The Late Pleistocene Dispersal of Modern Humans in the Americas
Ted Goebel,1*
Michael R. Waters,2
Dennis H. O'Rourke3
When did humans colonize the Americas? From where did they come and what routes did they take? These questions have gripped scientists for decades, but until recently answers have proven difficult to find. Current genetic evidence implies dispersal from a single Siberian population toward the Bering Land Bridge no earlier than about 30,000 years ago (and possibly after 22,000 years ago), then migration from Beringia to the Americas sometime after 16,500 years ago. The archaeological records of Siberia and Beringia generally support these findings, as do archaeological sites in North and South America dating to as early as 15,000 years ago. If this is the time of colonization, geological data from western Canada suggest that humans dispersed along the recently deglaciated Pacific coastline.
1 Center for the Study of the First Americans, Department of Anthropology, Texas A&M University, 4352 TAMU, College Station, TX 77843–4352, USA.
2 Center for the Study of the First Americans, Departments of Anthropology and Geography, Texas A&M University, 4352 TAMU, College Station, TX 77843–4352, USA.
3 Department of Anthropology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84122–0060, USA.
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: goebel{at}tamu.edu
