extremes of North America and Greenland derived from later migrant populations. The section links to this article....I will use this references you just provided in that other article ...hope this helps address your concerns....Buzzzsherman (talk) 00:17, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Great for now -- we'll have to see how things evolve as papers are published and discussed. Thanks. 02:32, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Requested move to Settlement of the Americas

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Page moved. Ucucha 18:26, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

---

Models of migration to the New World → Settlement of the Americas — ... This article has evolved greatly since its inception.. The article is not realy about different Models of migration anymore..As it talks about mainly the most wide spread theory of migration from Berginia and subsequent continental views of the peopling of certain areas and routes used. There are now other articles that deal with older theories like -->Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact .....Moxy (talk) 18:14, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The Dyukhtai of Northeast Asia

What's up with the references in this section. I don't see what the seeming references ("1140", etc.) relate to. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.250.143.122 (talk) 01:25, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Good point. The same problem is present throughout the article Origins of Paleoindians, and raises the suspicion that there is a copyright problem. I wouldn't be surprised if that entire article was originally copied from somewhere else, but it seems virtually impossible to ascertain the source through a web search by now as the contents of the article have been copied and spammed all over the web. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 16:02, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Merge

This article should be merged as it's not sufficiently good as an article or as a subject, to merit it's own page.Andrewjlockley (talk) 09:19, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Oppose - What they are two completely different articles. As for the merit of this article, this represents the most widely excepted theories of Human migration into the Americans and think it should be called Modern theories of migration to the Americas. What could be done is a merger of Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact and Pre-Columbian Africa-Americas contact theories, but still they are both long. Moxy (talk) 23:54, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Oppose - Agreed, although there may be more than just "two completely different articles" here. The main thing wrong with the article is the dreadful state of the references - for example I just had to fix a typo (Ribeiro for Ribetio). PS. I think you must mean "accepted" rather than "excepted". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sdoradus (talk • contribs) 02:10, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Oppose I'm not sure which article is being proposed as a merge candidate. Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact and Pre-Columbian Africa-Americas contact theories are pretty much outside the scope of actual migrations as they deal with theoretical or speculative contacts long after the migrations covered in this article. However, the title of this article could be shortened and/or made clearer into something along the lines of: Migrations to the New World, Settlement of the Americas, or Precolumbian Migrations to the Americas. Twalls (talk) 05:21, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose This article is sufficiently good, I presume you mean the African contact theories one, which I think should be a redirect to Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact. Dougweller (talk) 05:52, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Ancient links between Siberians and Native Americans revealed

See [4] "Ancient links between Siberians and Native Americans revealed by subtyping the Y chromosome haplogroup Q1a" which is a new article in the Journal of Human Genetics. "Q1a*-MEH2 likely traces a population migration originating in Northeast Siberia across the Bering Strait." However, this is a relatively late connection, "Despite the low coalescence age of haplogroup Q1a3*-M346, which is estimated in South Siberia as about 4.5±1.5 thousand years ago (Ka), divergence time between these Q1a3*-M346 haplotypes and Amerindian-specific haplogroup Q1a3a-M3 is equal to 13.8±3.9 Ka, pointing to a relatively recent entry date to America. " and "Although the level of STR diversity associated with Q1a*-MEH2 is very low, this lineage appears to be closest to the extinct Palaeo-Eskimo individuals belonging to the Saqqaq culture arisen in the New World Arctic about 5.5 Ka" Dougweller (talk) 16:30, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

We are going over this at Genetic history of indigenous peoples of the Americas and the new article Y-DNA haplogroups in Indigenous peoples of the Americas were we are wailing for the perreview of this new work.Moxy (talk) 16:41, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Glad to hear you're ahead of me! Dougweller (talk) 17:00, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Although older does this and this cover the same time period and population but with mtdna? I dont have access to the above and was wondering if they support or contradict each other?Moxy (talk) 02:50, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

South America

This page could do with more on South America. When was that first settled?--MacRusgail (talk) 20:51, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Southeast Asian Origin for Paleoindians

The section on the page is effectively unsourced. There are marks for citations, but the format is inconsistent and its impossible to tell what source the citations are referring to. Moreover, the content of the section seems more concerned with a possible Japanese influence than a possible Southeast Asian influence. I propose fixing the section to 1. properly cite sources, and 2. have geographically consistent content (Japan is not in southeast asia). Either that or delete it. Dan Cottrell (talk) 16:32, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

skeptics

Shouldn't there be some space given to the skeptics like Vine Deloria et al. who argue that Beringia never existed? Or to the indigenous communities who argue that these hypotheses do violence to their claims at idigeneity and their own origin beliefs? 130.68.130.115 (talk) 19:23, 12 September 2012 (UTC) R.E.D.

When they publish their ideas in good scientific journals sure, and if they get traction in the scientific community. If someone is offended by science it is their problem, not ours. Dbrodbeck (talk) 20:19, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Newly discovered Chilean settlement, 12790 years old

A settlement was just discovered in northern Chile (Quebrada Maní), with over 1000 pieces, including arrow heads, seashells and camelid bones, dated at 12790 years old. I don't have the article, just a press note http://www.abc.com.py/ciencia/hallan-asentamiento-humano-de-12790-anos-en-desierto-de-chile-605446.html (Spanish) 200.90.244.143 (talk) 16:08, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Too long ago?

A February 2013 issue of Smithsonian (magazine), page 43, shows the earliest arrival from Asia as coastal migration theory as much as 16,000 years ago. The less preferred Solutrean hypothesis has an arrival of up to 20,000 years ago. Our article has dates that well exceed these. It seems to me that older dates should be discarded, if the article can be believed. Student7 (talk) 14:54, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

I've removed the earliest dates. Marder is just a photographer, what I could find on the NG site didn't have any evidence and in any case NG is not actually an academic source. But the other dates should be kept. This [5] is interesting as it links Native Americans to a 40,000 years old Beijing skeleton, and [6] talks more about waves of immigration. Dougweller (talk) 17:42, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

"24,000-Year-Old Body Is Kin to Both Europeans and American Indians"

New York Times article: [7]

"The genome of a young boy buried at Mal’ta near Lake Baikal in eastern Siberia some 24,000 years ago has turned out to hold two surprises....

The first is that the boy’s DNA matches that of Western Europeans, showing that during the last Ice Age people from Europe had reached farther east across Eurasia than previously supposed. ...

The second surprise is that his DNA also matches a large proportion — some 25 percent — of the DNA of living Native Americans. ..."

Premature for the article (just one burial), but thought-provoking. Kennewick Man comes to mind. --Pete Tillman (talk) 21:00, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

"the study concludes that two distinct Old World populations led to the formation of the First American gene pool: one related to modern-day East Asians, and the other a Siberian Upper Palaeolithic population related to modern-day western Eurasians."

"The presence of a population related to western Eurasians further into northeast Eurasia provides a more likely explanation for the presence of non-East Asian cranial characteristics in the First Americans, rather than the Solutrean hypothesis that proposes an Atlantic route from Iberia. Read more at: [8]

Dougweller (talk) 22:07, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Neanderthals 100,000 years ago?

I vaguely recall a debate among some scientists a few years ago about evidence (of something like butchering and/or cooking, if I remember right) supposedly dating back 100,000 years ago (which would presumably suggest Neanderthals or other earlier hominids crossing the Bering Strait, though the bit I read didn't actually mention them). Does anybody know whether there are any Reliable Sources dealing with this (which might then permit it to be mentioned in the article)? Tlhslobus (talk) 10:29, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

I seem to have found it myself (here). This is the reference to Ruth Simpson's "controversial" find, estimated at 30,000 to 120,000 years by some (with 500,000 years not precluded), while skeptics suggest the find isn't necessarily man-made. The source is page 42 of a book whose page 40 is already cited in the article. It doesn't mention Neanderthals or other early hominids. Is it worth mentioning as something like the oldest "controversial" date? I also note that the source mentions "40,000 to 50,000" years where we say 40,000. Tlhslobus (talk) 11:02, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

The crossing of the Bering Straits needs to pass the "smell" test: could it have been frozen over during the time frames mentioned? Wisconsin Glaciation mentions 85,000 to 11,000 years ago. Evidence of Neanderthals has been found in central Asia (not northeast Asia). If we go with Wikipedia, the Bering strait find would seem to preclude Neanderthals. Neanderthals could not build boats! So they would have depended on "walking over the ice."

There were all sorts of periods of glaciation with which I am not familiar. So maybe it could be earlier. But the earlier we get, the less likely our species was competing so successfully with Neanderthals that the latter would have found it necessary to migrate.

Asians clearly evolved in North Asia, where it was cold. How soon did they evolve? Our ancestors did not leave Africa until 80,000 years ago, so this precludes earlier dates for our species. Asians MAY have replaced Asian Erectus, except that Erectus species aren't available after 143,000 years ago.

This is why scientists are having trouble with this "information." I just as soon omit it until it is more widely accepted. Don't know that humans created it. Don't know which humans. Don't know when. Very close to dis- or mis-information. Student7 (talk) 17:20, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

10kya Mexican footprints

Not a startling date, but perhaps of interest regardless - I spotted this paper today. Felstead, N. J.; Gonzalez, S.; Huddart, D.; Noble, S. R.; Hoffmann, D. L.; Metcalfe, S. E.; Leng, M. J.; Albert, B. M.; Pike, A. W. G.; Gonzalez-Gonzalez, A.; Jiménez-López, J. C. N. (2014). "Holocene-aged human footprints from the Cuatrociénegas Basin, NE Mexico". Journal of Archaeological Science. 42: 250. doi:10.1016/j.jas.2013.11.010.. "Two sets of well-preserved human footprints have been found in tufa sediments in the Cuatrociénegas Basin, NE Mexico, and here we present their U-series dates of 10.55 ± 0.03 ka and 7.24 ± 0.13 ka. The former are the oldest known footprints in Mexico". Andrew Gray (talk) 19:57, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Help needed at List of countries and islands by first human settlement

The intro states "The Americas were populated by humans at least as early as 14,800 years ago,[6] though there is great uncertainty about the exact time and manner in which the Americas were populated" which isn't too bad. But then we get sections such as the one for Canada "25,000-40,000 BP", United States "50,000 BP" which says, with no cite, "Dr. Albert Goodyear carbon dates plant back to 50,000 years and sediment in Allendale County,USA." Allendale County, South Carolina says "possible evidence of a pre-Clovis culture dating back 50,000 years" again with no citation. Brazil has "41,000-56,000 BP" linking to Pedra Furada sites which says there are artefacts there "carrying the range of dates up to 60,000 BP." That's sourced to "Guidon, Niède. 1986 "Las Unidades Culturales de Sao Raimundo Nonato - Sudeste del Estado de Piaui-Brasil"; New Evidence for the Pleistocene Peopling of the Americas: 157-171. Edited by Alan Bryan. Center for the Study of Early Man. University of Maine. Orono."

All of this is controversial but is in the List as fact. Some help with this would be appreciated from anyone familiar with the literature. The linked articles probably need work also, especially the Pedra Furada one which needs updating. Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 08:59, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

New theory of 1600 migrations

It´s currently believed that there was from one to five large migrations to the American continent, but the chances are they might have been hundreds or thousands of small migrations over time. In this article in Spanish: http://peruantiguo.wordpress.com/2014/05/08/una-nueva-teoria-del-poblamiento-de-america/ you can see the results of a computer simulated global migratory movement based on actual data. According to the article 0.7% of humans migrate each year. If we can estimate a historical population through time and suggest possible migration waves at least 1600 migrations had to reach America from the years -15000 to 1492. The simulation also reveals that all regions were contacted by all possible nearby regions. This means, the western region of America was reached by people from Polynesia, China, Russia, Indochina, and Oceania, while the eastern region was populated from Europe and different parts of Africa. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.175.217.122 (talk) 13:33, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Thank you but that's what we call original research. If it ever gets published in a peer reviewed journal the idea might be considered for the article, but Wikipedia is not a place to promote new ideas. And this is not a forum for discussing the settlement of the Americas. Dougweller (talk) 16:03, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

I think my theory is an interesting approach and completely valid for this discussion, not for the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.175.217.122 (talk) 15:59, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

What does "colonize" mean to anthropologists?

Early this morning, an anonymous editor changed the word "colonization" to "migration" on line 24 of this article. I suspect this was done either for clarification, or because the term "colonization" has become politically charged in our language, due to the post-1492 meaning of the word. The full sentence was "Some theorists seek to develop a colonization model that integrates both North and South American archaeological records."

I assume that to an anthropologist, colonization is a technical term referring to a group of people occupying new territory, with no assumptions about whether other people had been, or continue to, live in the same area at the time of the colonization. Is this true? Is the term "colonization model" more accurate than its replacement, "migration model" in this context? Paulmlieberman (talk) 14:02, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

to me, that's a highly POV change and yes, "colonization" has a range of meanings, "migration" is not a substitute term; colonization, from the indigenous perspective, continues; and anthropological/academic uses are inherently "loaded language" and often held in discredit by native peoples/authors.Skookum1 (talk) 05:49, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Skookum, do you mean that "colonization" is loaded? Do you have a suggestion for an alternative that would be both accurate and not loaded? Paulmlieberman (talk) 13:55, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Recent linguistic evidence

See [9] and [10]. North American Na-Dene family (traditionally spoken in Alaska, Canada and parts of the present-day U.S.) and the Asian Yeneseian family are said to "both appear to descend from an ancestral language that can be traced to the Beringia region. Both Siberia and North America, it seems, were settled by the descendants of a community that lived in Beringia for some time. In other words, Sicoli says, "this makes it look like Beringia wasn't simply a bridge, but actually a homeland—a refuge, where people could build a life." Which links to other recently reported research. Dougweller (talk) 15:52, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes, it appears people were there for maybe up to 20,000 years, right? I seem to recall reading that.Parkwells (talk) 17:01, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

User:Parkwells, see [11] - possibly up to 13,000 years ago. Dougweller (talk) 19:27, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Controversy and the self-destruction of archeological evidence

I'm a little stunned that there's no controversy section. A few decades back most archeological finds that contradicted the then-current theories (that there was only a land migration not a water migration) were destroyed by the archeologists who found them because anyone coming out with contradicting evidence was drummed out of the field as a crop-circle-chaser. While we've since come to accept the water migration theory we may never know what important finds were intentionally destroyed and it's a dark chapter for science. Any paticular reason there's no mention of it on this page? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.68.154.229 (talk) 18:29, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Sources for this intentional destruction? Definition of 'water migration'? Find sources that meet our criteria (WP:RS and show that this view is significan(WP:NPOV) and maybe it belongs in the article. But without those sources, it doesn't belong here. Dougweller (talk) 19:07, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

The destruction of archaeosites related to the earliest waterborne migration was a natural process related to flooding with the rise of the eustatic sea level during deglaciation. For that reason, there are no dates that can be definitively tied to the initial migration, only settlement that occurred above present-day sea level. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.111.20.66 (talk) 11:13, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

clovis migration problems?

the whole section on "clovis problems" is in serious need of citations. some of the arguments are garbage. for example, the claim about the "short time span to populate the entire americas" being a problem has been eloquently refuted by Jared Diamond. his point is that a movement of 8,000 miles in 1,000 years is only 8 miles/year -- hardly difficult when hunter-gatherers walk this much in a single day!

Benwing (talk) 04:55, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

James Dixon reports age-dating evidence that the Clovis culture did not migrate out of Alaska, but into Alaska from the south. The spread of Clovis culture therefore does not represent a first wave of migration out of Alaska.75.111.20.66 (talk) 13:14, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Introduction

The intro is just plain confusing to me. I have tagged it as I don't know what to do with it at this point. Am working on general copy editing however.-Phil5329 (talk) 20:40, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

seems clear to me ..migration model is a debated topic with many theories over the years that have change, evolved and even get dismissed as new evidence comes to light...Not sure if a big ugly tag is needed because you not sure about it ..it has been read by thousand over 5 years and your the first to mention they dont understand

But anywas ...a good copy edit is need over all Buzzzsherman (talk) 03:07, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree that it is a mess. I also think it is a disservice to frame the issues in reconstructing the peopling of the Americas as simply a debate over the timing of the initial Beringian migration with respect to the Last Glacial Maximum, 15-20 ka. For the sake of outline clarity, it would be best to outline the major theories of the migration(s) in the introduction and expand on them in subsequent headings. They would be: Beringian occupation pre-LGM, followed by land migration post-LGM; Beringian occupation and land migration pre-LGM; and waterborne migration post-LGM. Evidence for Polynesian contact with South America would be worth mentioning. Outdated theories that are no longer seriously considered by anthropologists, such as the Solutrean theory, would warrant only brief mention under "other" theories.75.111.20.66 (talk) 10:33, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

removed statment

I have removed the following....

Humans crossed the Bering land bridge into North America comparatively late in prehistory, and colonised the Southern continent much earlier. Discoveries in Siberia's Altai Mountains have led some anthropologists to theorise that humans were largely prevented from crossing to Alaska due to large numbers of spotted hyenas blocking access, while others speculate that humans were unable to first colonise North America until the decline of its large, specialised predators such as Arctodus simus and American lions.

The first statement is unclear are you trying to say South American was inhabitant brfore North America. Second statement who is some ???. As for 3rd statement i will look into it and with normal english add it back if validated.Buzzzsherman (talk) 00:28, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

If he was "trying to say South American [sic] was inhabitant [sic] brfore [sic] North America", he's clearly wrong but I think he's referring to the notion that the arctic eastern extremes of North America were colonised after a previous migration went all the way to the straits of Magellan. This is a respectable modern view, supported by Russian genetic studies on haplogroup X. Sdoradus (talk) 10:17, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

haplogroup x in the Americas is not evidence of transatlantic migration. Haplogroup x was an admixture to Siberian populations that were the source of the Beringian migration.75.111.20.66 (talk) 10:55, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Actually, that Two-Migration hypothesis has a long and illustrious history. Bronowski noted the mid-seventies consensus that there must have been not less than two migrations, the first of which went to South America whereas the second did not. In his book he cites Mourant's work on the known ABO distribution in 1958. ("The ABO Blood Groups: comprehensive tables and maps of world distribution", Blackwell Scientific Publications, Oxford, 1958). I've added something of the earlier ABO group research efforts to the article text because they are still good science as well as providing some background on the modern techniques. It bothers me that I can't find a better place for it than at the beginning. Can some copyeditor look at that? Sdoradus (talk) 10:25, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

The long history means nothing if it has not led to productive work in more recent years.75.111.20.66 (talk) 10:55, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

References

Pre-Siberian American Aborigines

In January, the article at Pre-Siberian American Aborigines was deleted. The article described a hypothetical early migration (possibly as early as 40,000 BC or even earlier) of modern humans to the Americas whose point of origin is said not to lie in Siberia/North Asia but further south. Their remains are said to be found mainly in South America (especially Lagoa Santa, and Luzia are named in this connection). The fate of the descendants of that hypothetical wave of immigration are unclear, but it is suggested that they were violently marginalised and ousted by later waves which produced the "classic" Native Americans familiar to us.

The talk page of the article is preserved here. Under the section "Critics", the user Echalone describes recalling a TV documentation detailing the issue, but did not give more details, and was unable to provide an online source. It is quite possible that he was referring to a documentation aired on German TV, a summary of which is found (in German) here. Further information on the subject can be found on andaman.org: [12] and [13]. Florian Blaschke (talk) 01:05, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

This should be re-included , especially given that some respectible scientists support it. Although it is hypothetical, this should not preclude its inclusion. Hxseek (talk) 02:19, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree in theory to its inclusion. However this now old theory [14] and the odd skull formations of Luzia Woman that aided this thinking of a hypothetical wave of immigration.[15] have been proven wrong over time. Not because the theory was not sound, but by advances in DNA studies. Firstly current standing belief that Luzia Woman is 11,500 years old [16] and her DNA all be it a bit odd is believed to have originated from the first migration and early genetic isolation in the area - current believed DNA flow, Book on the topic
I believe a better article to read would be Genetic history of indigenous peoples of the Americas because as of now "NO" misplaced DNA has been found or if so has been explained away with recent findings and advancements in dating Single-nucleotide polymorphism mutations. All that said i dont see Y we cant have a little section on old theories if we can find ref that do not refer to it as a "hypothetical". Moxy (talk) 03:39, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree about the title. However, from what I know about this is that Luzia and the theory around her is based on morphology (physical anthropology, if you will). Have aDNA samples been taken from these specifically "Australoid"-looking samples to confirm or disprove the theory as it now stands ? Which sources disproved the dating of her skeleton

There were indeed Australoids among the aboriginal Japanese (Jomon) and related populations in coastal northeast Asia who were the source of the waterborne North Pacific coastal migration that preceded the breakout from Beringia. The Ainu of Hokkaido and Sakhalin are remnants of this Australoid group. MtDNA studies show a strong link between the Jomon and the earliest populations on the western coast of the Americas. Confusion arises when the term "Australoid" is conflated with Australian Australoids. Melanesian Australoids are also one of the sources of the Polynesians who migrated across the Pacific. They had the skills and technology to reach South America.75.111.20.66 (talk) 00:19, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

And i just read in a magazine issue Oct/ Nov 2010 that is still going on about the issue - saying (*Australian) Aborigine could have discovered America ! (or something to that effect)

Hxseek (talk) 04:42, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't think anyone is suggesting that aborigines travelled somehow to America. Eg, the source of the Australian aborigines may be the source of the migration Neves is talking about. The movement north and over Beringia would have been over a long period of time - Neves is still, presumably, saying the same thing as he did in 2005, [17] "t the group could have crossed the Bering Strait land bridge—the once-exposed landmass between Siberia and Alaska—thousands of years earlier than the Siberian populations who are believed to be the ancestors of modern Native Americans."

Of course, his argument is just cranial, with no DNA evidence as he makes clear.

Gonzalez-Jose, R. et al. 2008 “The Peopling of America: Craniofacial Shape Variation on a Continental Scale and its Interpretation From an Interdisciplinary View,” Am J Phys Anthropol 137:175–187

ABSTRACT Twenty-two years ago, Greenberg, Turner and Zegura (Curr. Anthropol. 27:477–495, 1986) suggested a multidisciplinary model for the human settlement of the New World. Since their synthesis, several studies based mainly on partial evidence such as skull morphology and molecular genetics have presented competing, apparently mutually exclusive, settlement hypotheses. These contradictory views are represented by the genetic-based Single Wave or Out of Beringia models and the cranial morphology-based Two Components/ Stocks model. Here, we present a geometric morphometric analysis of 576 late Pleistocene/early Holocene and modern skulls suggesting that the classical Paleoamerican and Mongoloid craniofacial patterns should be viewed as extremes of a continuous morphological variation. Our results also suggest that recent contact among Asian and American circumarctic populations took place during the Holocene. These results along with data from other fields are synthesized in a model for the settlement of the New World that considers, in an integrative and parsimonious way, evidence coming from genetics and physical anthropology. This model takes into account a founder population occupying Beringia during the last glaciation characterized by high craniofacial diversity, founder mtDNA and Y-chromosome lineages and some private autosomal alleles. After a Beringian population expansion, which could have occurred concomitant with their entry into America, more recent circumarctic gene flow would have enabled the dispersion of northeast Asian-derived characters and some particular genetic lineages from East Asia to America and vice versa.

Perez, S. I., et al. 2009 “Discrepancy between Cranial and DNA Data of Early Americans: Implications for American Peopling,” PLoS One 4 (#5) e5746

Abstract: Currently, one of the major debates about the American peopling focuses on the number of populations that originated the biological diversity found in the continent during the Holocene. The studies of craniometric variation in American human remains dating from that period have shown morphological differences between the earliest settlers of the continent and some of the later Amerindian populations. This led some investigators to suggest that these groups—known as Paleomericans and Amerindians respectively—may have arisen from two biologically different populations. On the other hand, most DNA studies performed over extant and ancient populations suggest a single migration of a population from Northeast Asia. Comparing craniometric and mtDNA data of diachronic samples from East Central Argentina dated from 8,000 to 400 years BP, we show here that even when the oldest individuals display traits attributable to Paleoamerican crania, they present the same mtDNA haplogroups as later populations with Amerindian morphology. A possible explanation for these results could be that the craniofacial differentiation was a local phenomenon resulting from random (i.e. genetic drift) and non-random factors (e.g. selection and plasticity). Local processes of morphological differentiation in America are a probable scenario if we take into consideration the rapid peopling and the great ecological diversity of this continent; nevertheless we will discuss alternative explanations as well.

Dougweller (talk) 09:30, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

And R. Dalton 2005 “Skeleton keys” Nature 433: 454-456

Last year, a team of Argentine, Spanish and Mexican researchers published a study of the shape of 33 Pericú skulls found in museum collections2, 3. The skulls are long and narrow — similar to skulls in south Asia and the Pacific Rim, and not much like the more rounded skulls typical in northern Asia. This implied that some modern peoples may have evolved from an early wave of Australasian migrants, whereas many had assumed that all descendants had been from the later Asian migrations.

This theory captured the imagination of scientists and the public alike, with press headlines proclaiming that Aboriginals from islands off southeastern Asia had founded America. Interest was further inflamed when the media ran a story saying that preliminary DNA tests showed that the Pericú were related to the Maori, a tribe from the Pacific islands. But, at a symposium in Mexico City last September, Phillip Endicott, a PhD student at the Henry Wellcome Ancient Biomolecules Centre at the University of Oxford, UK, revealed that the Pericú DNA matched modern native Americans of north Asian descent. A lone DNA sample reflecting Maori genes could not be replicated, he said, indicating it was probably a contamination from other tests he was performing on Maori samples in the same lab.

Dougweller (talk) 09:34, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Question Dougweller i take you have read the article Genetic history of indigenous peoples of the Americas do you think its ok as in all points are there ?? Should we mention this studies?Moxy (talk) 14:53, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure, such articles seem to change so frequently according to the pov of the editor - I just removed the word 'curiously from the beginning of a sentence. I'm not an expert on genetics so I wouldn't want to comment on the article as a whole. Dougweller (talk) 13:21, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, of course I don't mean Aborigines from AUstralia travelled there, but the same 'race' of ancient Australioids (but the semi-popular science magazine it was written in almost makes it sound like that). Yep, the theory is craniometric, although lack of Y-DNA and mtDNA evidence does not entirely rule out the scenario, as we know Y DNA Hgs can be easily replaced due to drift. An interesting article I came across proposes an interesting explanation for the lack of Mongolid features fomr these apparently ancient PalaeAmericans: Ie: The east Asian (Mongoloid) phenotype only came about c. 15 kYa, differentiating from a 'common' H Sapiens. Thus the earliest of these American colonizers, although they also came from Siberia/ East Asia, merely had not yet developed the Mongoilid features Hxseek (talk) 15:43, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

This is sounding like it falls under Wikipedia:Fringe theories. Do you have a link to this article..because it does sound very interesting.Moxy (talk) 15:50, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Well its about as fringe as all other anthropological theories are, given the generally negative attitude that most people have toward physical anthropology these days. I'll try to scrounge up this article I read over a year ago. Hxseek (talk) 02:06, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

->I think it was in Collateral relatives of American Indians among the Bronze Age populations of Siberia?. AJPA (108) 1999 Hxseek (talk) 07:08, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Dougweller, all those absctracts there are good, thanks for taking the effort to include them. I think they, esp the 2nd one, explain the situation well. Hxseek (talk) 07:36, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm involved in a website that frequently discusses such issues (and a Yahoo group on human migration which discusses genetics). I found the abstracts in a recent thread on the website, there are a couple of well know experts in the field on the site. Dougweller (talk) 13:21, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Although the Lagoa Santa case seems to be discredited now, the possibility is still supported by a new case, the Pedra Furada sites.

Hxseek: That is an excellent point. The dominance of the Mongolid phenotype across Asia should even be considerably more recent than its appearance/divergence. For example, South East Asia seems to have been inhabited by "Negrito"/Melanesian/Australoid-type populations until fairly recently, as Austronesian-speaking immigrants gradually spread from Taiwan across the Philippines and the Indonesian archipelago and marginalised or assimilated the original (autochthonous) inhabitants, with pre-Austronesian relic populations still existing, most prominently the Andamanese.

Also in East Asia, the Ainu are often thought to represent a relic population, the original inhabitants (Jomon) of the Japanese archipelago. (However, as neither the older nor the newer population is likely to stay "pure" and mutual mixing is bound to occur, the Ainu may seem more closely related genetically to the Japanese and also other mainland Asians than they originally were, and even if the Andamanese had been isolated for millennia and never mixed with Mongolid-type Asians, they may appear closely related to Mongolid-type South East Asians nevertheless if those are of mixed Mongolid-"Negrito" descent. It is quite possible, for example, that the Mongolid phenotype was originally characterised by Sinodonty exclusively and that Sundadonty was acquired through mixing with non-Mongolid populations in South East Asia.) Even if the Ainu represent an older stratum of the Mongolid phenotype, the natives of the Americas don't seem to represent the same type, but the more modern type. Interestingly, according to Ainu people#Origins, Y-haplogroup D seems to be common among the Ainu, the Japanese, the Ryukyuans and the Andamanese, but not among mainland Asians (except in Tibet). Moreover, they exhibit Sundadonty like other populations of Asia in areas where relic populations (also characterised by Sundadonty as far as can be ascertained, so possibly the origin of the Sundadonty of the recent population) are attested, but unlike the Chinese, Mongols, Eastern Siberians and Native Americans. So perhaps the Ainu, and their apparent Jomon ancestors, indeed originally represent a quite different phenotype, linked rather with the relic populations of South East and East Asia. (As an historical aside, Blumenbach considered "Mongolian/yellow" mainstream East Asians and "Malayan/brown" South East Asians two different races, in agreement with the Sinodonty/Sundadonty divide.)

Intriguingly, the Kennewick Man also seems to exhibit Sundadonty according to Origins of Paleoindians#Paleoindian Genes. The article Kennewick Man further points out that Paleoindian skulls older than 8000 BP display greater phenotypic diversity than the modern Native Americans, so it is quite possible that they arose through a relatively recent wave of migration from Eastern Siberia, perhaps associated with the Clovis culture, but were far from the first immigrants to the New World. Older populations, later marginalised or perhaps assimilated by the Mongolid newcomers (just like in Asia eventually), were already present, and it is conceivable that they pattern with the Asian relic populations, exhibiting the Sinodonty pattern. If they were so morphologically diverse, there may well be more than one immigration route for those older Paleoindian populations; some might have come from Japan, some from Taiwan, some even from Southeast Asia or from the mainland in places where Mongolids exhibiting Sinodonty were not yet the prevailing phenotype at the time of departure. To engage in yet more speculation, it is even conceivable that non-Mongolid groups in East Asia were gradually pushed northeastwards by Mongolids originating from within Asia (who perhaps wanted to escape the increasingly inhospitable conditions there), and ended up crossing the Bering Strait in their attempt to escape the pressure put on them by the newcomers. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 17:07, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

One reason why evidence for pre-Clovis settlement has long been slow to arrive is indicated in Topper (archaeological site): Archaeologists simply didn't dig deeper because they didn't expect to find anything before the Clovis horizon. As silly as it sounds! After all, if you outright avoid the occasion to find something, you can't be expected to find it ... --Florian Blaschke (talk) 23:05, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Article doesn't cover evidence of Polynesian travels well enough

There's lots of biological evidence - spread of sweet potatoes, and with more controversy, chickens just to mention a couple things - that pertain to Polynesian contact that aren't addressed in the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 150.135.127.108 (talk) 19:40, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

Also, maybe usable references: http://whyfiles.org/2011/peopling-the-americas-new-evidence/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2874220/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 150.135.127.108 (talk) 19:45, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

The evidence for Polynesian contact is interesting but the Polynesian migrations were much later. Sweet potatoes made it to the Cook Islands after about 1000 AD, although that does not mean that Polynesians weren't in South America before then. There is also evidence of a South American genetic imprint on Easter Island. The exact process of how South American genes got to Easter Island is a matter of speculation, but I'm guessing that there were some horny Polynesian seafarers a long way from home.50.25.211.177 (talk) 06:32, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

"Clovis-first" theory speared

this article may mean the end of the clovis period as oldest. I know we will need more references showing commentary on this dating. I am not prepared to add this to the article or alter the text, as i dont usually do major edits like this on major articles.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 02:35, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Thank you, that is a very significant find. I definitely intend to include it based on the primary reference50.25.211.177 (talk) 18:41, 15 April 2015 (UTC).

See also www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/radical-theory-of-first-americans-places-stone-age-europeans-in-delmarva-20000-years-ago/2012/02/28/gIQA4mriiR_story.html and www.sciencemag.org/content/335/6074/1289.summary --Espoo (talk) 09:29, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

The Solutrean hypothesis dies hard.

This article needs a complete overhaul.

Several highly misleading impressions arise from this article, mainly pertaining to the position of the Beringia - ice-free corridor hypothesis for the initial peopling of the Americas. The hypothesis arose during the 1930s to account for evidence from the Clovis and Folsom archaeosites that paleoindians were hunting Pleistocene faunas. The problem is, it was proposed without any consideration of evidence for the actual extent of the Cordilleran and Laurentide ice sheets during the timeframe of the early Clovis culture. As this overview shows, more recent geologic reconstruction of the ice sheets indicates that no ice-free corridor existed between 21 ka and 12 ka. Additional time was required for the new ice-free zone to become hospitable enough to facilitate human migration. It was initially a wasteland of glacial debris and meltwater, devoid of food sources and subject to catastrophic flooding from glacial outbursts. Equally misleading is the notion that the spread of Clovis culture is a marker of hunters following big game from north to south. More recent age dating of Clovis and similar type sites indicates a northward spread of hunters following the migration of game species northward into the formerly glaciated regions. There are also no remains of game species from the time and location of the purported ice-free corridor.

It is also misleading to lump watercraft migration theories together. They range from the discredited Solutrean hypothesis to the ascendant North Pacific coastal hypothesis that solves the knotty problem of getting humans into North America when terrestrial routes out of Beringia were blocked by ice. Polynesian contact with South America may also have been significant, but is neglected in the article. Pre-Columbian contact from across the Atlantic may be plausible, but it cannot be considered a migration and as such is not within the scope of the article.

The ice-free corridor hypothesis has been carried forward by inertia within the archaeological community and is still carried forward in popular scientific literature relying on outdated sources, but it does not reflect the current state of the science.75.111.20.66 (talk) 23:31, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Yes it is time for an update. Going to review the newest books on the topic before any revisions..i suggest all review the new literature. We can use them for sources-- Moxy (talk) 01:52, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

Glad you're on board with the idea. The overview I linked is a good source of references. More references on the North Pacific migration are provided in the coastal migration article, although it's still kind of a mess.75.111.20.66 (talk) 15:03, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

Excellent discussion of late Wisconsin environments in Beringia and the northwest coastal region in this volume. Also a good historical overview of the ice-free corridor hypothesis and the coastal migration hypothesis, and evaluation of environmental history pertaining to each. I propose using it as the core of the presentation on evaluation of migration routes and timing, with supplemental on watercraft migration pertaining to the coastal route. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.25.211.177 (talk) 07:52, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

progress report

I've done a major edit on the Introduction, Beringia, Clovis first, and Coastal migration topics, focused on geological and archaeological evidence. The section on genetics is still a hash of apparently random information without a clear outline. There is also a lack of discussion of theories related to Haplogroup D, which are significant and supported by physical evidence. Further comments are welcome here.

There is also no section on linguistics, which is one of the supporting disciplines mentioned in the introduction.

It seems a final section with a discussion of the interdisciplinary nature of the problem and the evolving nature of settlement theories would be worthwhile. We are dealing with complex and incomplete science that does not always yield consistent results between disciplines. Reconciling the different specialized points of view is one of the things that makes it interesting. One of the problems of the article the way it was written was the certitude with which theories from within extremely specialized points of view was presented, even as reported through secondary sources of questionable accuracy with respect to the primary source.50.25.211.177 (talk) 19:13, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

Kennewick Man controversy

DW - you're not supposed to edit someone else's entry in the talk pages, don't you know? The subheading was my entry. Don't touch it again.50.25.211.177 (talk) 23:02, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Um, I just removed a mini-essay asking How long it would take from Japan. Unsourced & stated some contentious material as fact. Dougweller (talk) 20:02, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

The findings on Kennewick Man are Wiki-sourced. If that's a problem with this article it's a problem with the Kennewick Man article. What contentious material was stated as fact? The only scientific controversy over Kennewick Man that I am aware of is the conflict between KW's Australoid association (Jomon or Ainu) suggested by physical anthropology and reported (but thus far unpublished) genetic study indicating that the individual is "just like Native Americans," however that is purported to conflict with a Australoid phenotype. The range of that individual, based on isotopic analysis of diet and water intake and the location of discovery are not a subject of any controversy that I am aware of. If you have a source to support that it is a matter of contention, please provide it here.50.25.211.177 (talk) 04:44, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Let me explain. First, section headings should not include questions - MOS:SECTIONS.

Should the formulation of the heading "Migration out of Beringia prior to the LGM?" be revised for compliance?50.25.211.177 (talk) 01:18, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

The Erlandson stuff was fine, just misused IMHO. What you added and I deleted was:

"If migration out of Beringia to the American southwest post-LGM constitutes a "short chronology," migration from Hokkaido to Southern Chile in the same timeframe might be considered "whiplash chronology." Is it unreasonable? An important clue is yielded by everyone's favorite ancient mariner, Kennewick Man."

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and articles should be written in a formal tone. See WP:TONE.

"Kennewick Man (KM) has been repeatedly identified as an Australic phenotype related to the Jomon and the Ainu, however, arguments are being made that that cannot be true because of preliminary genetic results indicating a profile "just like Native Americans." Exactly what that means will remain unclear until the results are published and scrutinized, but there are ample studies showing a Jomonoid genetic imprint along the west coast of the Americas, referenced in the introduction, the discussion of the On Your Knees Cave site, and in the genetics section below[incomplete, in process]. But the important element of the KM story here is the evidence for the range covered by that particular individual. KM's skeleton was found in Washington's Columbia Basin. Isotopic analyses indicated a 20 year diet consisting of marine mammals and drinking water consisting of meltwater from alpine glaciers. KM spent about 20 years in an environment where the primary food source was marine mammals and the primary drinking water source was glacial meltwater, which had to be at sea level in proximity to lowland glaciers. KM being a Holocene find, that meant a range from the Columbia Basin to southeast Alaska for one individual with a lifespan of about 40 years, with about 20 years of stasis indicated by the dietary evidence. Given the degree of mobility for waterborne people indicated by the KM story, navigating from Hokkaido to Monte Verde in the 5000 year span between 18k and 13k years BP would not be a problem."

Here you are actually arguing for a particular point of view - a violation of both WP:NPOV and WP:ESSAY. We don't use our own articles as sources, and I'll note that the KM article doesn't mention Australic or Australoid. Nor does Jōmon period or Ainu, so your comments there appear to be original research, something we don't allow here. Dougweller (talk) 08:54, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Here's a copy-paste of a section of the Kennewick Man article pertaining to the repeated physical examinations indicating a Jomon-Ainu association for KM and the opinions of geneticists that KM couldn't be differentiated from other Native Americans. It is adequately sourced, although thin on the peer-reviewed journal side when referring to KM in particular. Acknowledging the Jomon-Ainu association derived from the methods of physical anthropology is appropriate. As a side point, there is documentation indicating a southeast Asian origin and Australic association for the Jomon-Ainu, although my passing reference to it admittedly did not make that clear. When Jomon-Ainu type skulls in South America are (correctly but perhaps confusingly) referred to as "Australic," that gets conflated with Australian Aborigines and people start talking about a transoceanic migration to South America from Australia.

In the last paragraph is a description of Owsley's findings on KM's diet and water source indicating a long time spent in southeast Alaska. The implications of that, combined with KM's final resting place, for the mobility of early waterborne peoples on the coast of North America are unavoidable. Discussion of Owsley's findings definitely does not constitute original research or POV. IMO they should be referred to under "scientific significance" in the KM article as well.

The degree to which KM's heritage was Jomonoid or Beringian is far from being resolved, as there was no migration barrier separating the two groups for a few thousand years preceding KM, but that should not stand in the way of acknowledging KM's implications for coastal mobility in the article.

[excerpt]

Anthropologist Joseph Powell of the University of New Mexico was also allowed to examine the remains. Powell used craniometric data obtained by anthropologist William White Howells of Harvard University and anthropologist Tsunehiko Hanihara of Saga University that had the advantage of including data drawn from Asian and North American populations.[13] Powell said that Kennewick Man was not European but most resembled the Ainu[8] and Polynesians.[13] Powell said that the Ainu descend from the Jōmon people who are an East Asian population with "closest biological affinity with south-east Asians rather than western Eurasian peoples".[14] Furthermore, Powell said that dental analysis showed the skull to have a 94 percent chance of being a Sundadont group like the Ainu and Polynesians and only a 48 percent chance of being a Sinodont group like that of North Asia, the people who migrated to North America.[13] Powell said analysis of the skull showed it to be "unlike American Indians and Europeans".[13] Powell concluded that Kennewick man "is clearly not a Caucasoid unless Ainu and Polynesians are considered Caucasoid."[14]

Chatters et al. conducted a graphic comparison, including size, of Kennewick Man to eighteen modern populations and showed Kennewick Man to be most closely related to the Ainu. However, when size was excluded as a factor, no association to any population was established.[8] Chatters said that anthropologist C. Loring Brace classified Ainu and Polynesians as a single craniofacial Jomon-Pacific cluster and Chatters said "Polynesians have craniofacial similarities to Asian, Australian and European peoples".[13] Brace himself stated in a 2006 interview with the Tri-City Herald that his analysis of the skeleton indicated that Kennewick Man was related to the Ainu.[15][16]

The biological diversity among ancient skulls in the Americas has further complicated attempts to establish how closely Kennewick Man is related to any modern Native American tribes.[8] Skulls older than 8,000 years old have been found to possess greater physical diversity than do those of modern Native Americans. This range implies that there was a genetic shift in populations about 8,000 years ago. The heterogeneity of these early people shows that genetic drift had already occurred, meaning the racial type represented by Kennewick Man had been in existence for a considerable period.[8]

In 2005, a 10-day examination of the skeleton led by forensic anthropologist Douglas Owsley revealed that Kennewick Man had arthritis in his right eblow, both of his knees, and within several of his vertebrae. Although not severe enough to be crippling. Anthropologist David Owsley discovered that Kennewick Man had also suffered some trauma in his lifetime as well, which was evident by a fractured rib that had healed, a depression fracture on Kennewick Man's forehead and similar indentation on the left side of the head, as well as a spear jab that healed. Despite earlier theories regarding Kennewick Man's age, Owsley thinks he may have been as young as 38 during the time of death.[17]

Perhaps the most remarkable discovery thus far, Kennewick Man was found to have been deliberately buried. By examining the calcium carbonate left behind as underground water collected on the underside of the bones which then evaporated, scientists were able to conclude that Kennewick Man was lying on his back with his feet rolled slightly outward and his arms at his side , with the palms facing down - a position that could hardly have come about by accident.[18]

In 2012, Owsley announced that isotope measurements of the bones indicated that the man seems to have lived almost exclusively on a diet of marine mammals for the last 20 or so years of his life and that the water he drank was glacial melt water from a high altitude. The closest marine coastal environment where one could find glacial melt water at the time of Kennewick Man was Alaska.[19] Owsley further confirmed that the skull's features resemble those of the Ainu and suggested that the man's ancestors may have retreated from advancing people from central Asia and traveled by boat over generations along the coast northward and east to North America.[20]50.25.211.177 (talk) 01:18, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

You haven't addressed most of my points. As for the above paragraph, souce 19 is a very good novelist but not a source for scientific material, even if writing in the Smithsonian, and source 20 is an LA reporter who says the Ainu are 15000 years old, despite the fact that they aren't even 2000 years old. I doubt Owsley was the source for that (in the newspaper report, not our article)> I've also changed 'confirmed' to 'stated' as 'confirmed is clearly pov.

Why did you stop there instead of carrying on to the bottom of the section?

"Chatters changed his position after DNA testing showed a 13,000-year-old skeleton he studied in Mexico was connected to current Native Americans. Due to such DNA linking other ancient remains to Native Americans, Chatters has changed his position on the origin of Kennewick Man. In response to the January 2015 report on Kennewick Man, he said, “The result from Kennewick is the same one we’re getting from the other early individuals,” Chatters said. “It’s what I expected.”[3] Researchers conducting the DNA testing wrote that they "feel that Kennewick has normal, standard Native-American genetics."[3]"

You wrote "but there are ample studies showing a Jomonoid genetic imprint". Really? Unsourced, argumentative and thus violating NPOV, and dubious. Then " But the important element of the KM story here", another NPOV violation. We don't tell readers what is important. See my comment on the rest of the section. Dougweller (talk) 10:50, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Unsourced huh? Here's one of the included citations, for starters. Note that it refers to the D1a Haplogroup directly sampled from Jomon skeletons - the same variant of D that is among Native Americans. It also refers to the accepted Jomon-Ainu lineage. I have no idea where you got the notion that the Ainu lineage is only 2000 years old. The Jomon-Ainu lineage is one of the contributors to the modern Japanese race that emerged in the first millennium BCE.

If you don't like source #19, try some of the others on Owsley's findings. They're consistent. Are you accusing the news reporter in source #20 of putting words in Owsley's mouth? Take the issue up with the reporter and Owsley, then. As a Smithsonian Institution anthropologist, he seems like pretty good authority.

Do you have any substantive reason to discount the nitrogen and oxygen isotope analyses that showed the diet and water intake of Kennewick Man, thus demonstrating the range of that individual? If you doubt the validity of nitrogen analysis, I suggest you enlighten the authors who wrote on the On Your Knees Cave skeleton, who conducted the same analysis to conclude that OYKC man also subsisted on a marine diet. If you doubt the validity of oxygen isotope analysis regarding water and ice, I suggest you enlighten those who have been relying on those analyses to reconstruct global climate changes and sea level curves during the Pleistocene. Do you have access to any professional review of the isotope analyses on Kennewick Man indicating that they are not valid? Otherwise, you are compelled to accept the validity of Owsley's findings on Kennewick Man. An "I don't think so" argument won't cut it. Would you care to make that sort of argument face to face with Owsley?

I don't see the relevance of what Chatters said in response to findings on a 13,000 year old girl skeleton in Yucatan to Kennewick Man. I suggest you take a look at a haplotype frequency map for Native Americans sometime and try to decide what a "typical" Native American genetic profile is.

I have addressed your points amply and your response, which frankly seems to be looking for excuses to discount information without addressing it in a meaningful, substantive way, is disappointing.50.25.211.177 (talk) 21:50, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Rewrite after my revert, structure first?

I've reverted back to an earlier version, removed the timetable and restored some sourced edits plus other material. Before we start adding more material (which should perhaps be discussed here first), can we discuss structure? At the moment the structure is: 1 Understanding the debate 2 Genetics and blood type 3 Land bridge theory 3.1 The physical environment of the northwestern North American coast during early deglaciation 3.2 Synopsis 3.3 Clovis culture 3.4 Problems with Clovis migration models 4 Watercraft migration theories 4.1 Pacific coastal models 4.2 East Asians: Paleoindians of the coast 4.3 Atlantic coastal model 4.4 Problems with evaluating coastal migration models 5 Other hypotheses 5.1 The Solutrean hypothesis: Europe to America in the Paleolithic 5.2 Pre-Columbian contact from other continents

Just before my changes today, it was:

1 Land bridge theory 1.1 Migration out of Beringia prior to the Last Glacial Maximum? 2 Clovis culture and the migration out of Beringia: the Clovis First theory 2.1 Challenges to the Clovis First and ice-free corridor theories 3 The Coastal Migration theory 3.1 The physical environment of the northwestern North American coast during early deglaciation 3.2 Issues raised by waterborne migration during deglaciation 3.3 Secondary archaeological evidence related to early coastal migration 4 Other theories 4.1 The Solutrean hypothesis: Europe to America in the Paleolithic 4.2 Pre-Columbian contact theories

Simon Fraser University's website at [18] uses

ancient environment earliest settlements origins by land or sea the ice free corridor the coastal route

That seems a better start to me. Dougweller (talk) 13:32, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

More original research

"Waterborne migration requires certain technology, skills, and cultural adaptation to a coastal maritime lifestyle. Big game hunters in Beringia, isolated from the coast for thousands of years by ice, do not seem like likely candidates for the initial coastal migration, especially if it would require them to pop out on the southern coast of Alaska immediately after the melt of the Coast Range glaciers, immediately switch from Beringian technology to a proto-Jomon stone technology, and learn to build boats. It would not, however, be out of the question for interior Beringians and Jomonoids to encounter each other after the latter were established in coastal Alaska, maybe fight a little, maybe trade a little, maybe fuse some gene pools, and maybe learn some new technology and foraging - much like the processes by which the Jomonoids acquired their boat technology from Ryukyuans and, possibly, their stone technology from Koreans.

The Manis mammoth bone with the embedded bone spear point, near Sequim, Washington, [47] demonstrates that big game hunting skills and technology were in the repertoire of coastal migrants by 13.8k years BP. That may be interpreted as meaning that a group with a big game hunting heritage, such as Beringians, acquired the means of waterborne migration; a group with a maritime heritage, such as Jomonoids, acquired big game hunting skills; or a process of fusion between the two groups."

Fine for an essay perhaps, but clearly OR. Even the 2nd para, which has a source for the spear point, is then the IP's interpretation. Dougweller (talk) 10:52, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

What interpretation? There are three suggestions, none of which are favored. 50.25.211.177 (talk) 22:52, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Overll we have lost readability of the article...rambles alot. lots of fix up work here. -- Moxy (talk) 17:36, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Someone definitely has to source it to any peer-reviewed scholarly sources that have discussed it. May not be OR but definitely reads like some history 101 term paper that's getting a C. Montanabw^(talk) 19:24, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

The sources on Jomonoids having the boats and the distinctive stemmed spearpoint technology, subsequently distributed over the Pacific Rim, are referenced in the previous paragraph. They are definitely peer-reviewed academic sources. If someone wants to propose that Beringians picked up two distinctive cultural elements of the coastal migrants - boats and stemmed spear points - on their own it would be, to put it kindly, a novel theory. The spread of boat technology throughout the Pacific, including to the Jomonoids, was driven by cultural communication. There is no reason to believe it was any different for the Beringians. Here's a quote from Kemp and Schurr, of the On Your Knees Cave crew, from a 2010 paper I'm looking at: "An entry prior to the opening of the ice-free corridor implies that humans must have initially used boats to enter the Americas along the Pacific coast."50.25.211.177 (talk) 22:52, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

The sources must discuss the settlement of the Americas. Otherwise it's WP:SYNTH. I think that it is very likely that humans crossed the Bering Strait on boats, but it has also at times been possible to walk across. Do Kemp and Schurr mention that? It was done in 2006. Dougweller (talk) 06:49, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Kemp and Schurr never argued against land migration into Beringia. They argued that boats were required for the coastal migration route. That of course leads to the question of who brought boat technology and skills to coastal Beringia. The contention that it was part of the same process that brought boat technology to the northwestern Pacific is credible. The postulate that it was independently developed by an interior big game hunting culture is not. You might also want to consider what Kemp and Schurr have to say about rates of molecular evolution, on which the time estimates for the hypothetical "Beringian standstill" are based, before you hang your hat on the estimates based on uncalibrated rates. The On Your Knees Cave DNA provides rate calibration and a long "Beringian Standstill" is not supported by the calibrated rate, let alone any confirmed archaeological dates from the Alaskan side. There are two models of migration into the Americas in contention, per Kemp and Schurr: a Direct Colonization Model (DCM) and a Beringian Incubation Model (BIM). Emphasizing the Beringian Standstill - BIM model the way the article does, when there are two models very much in contention, constitutes POV in my opinion.50.25.211.177 (talk) 22:30, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Walking down the Pacific coast

Our article on Clovis says "According to one alternative theory, the Pacific coast of North America may have been free of ice, allowing the first peoples in North America to come down this route prior to the formation of the ice-free corridor in the continental interior. No evidence has yet been found to support this hypothesis except that genetic analysis of coastal marine life indicates diverse fauna persisting in refugia throughout the Pleistocene ice ages along the coasts of Alaska and British Columbia; these refugia include common food sources of coastal aboriginal peoples, suggesting that a migration along the coastline was feasible at the time." Take a look at [19]. Dougweller (talk) 13:10, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

That fundamentally mis-states what the coastal migration hypothesis requires. The hypothesis only requires ice-free coastal or island refugia and the means to colonize them. In the absence of continuous ice-free coast the required means would be boats. Isotopic evidence of early coastal migrant diets also indicates a diet centered on marine, rather than terrestrial, foods. Meltzer also mis-states the process and chronology of coastal deglaciation. The first glaciers to retreat were locally-sourced alpine glaciers, which opened up coastal refugia even as Cordilleran ice was advancing in the period preceding 14k ¹⁴C years BP.

There is also evidence from ³⁶Cl dating of the Foothills Erratics Terrane of Alberta indicating that the proposed "ice-free corridor" was closed as recently as 12k-13k years BP. The reference to it has, for some unknown reason, been deleted from the discussion of the Clovis First theory.50.25.211.177 (talk) 23:42, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

References

Refugia

One hypothesis is that humans stayed in ice-free refugia in Beringia, later migrating to the continent. See [20] Fossil plant material cluing from about 24,000 years ago, the time of the maximum glacial extent, has been found in Yukon and has revealed much about the nature of the environment on this land bridge. Grasses and prairie sage [Artemisia frigida) were abundant [31], so the tundra steppe vegetation would have supported herds of large herbivores, including woolly mammoth, horses, and bison. The hunting peoples of eastern Asia probably followed these herds across into the New World. The exact date of arrival is still disputed, but indirect evidence from the geography of human languages suggests that the invasion must have taken place before the major advance of the last glaciation at about 22,000 years ago. The linguistic research of R. A. Rogers [32| has revealed three distinct groups of Native American languages, and these are centered on the three ice-free refu-gial areas of North America during the height of the last glaciation |Fig. 13.5). It seems likely that human populations were isolated in these three areas during the glacial maximum and subsequently spread to other regions. The extinct language of Beoihuk, once spoken in Newfoundland, could belong to another population isolated in that eastern rcfugium. An alternative explanation is that there have been three separate invasions of North America from Asia, thus accounting for the three language-groups [33]."

And see [21] and a 2015 publication [22]. Dougweller (talk) 13:19, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Please let us know when you encounter actual confirmed archaeological dates or even a calibrated genetic clock model to support human occupation of Beringia prior to the Last Glacial Maximum. Linguistic models are unacceptably soft for locating language development with such a high degree of geographic resolution.50.25.211.177 (talk) 00:22, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Posts arguing about the subject itself aren't appropriate here, this isn't a forum. We go by what sources meeting WP:RS have to say about a subject, not our opinions. Dougweller (talk) 15:09, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

When adding content an encyclopedic style with a formal tone is important. Instead of essay-like, argumentative, or opinionated writing, Wikipedia articles should have a straightforward, just-the-facts style. So what can we do...James Dixon Professor of Anthropology has a very interesting approach to how he words things....but this is got to much fluff init ...Clive Gamble (2013). Settling the Earth: The Archaeology of Deep Human History. Cambridge University Press. p. 231. ISBN 978-1-107-01326-1. has a better way of saying thisng as we should here. -- 17:17, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Presumably that would include posts arguing that we should discount Owsley's findings on Kennewick Man, without providing any source that shows they have been refuted.50.25.211.177 (talk) 19:24, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Simply not true. In fact, at the KM article I said someone needs to get his book and use it - and/or peer reviewed commentary on it. Dougweller (talk) 08:50, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

I don't think Owsley himself has published any relevant peer reviewed papers. Has he? I'm saying this after reading [23] and [24] (and note I'm not intending to add this to any articles, but it does suggest that we need commentary on Owsley as well. Dougweller (talk) 14:45, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Peer review is part of the standard procedure for publishing professional volumes such as Owsley et al. (Texas A&M University Press, 2014). You should familiarize yourself with the process before contending that Owsley has been avoiding professional peer review. It is nothing but a rumor campaign, fed in part by the crosscut site's incorrect attribution to Lape (discussed in the talk section of the KM site).75.111.54.141 (talk) 21:49, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Please read what I wrote again. I specifically said "papers". I'm well aware of the process of peer review involving academic books as I've actually taken part in it as a reviewer. Dougweller (talk) 08:44, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

So publishing journal papers is an acceptable standard but lead authorship of a whole 680 page professional volume isn't? Give me a break.75.111.54.141 (talk) 21:48, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Give me a quote where I said that. Kennewick Man: The Scientific Investigation of an Ancient American Skeleton should be an important source for the KM article, and where it discusses directly the settlement of the America's, here. Dougweller (talk) 12:58, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Deleted material which may be too closely paraphrased from Encarta

Can I please see the Encarta page? The 3rd paragraph below is clearly referenced. The other can be, where sourceable (some sources to come) rewritten. And I don't understand the citation tags next to references.

"Migrants from northeastern Asia could have walked to Alaska with relative ease when Beringia was above sea level. But traveling south from Alaska to the rest of North America may have posed significant challenges. The two main possible southward routes proposed for human migration are: down the Pacific coast; or by way of an interior passage (Mackenzie Corridor) along the eastern flank of the Rocky Mountains.<ref name="mmm" /> When the Laurentide and Cordilleran ice sheets were at their maximum extent, both routes were likely impassable. The Cordilleran sheet reached across to the Pacific shore in the west, and its eastern edge abutted the Laurentide, near the present border between British Columbia and Alberta.

Geological evidence suggests that the Pacific coastal route was open for overland travel before 23,000 years ago and after 15,000 years ago. During the coldest millennia of the last ice age, roughly 23,000 to 19,000 years ago, lobes of glaciers hundreds of kilometers wide flowed down to the sea.<ref name="aaa" /> Deep crevasses scarred their surfaces, making travel across them dangerous. Even if people traveled by boat—a claim for which there is no direct archaeological evidence, as sea level rise has hidden the old coastline—the journey would have been difficult due to abundant icebergs in the water. Around 15,000 to 13,000 years ago, the coast is presumed to have been ice-free. Additionally, by this time the climate had warmed, and lands were covered in grass and trees. Early Paleo-Indian groups could have readily replenished their food supplies, repaired clothing and tents, and replaced broken or lost tools.

Coastal or "watercraft" theories have broad implications, one being that Paleo-Indians in North America may not have been purely terrestrial big-game hunters, but instead were already adapted to maritime or semi-maritime lifestyles. Additionally, it is possible that "Beringian" (western Alaskan) groups migrated into the northern interior and coastlines only to meet their demise during the last glacial maximum, approximately 20,000 years ago,<ref>Dyke, A.S., A. Moore, and L. Robertson, 2003, [http://geopub.nrcan.gc.ca/moreinfo_e.php?id=214399 ''Deglaciation of North America''], Geological Survey of Canada Open File, 1574. (Thirty-two digital maps at 1:7,000,000 scale with accompanying digital chronological database and one poster (two sheets) with full map series.)</ref>{{citation needed|date=May 2015}} leaving evidence of occupation in specific localized areas. However, they would not be considered a [[Founder effect|founding population]] unless they had managed to migrate south, populate and survive the coldest part of the last ice age.<ref name="First">{{cite web | title = First Americans Endured 20,000-Year Layover - Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News | url =http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/02/13/beringia-native-american.html | accessdate = 2009-11-18|quote=Archaeological evidence, in fact, recognizes that people started to leave Beringia for the New World around 40,000 years ago, but rapid expansion into North America didn't occur until about 15,000 years ago, when the ice had literally broken}} [http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/02/13/beringia-native-american-02.html page 2]</ref>"

Dougweller (talk) 07:54, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

The citation flags were placed next to "citiations" that had nothing to do with the passage. For example, the citation "aaa" (now given the title "Tammetal2007") refers to a model of Beringian founder populations derived from mtDNA, but it was used as a citation for "During the coldest millennia of the last ice age, roughly 23,000 to 19,000 years ago, lobes of glaciers hundreds of kilometers wide flowed down to the sea." The article doesn't even remotely come close to that statement. Those pseudo-citations were all over the section. Other examples from the third paragraph are the reference "kind" that links to a multi-media presentation on the spread of human population throughout the world and does not address the adaptation of Beringian hunter-gatherers to maritime lifestyles; the Dyke et al. reference which links to a Canadian geopubs index and search page (not to the maps themselves) and the maps do not address the fate or early migrants anyway; and the Discovery News citation, a secondary source for Kitcnen et al. (2008), which does not comment on what could be considered a founding population. The citation problems were consistent enough that I do not think they were an accident.

Virtually the entire first and second paragraphs were plagiarized from Encarta (with pseudo-citations). I'll try to dig it up. IMO the Encarta source is problematic because it conflates the opening of the coastal route with the opening of an overland coastal route while there is a quantity of difference between a coastline with habitable refugia and a continuous, walkable coastline. We have the primary sources to build a clearer discussion of what the coastal migration hypothesis is, starting with an overview of the ancient environment as you proposed.75.111.54.141 (talk) 06:55, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. I don't think we should use Encarta in any case.

I've got some other sources that might be relevant. [25] can't be used as a source, but it does include some possible sources. See [26] also.

[27] the same, but note that it suggests that 4 major routes have been discussed:

Preclovis and the Pacific Coast Migration with a related article and sources at [28]

Clovis and the Ice Free Corridor again with [29]

Solutrean Precursors to Clovis see [30]

Trans-Pacific Contacts [31]

Again, I'm not suggesting About.com as an actual source.

E. James Dixon's Late Pleistocene colonization of North America from Northeast Asia: New insights from large-scale paleogeographic reconstructions is a relevant RS not yet used.

Life on the edge: early maritime cultures of the Pacific Coast of North America Jon M. Erlandson a,b,*, Madonna L. Moss b, Matthew Des Lauriers[32] is also not used. Dougweller (talk) 09:37, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

And "A post-glacial sea level hinge on the central Pacific coast of Canada" Quaternary Science ReviewsVolume 97, 1 August 2014, Pages 148–169 downloadable at [33] which lists as a highlight "Past shoreline elevations for future investigations of a coastal migration route." Dougweller (talk) 11:24, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

About.com seems like a good portal that can get us to a lot of up-to-date sources.

One thing that could flesh out this article regarding sources and timing of migration into Beringia is a little more rigorous consideration of the chronology of human occupation of northeastern Siberia. Thus far, the article indirectly relies on the Yana site as its sole source for the timing of occupation of Arctic Siberia. As it turns out, there is a great deal of questioning about whether the occupation of Arctic Siberia was continued into the LGM. A site west of the Yana site was found to be occupied around 33 ka during a warm interval, then cooling happened some time after 30 ka as indicated in the pollen record. An overview of the chronology of archaeosites throughout eastern Siberia seems to indicate retrenchment towards the upper Yenesei, trans-Baikal, and Altai regions of southern Siberia during the LGM. (Vasil'ev et al., 2002). (downloadable PDF under search) A similar position is taken by this article from 2009. Also, Graf concludes that Middle Upper Paleolithic (pre-LGM) stone suites indicated sedentism while Latest Upper Paleolithic suites (post-LGM) indicated a more migratory lifestyle, i.e. the climate was warming and the newly-mobile population was ready to go find a new continent. A post-LGM spread of humans into northern Siberia is supported by this analysis of haplogroups C and D, subclades of which became Native American haplotypes.75.111.54.141 (talk) 05:25, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. You may wonder why I'm not actively editing this article. As of this year I am a member of Wikipedia's Arbitration Committee, and unfortunately that is taking up almost all of the time that I have available for Wikipeda. Maybe in a couple of years... Dougweller (talk) 09:28, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

References

Open routes of travel - Map, tables, and text seem to disagree

The maps at the top of the page depict both the coastal route and interior route as being blocked by ice from 36-16 kya (or about 34-14 BCE). However, the chart in the "understanding the debate" section lists at least one of the routes as being open at any given time. Both routes are listed as open from 34,000-30,000 BCE, then the interior route is open from 30,000–22,000 BCE, and then the coastal route is open from 22,000-15,000 BCE. The text disagrees with both the maps and table, saying the coastal route was open before 23,000 years ago, when the map and table both seem to indicate it was blocked for much of the time before 23,000 years ago (unless the text really meant it was only open for a brief time before 23,000 years ago). I'm thinking part of the issue is that the maps just show snapshots from one point in time, and really there was more changes in the time period listed on each map. However, right now, the images, table, and text are confusing. Is there any way they could be cleaned up or replaced so as to be clearer and more consistent? Calathan (talk) 22:10, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

I don't know about fixing the maps, so we may need to remove any inaccurate maps unless they can be fixed. If the text is well sourced we need to go by that - maps, etc tend to be overlooked when editing I find. Dougweller (talk) 14:35, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Calathan, and I came to the talk page to try to flag up the same problem. I do not know much about this topic, and I understand that it is controversial, but I found it confusing that the text and the graphic seem to blatantly contradict each other. There are other apparently contradictory statements in the article too. It is not really helping the end user. 79.103.247.106 (talk) 23:48, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

I agree that the maps are confusing. The one showing the migration out of Beringia shows age ranges that are obviously wrong for the features shown. I vote for deleting it.75.111.20.66 (talk) 11:27, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

The authors of the source article for the maps made multiple errors. In their text, they refer to an ice-free corridor opening around 14k cal year BP, but the map shows it as a feature at 16k. Neither date is supported by the source they cite (their ref #26). That is completely unacceptable. More recent work on dating the extent of the ice sheets indicates that the inland route was blocked by ice between 21k and 12k BP. I am going to proceed with deleting the erroneous maps. 50.25.211.177 (talk) 22:43, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

Well, I guess it can stay with the proper caveats in the caption. It illustrates a certain model based on certain assumptions. The source article seems really sloppy and there is a real problem with the way their citations don't support what they use them for. But there are other articles cited that make similarly outlandish, arm-waving, assumption-laden claims. Acknowledge them, present the information that puts them in context, then move on and let the reader decide.75.111.54.141 (talk) 06:57, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

Should the material on Source Populations have been deleted?

Somebody (not signed in) deleted a good chunk of the material in the Source Populations section. From what I can tell, it is messy and overpedantic, but it may be that it is valuable info. I'm not familiar with this topic, so I don't want to mess with it, but I'd like other editors to take a look. I think it's an interesting aspect of the topic, so I'd be happy if one of you were to improve it, possibly reinserting some of that material. Paulmlieberman (talk) 12:55, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

Hi Paul,

I'm that pedantic guy. The last "red" edit I did was a while ago. There's a lot of stuff that gets orphaned or made redundant when reformulated elsewhere or doesn't fit into the outline we're working under. If it's redundant it goes. If it's orphaned it either finds a home under the new outline or gets tagged onto the bottom in a sort of holding pattern until we can find a way to use it. I welcome your feedback on style. Reporting on genomics has a pretty fine line between accuracy, logical sequence, and readability. A big part of the discussion on source populations revolves around it. If you see specific things that are giving you trouble, tell me about them here and I'll see what I can do. The Schurr (2000) paper cited at the beginning of the section is a good readable introduction to the topic and it's written by one of the heavyweights in the field.75.111.54.141 (talk) 06:01, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

NYTimes article

There was an article in the Times on 21 July 2015 discussing research that could point to some Australasian DNA links to some indigenous groups in the Amazon. Paulmlieberman (talk) 19:42, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Here is the original article. This means that Walter Neves's hypothesis (his writings are cited in the article) is finally redeemed. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Pre-Siberian American Aborigines, which turns out to have been prematurely deleted as insufficiently substantiated and supported (at the time) fringe content. I submit that the article be restored in light of the new findings. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 17:51, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Let's see how it's received. And note another paper has been published at about the same time with different conclusions [34][35] or as this says disparate findings.[[36] — Preceding unsigned comment added by Doug Weller (talk • contribs) 18:27, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

References

Genetic data does not support ancient trans-Atlantic migration, professor says

"Raff and Bolnick said in analyzing all recent genetic studies of the earliest Native Americans they didn't find anything consistent with a possible early trans-Atlantic migration. For example, the recent publication of the complete genome from the 8,500-year-old Kennewick Man, found in Washington state in 1996, showed that he belonged to haplogroup X2a but had no indication of recent European ancestry throughout the rest of his genome. Michael Crawford, head of KU's Laboratory of Biological Anthropology and a professor of anthropology, was a co-author on that genetic project." [37], based on their open-access paper. See[38]. Doug Weller talk 19:29, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

"A long layover on the Bering land bridge"

See [39] and this article. Doug Weller talk 14:56, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

Understanding the debate

I have removed the following:

" Archeological evidence, as well asanatomical, linguistic, and genetic evidence, have proven that the original human inhabitants of the Western Hemisphere arrived from Asia — only the time frame is an issue. "

If it is "proven" that all of the original inhabitants came from Asia then we could go ahead and delete all the competing theories from the article. What I am trying to say is that it is not "proven" and may never be.--Phil5329 (talk) 20:49, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

no need to put it back ..but i believe it has been proven ....The Solutrean and Mormon Hypothesis has been dead since the 1990s from what i read. Much DNA testing suggest all are from Asia. As for competing theories from the article most no-asian theories have been moved to there own article long ago. Only some of the Solutrean Hypothesis is still here as the genetic evidence proves it may be possible...but most likely expalined away(read more bellow)

• Solutrean hypothesis
• Pre-Columbian Andalusian-Americas contact theories
• Pre-Columbian Africa-Americas contact theories
• Norse colonization of the Americas
• Olmec alternative origin speculations
• Archaeology and the Book of Mormon

DNA analysis on Native Americans began in the 1980's but with rapid technological improvements, research intensified in the early 1990s. Several teams of genetics researches at prominent American universities have been conducting numerous studies. Although results from early studies showed the expected Siberian-Asian ancestry of the majority of modern Native American tribes. In 2002 the presence of the X haplogroup was found in a small percentage of modern Native Americans that is known to exist only in a few locations in Europe and the Middle East. Subsequent research indicated that the European DNA was not the result of genetic mixing after Columbus. However the time estimates on haplogroup X entering Americas is 28,000 B.C. and then again in 10,000 B.C. This suggest that the DNA assimilation accrued in Siberia(Asia) and not in the Americas. 2005 a research letter was published in the American Journal of Human Genetics, relating that a few people with the "X" type had been identified in a tribe located in extreme southern Siberia. These people, called the Altasians, or Altaics as Russian geneticists refer to them, have always lived in the Gobi Desert area, again suggest DNA mixture happened in Asia long ago.

.........so from what i can see ..... the only problem is route and time of migration of the Asian migrants. This (links) reference's bellow are from the article and from what is see they all say Native Americans are from Asia...but all do not agree on time of migration or route of migration. http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=by-land-and-by-sea-new-evidence-of-2009-01-09 http://www.unl.edu/rhames/courses/greenberg.htm http://www.news-medical.net/news/2007/11/27/32884.aspx http://www2.med.umich.edu/prmc/media/newsroom/details.cfm?ID=17 http://books.google.ca/books?id=FrwNcwKaUKoC&pg=PA79&lpg=PA79&dq=genetic+evidence+of+the+first+inhabitants+of+the+americas&source=bl&ots=Hk8WUlGHgb&sig=4OvJXwPTr3y9MMh28vFHFkdbWUI&hl=en&ei=3qrKSuzKHJG_lAfNnJiSAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7#v=onepage&q=genetic%20evidence%20of%20the%20first%20inhabitants%20of%20the%20americas&f=false http://www.innovations-report.com/html/reports/life_sciences/report-99109.html http://www.cabrillo.edu/~crsmith/firstamer.html http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1952074 http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1131883 http://www.physorg.com/news169474130.html http://defendingldtruth.weebly.com/the-book-of-mormon-vs-dna-research.html http://www.mazeministry.com/mormonism/newsletters_articles/jun03/jun03.pdf Buzzzsherman (talk) 02:57, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Note that the Altaian haplogroup X DNA is thought to be a comparatively recent introduction to that part of Asia (~ 5000 years max.), and is not any more closely related to the North American haplogroup X2a than any of the other "Old World" haplogroup X. Jheald (talk) 08:31, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

"The Solutrean and Mormon Hypothesis" well, certainly the Mormon hypothesis can be classified as fiction. But there are anthropologists who say that South America had human colonists from Africa as far back as 30,000 years. The Solutrean hypothesis says that humans came from Europe to North America 20,000 years ago. It's been suggested that Polynesians colonized the west coast of South America during their expansion. The Bering land bridge of is an established fact. All of these could be true. They are not mutually exclusive. From what we know of people, all of them might be considered likely. The Bering land bridge was the biggest migration. I think all the anthropologists have to agree about that. That was a great influx of thousands of people. If they found indigenous humans, no doubt they killed them or gave them new diseases or put them on reservations or something like that. :-) 173.174.85.204 (talk) 00:29, 24 April 2016 (UTC) Eric

Team studies whether Americans were descendants of original modern humans

"Beringia and the Global Dispersal of Modern Humans," published in the April issue of the journal Evolutionary Anthropology. The authors examined recent developments in anthropological genetics, archaeology and paleoecology and how these findings inform us about the original migration to the Americas, as well as the human occupation of the former land bridge between Alaska and Siberia, known as "Beringia."Read more at: [40]

Abstract

Until recently, the settlement of the Americas seemed largely divorced from the out-of-Africa dispersal of anatomically modern humans, which began at least 50,000 years ago. Native Americans were thought to represent a small subset of the Eurasian population that migrated to the Western Hemisphere less than 15,000 years ago. Archeological discoveries since 2000 reveal, however, that Homo sapiens occupied the high-latitude region between Northeast Asia and northwest North America (that is, Beringia) before 30,000 years ago and the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). The settlement of Beringia now appears to have been part of modern human dispersal in northern Eurasia. A 2007 model, the Beringian Standstill Hypothesis, which is based on analysis of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) in living people, derives Native Americans from a population that occupied Beringia during the LGM. The model suggests a parallel between ancestral Native Americans and modern human populations that retreated to refugia in other parts of the world during the arid LGM. It is supported by evidence of comparatively mild climates and rich biota in south-central Beringia at this time (30,000-15,000 years ago). These and other developments suggest that the settlement of the Americas may be integrated with the global dispersal of modern humans.[41] Doug Weller talk 15:40, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

Archaeological Evidence

This section is showing its age, relies far too much on interpretations of early Goebel and Buvit for a summation of the "facts", and reads like an editorial, rather then a NPOV presentation of current knowledge and questions. A rewrite and update is definitely in order. There are a number of newer (and also older unmentioned but reliable) secondary sources to include: On east Beringia dates we have (for example) , on widespread acceptance of older dates in the literature we have, on the proof of human activity at Bluefish (butcher marks on bone) within the 25,000 BP assemblage context we now have , and on western Beringia site dates up to 30,000 BP we have If we look at the Centre for the Study of the First Americans (is their validity as a source disputed?), on their homepage they summarize the state of affairs "... the Bering Land Bridge as early as ~30,000 years ago, and further dispersed from Beringia to the Americas after ~16,500 years ago. From archaeology, we know that the first Americans appeared south of the Canadian ice sheets by ~15,000 years ago, 2000 years before the emergence and spread of Clovis." Robert Brukner (talk) 19:10, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

It's not crystal clear which of these sites are "lithic assemblages only" and which feature finds of human bones. Kortoso (talk) 19:54, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

References

Human occupation in New Mexico 75,000 years ago?

Part of the fall-out from creating a navbox for prehistoric caves is discovering that we have some pretty poor articles. Nothing in the stub that still is Pendejo Cave mentioned this until I happened to see the article and wonder if it was worth including in the navbox. I didn't expect to find that Richard MacNeish had dated occupation there back that far.[42] Doug Weller talk 14:50, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

New evidence for a Beringian standstill

Article saying there is new evidence supporting a Beringian standstill. "Earliest Human Presence in North America Dated to the Last Glacial Maximum: New Radiocarbon Dates from Bluefish Caves, Canada"{http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0169486} Doug Weller talk 14:55, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

130,000-year-old archaeological site in southern California

The following if it holds up to scrutiny, would be pretty remarkable.

• Holen SR, Deméré TA, Fisher DC, Fullagar R, Paces JB, Jefferson GT, et al. (26 April 2017). "A 130,000-year-old archaeological site in southern California, USA". Nature. 544 (7651): 479–483. doi:10.1038/nature22065.

Remarkable claims however require remarkable evidence and there is some skepticism of the claim:

• Newitz A (26 April 2007). "Incredible discovery places humans in California 130,000 years ago". Ars Technica.

Too soon to include? Boghog (talk) 07:09, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

It is published in Nature, no trivial publication, and has had widespread publicity. It has also had some fairly devastating rebuttals. I'd suggest that a brief account of the findings, and of the obvious rebuttal (that neither the "tools" nor the "human-worked" bones are in any way definitive of human use), would be appropriate for an evolving encyclopedia at this stage of the debate. They would also save us a lot of reverting. In due course it seems likely to be a delightful idea (Hesperopithecus come back! all is forgiven) that didn't work out, but we will still need to make some mention of it. Richard Keatinge (talk) 08:47, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

At this edit I have put in a rebuttal from Professor Tom Dillehay, an authoritative commentator. I hope this helps. Richard Keatinge (talk) 10:50, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

That's really useful and just what this article needed. Thanks. I've added a few more quotes from the source. Doug Weller talk 12:52, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

Quote out of Incredible discovery places humans in California 130,000 years ago, Arstechnica: "(The timing makes sense, at least in terms of climate. About 130,000 years ago, the planet went through a warm, interglacial period when the coastal route would have been relatively ice-free, allowing people to find food as they gradually made their way from Asia to the Americas. It's even possible that Beringia would have been as walkable as it was in the late Pleistocene.)" This is an argument that should be added to the article. I understand the sceptics, but Archaic humans have been underestimated lots of times in the past. For example the Neathertals.Smiley.toerist (talk) 09:06, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

Pls read the article .....huge paragraph on the subject.--Moxy (talk) 11:33, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

There is a lot in the article about the climate, but not in de 130k BP range. All from about 30k BP and afterwards.Smiley.toerist (talk) 22:54, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

Please put copied material in quotes. We can't use that as it fails [[WP:RS. The author isn't a recognised expert in the field. Doug Weller talk 05:59, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

I agree. However it seems that there is no publication wich studies the posibilities of human migrations in the Bering street in the Illinoian (stage) period. Circumtantial evidence can either reinforce or exclude the 130.000 find.Smiley.toerist (talk) 08:16, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

Page move reversed

And something odd happened, I got an error message at one point. I'm fixing it but it's very slow.Doug Weller talk 14:52, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

Normal service has been restored. Ok, @Facts707: this is a fairly active page with almost 200 watchers and 32 who visited recent edits. If you want to move it you need to discuss it with other interested editors to make sure that the move is done to an agreed name and that links aren't messed up. This page has over 2000 links, I gave up at that point, and you made all those links go to a dab page. Doug Weller talk 14:58, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

Yes would need to talk about a move....I don't see settlement and colonization as the same thing.--Moxy (talk) 15:31, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

I agree, and the new title (Prehistoric migration and settlement of the Americas from Asia) was very long-winded. I've added a disambiguation hatnote which I think is enough to clear up any confusion with the current title. – Joe (talk) 16:32, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

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Requested move 12 December 2017

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: no consensus to move this article. (closed by page mover) Bradv 14:05, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

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Settlement of the Americas → Prehistoric migration and settlement of the Americas from Asia – "Settlement" is very ambiguous - could mean Caucasion "settlers" in covered wagons heading west from the East Coast in the 1800s, "settlers" from Europe 1492-1700s, ~1000 AD Norse settlements in Newfoundland, etc. Clearly this article is talking about prehistoric peoples and is primarily concerned with their migration from Asia. For examples see over 69,000 articles in Google Scholar: Prehistoric Migration to the Americas. Facts707 (talk) 16:30, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

Support unless the article scope is widened to include European settlement/colonisation. I would suggest the new title be simply Prehistoric settlement of the Americas from Asia. Simon Burchell (talk) 17:32, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose. I just don't see the point of this move. The current title is not very ambiguous. Realistically it could only refer to one of two events: prehistoric settlement/colonisation, or recent European settlement/colonisation. Contrasting settlement of the Americas with [European] colonisation of the Americas is therefore a neat solution to this ambiguity using natural disambiguation. There are other ways we could disambiguate, but this seems the most straightforward. And there are now hatnotes at the top of both articles should anyone end up at the wrong article.

If it is moved, I think Prehistoric migration and settlement of the Americas from Asia is an excessively clunky target. "Migration" and "settlement" are synonyms in this context; "migration... of the Americas" doesn't make grammatical sense; and the "from Asia" is entirely unnecessary (there were no migrants from anywhere else in prehistory). We'd have to come up with something better than that. Perhaps Prehistoric colonisation of the Americas, to mirror European colonisation of the Americas. – Joe (talk) 19:30, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose Why go out of our way to make the title long-winded. On a side note.....colonization.....migration and settlement are not the same thing.--Moxy (talk) 21:47, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose The settlement / colonization distinction makes things clear, and a clarifying hatnote is all that's needed to explain it.--Carwil (talk) 22:16, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
• Support only something like Prehistoric settlement of the Americas, which is both precise and concise. Red Slash 13:35, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose. For those who feel a strong need for a more precise title, a few redirects would take care of that. The term 'colonization' is absolutely wrong for the title. My main concern is: what will facilitate readers discovering this great article? Paulmlieberman (talk) 14:37, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
• Support only something like Prehistoric settlement of the Americas - I (OP) now agree with Red Slash. Prehistoric colonisation of the Americas (thanks Joe) is close, but I think colonisation implies at least a temporary parent/child relationship where the mother country supplies the colony with more settlers and probably equipment/weapons/food, albeit with a few weeks or months delay at times. I'm not sure we can say this generally of the prehistoric migrants, with each new "colony" likely losing touch with most of the earlier colonies except the most recent ones (physically reachable by foot/horse/boat in a reasonable time). If no consensus here after the 7 days I will repost under the suggested new name. Thanks all, Facts707 (talk) 09:48, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

See Colonisation (biology). That is the sense of the word used when we talk about prehistoric colonisation. – Joe (talk) 10:00, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

"Settlement"

There is a reason most sources talk about the "peopling" of the Americas in the context of the Paleolithic / Pleistocene: Paleolithic people were not sedentary, they had no permanent settlements, and thus they were not, technically, "settlers". This applies worldwide, not just to the Americas. The Paleolithic migraition into Europe around 40 kya isn't referred to as the "settling of Europe" for the exact same reason. The title as it stands is just awkward. --dab (𒁳) 07:20, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

Settlement for some odd reason its the norm.......even in the media.--Moxy (talk) 18:35, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

• Americas saw three waves of ancient settlers - New Scientist
• The earliest settlement date of North America, until now estimated at....- Science-daily

A course

• Earliest Settlement of the Americas -SFU Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology

I would say I books like bellow set the norm

• Tom D. Dillehay (2000). The Settlement of the Americas: A New Prehistory. Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-07668-0.
• Gary Haynes (14 November 2002). The Early Settlement of North America: The Clovis Era. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-52463-6.

Implicit time travel by migrants

Mmmeiss (talk) 21:48, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

The migration map shown in Figure 2 implies time travel. The arrowheads presumably show direction of travel, and the color scale shows time in thousands of years before present.

Consider Arrow 1, the large arrow with the red head. Its tail is in Siberia and the yellow color indicates 10,000 years ago. Its head is almost in Alaska and is dark read, indicating 25,000 years ago. Thus, as the people migrated into Alaska, they went back in time.

Arrow 3 shows the same confusion, while the green arrows (both with the number 4) both go from older to more recent, as we would expect.

Is this a case where a graphic artist payed more attention to artistry than logic? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.24.5.76 (talk) 19:17, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

The map is about gene flow....pls see http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0000829 for a better explanation.--Moxy (talk) 00:18, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

Pedra Furada

Not a single word about Pedra Furada? Pedra Furada is the oldest known human site in the Americas and it is in South America and not in North America and it contradicts the Clovis Theory and the Short Theory. Is it the reason for the exclusion? Joaoialima (talk) 01:32, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

I just created the redirect Pleistocene peopling of the Americas -- this is intended to refer to the "long chronology" theory. The problem seems to be that the two theories aren't conflicting, but are presented in a muddled-up fashion as if they were. The two should be discussed separately:

• "Short chronology" means post-LGM, including all unresolved questions of "ice corridor" vs. "coastal migration", and just how many years before Clovis (19 kya? 16 kya?)
• "Long chronology" doesn't impinge on any of this, it is the possibility that there may have been an earlier peopling, at 50 kya, tens of thousands of years before. There is very scant evidence for this indeed, but recent genetic studies appear to lend support to it, so it may be worth dedicating a section to it. Everything discussed under "short chronology" will still be valid even if this is true, the only difference will be that a small number of "Australoids" were already hiding in the Amazon basin, and may have interbred with the new arrivals around 14 kya.

I am not sure if Pleistocene peopling of the Americas is the best title (technically, 19 kya is still in the "late Late Pleistocene), I took the term from Santos et al. 2003, but there certainly should be a dedicated page on this, combining the material now scattered across this page, Luzia Woman, Walter Neves, Pedra Furada, Australo-Melanesians#Possible_early_presence_in_the_Americas, Fuegians#Possible_Australian/Melanesian_origin, Las Palmas Complex and possibly elsewhere. --dab (𒁳) 06:12, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

Actually, "Pleistocene peopling of the Americas" could be a better title for this page, as all scenarios, early (50 kya), post-LGM (20 kya), "Clovis first" (13 kya) and even "Solutrean" (20 kya), take place entirely within the Late Pleistocene. --dab (𒁳) 10:03, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

A giant capuchin monkey is a better candidate for the smasher of the femurs and teeth of the Cerutti Mastodon than Homo sapiens.

See [43]. "My disagreement is not, in short, with the Cerutti team’s factual findings, but rather with their conclusion that there is “no other way that the material of the Cerutti Mastodon site could have been produced than through human activity.”[3] In this article I suggest that it is more likely that the Cerutti mastodon’s bones and teeth were smashed by an individual or individuals of a large platyrrhine monkey species descended from, or otherwise related to, the giant capuchin Acrecebus fraileyi." Doug Weller talk 19:00, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

and why not a giant Spaghetti flying monster, then? Or a Bigfoot? A giant apes that demolish a mastondon is really better to believe than a human action? Ever happened that an ape can use tools to do this? Anyway thanks to the link. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.11.0.22 (talk) 01:30, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Suggested edit in lede paragraph

Otherwise a very good and pertinent article, the first sentence in the lede, however, seems to me to be a bit too long, and should be broken down into two sentences for better readability. The current edit reads as follows:

Human settlement of the Americas began when Paleolithic hunter-gatherers first entered North America from the North Asian Mammoth steppe via the Beringia land bridge which had formed between northeastern Siberia and western Alaska due to the lowering of sea level during the Last Glacial Maximum.

My suggestion would be to have it reworded (broken down) in this way:

Human settlement of the Americas began when Paleolithic hunter-gatherers first entered North America from the North Asian Mammoth steppe via the Beringia land bridge which had formed between northeastern Siberia and western Alaska. It is largely believed that this was due to the lowering of sea level during the Last Glacial Maximum.

Any better suggestions?Davidbena (talk) 01:10, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

I object to the term "settlement" as inaccurate, possibly a little OCD, but it is inaccurate to speak of "settlement" in the Paleolithic, when nobody was in fact sedentary. The term "peopling" is more adequate. I sympathise with your instinct to break down the run-on sentence, but "it is largely believed that" is an empty filler phrase. Such phrasing should only be used on Wikipedia if the text goes on to actually quantify the "largely" and cite an assessment of the prevalence of the majority vs. minority views. It isn't "largely believed" that a land bridge formed due to the lowering of sea levels. The formation of a land bridge pretty much implies a lowering of sea levels a fortiori. --dab (𒁳) 05:37, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

Settlement

There was nothing wrong with my WP:BRD move to peopling of the Americas, but the move has now been reverted by User:Power~enwiki, an editor without any apparent involvement with the article, apparently purely on the mistaken bureaucratic attitude "can't have a move without proper WP:RM", not based on any engagement with or opinion on the topic. So now under "BRD" there would be the "discuss" part, but the editor hasn't deigned to leave any comment related to content. I believe in the old school approach to Wikipedia, where articles are written by people who engage with the topic and collaborate on it, and I am prepared to jump through random hoops imposed purely by rules-lawyering (as opposed to proper procedure when there is an actual, informed, coherent difference in opinion between editors), so the page will just remain under its current name unless somebody else thinks the rename was a good idea. --dab (𒁳) 06:20, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

Settlement for some odd reason its the norm.......even in the media...pls review the topic before a move. --Moxy (talk) 06:28, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

• Americas saw three waves of ancient settlers - New Scientist
• The earliest settlement date of North America, until now estimated at....- Science-daily

A course

• Earliest Settlement of the Americas -SFU Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology

I would say I books like bellow set the norm

• Tom D. Dillehay (2000). The Settlement of the Americas: A New Prehistory. Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-07668-0.
• Gary Haynes (14 November 2002). The Early Settlement of North America: The Clovis Era. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-52463-6.

I don't know, dab, I've often found your moves to be in this area a bit puzzling, based on idiosyncratic understandings of the terminology rather than the sources. Case in point: who except an etymologist thinks "sedentary" when they hear "settlement"? Clearly not any of the experts Moxy has cited above. A little more caution in making sure there is a consensus (or at least no objection) before a move wouldn't hurt. – Joe (talk) 07:47, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

In my experience, "settlement" is more commonly used, and references to that term are found above. Google hits favor "settlement" about 10 to 1, though some of those refer to later European colonization. Without some explanation of why you feel the move is necessary/productive, I didn't feel a need to defend the status quo. I don't feel that the fact that these people were nomadic (and not sedentary) is a good reason for the suggested page move. power~enwiki (π, ν) 00:28, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

k cal BP explained

I just added one sentence explaining the notation, k cal BP after a number. The article uses phrases like about 19,000 years ago, then in one section shifts abruptly to this notation. I found two Wikipedia articles as links, and one Thoughtco article explaining that it means radiocarbon dating. I sought the answer to the question, when did native Americans arrive on the continent, and suddenly was seeing this opaque notation on maps, in the text. I suspect others might appreciate the explanation as well. I put the sentence after the first use in the article. I suppose once a person is used to it, that notation looks simple, but it was not an easy guess for me. I also formatted a reference, so it did not have duplicate information in it. --Prairieplant (talk) 23:15, 30 October 2018 (UTC)