And in recent decades they have been in general agreement that these ancient Indians, or Paleoindians (which means “old” Indians), as they are known, arrived some 13,000–14,000 years ago at the end of the period known as the Pleistocene.
For over one hundred years-and after a long period of discussion-almost all scientists have agreed that the ancestors of today’s indigenous people came to North America from Asia.
From new data flow new hypotheses, subsequent testing to falsify or confirm them, and adjustments, if necessary, in theories and the conclusions drawn reasonably from them. Today’s consensus, like all scenarios based in science, changes with new data from new sites or with re-interpretations of sites or artifacts long known, in both instances offering fresh insight on the arrival, spread, and behavior of man in the New World. Today, in contrast, many American Indians agree with the consensus among scientists (regardless of their ethnicity) over the origin of American Indians. Each nation or tribe had its own theory in which the ancestors either came from elsewhere-a world beneath the current one, lands in the east or west, near a salty sea, and so on-or had always been where they were at the time the question was posed. Given the hundreds of sovereign societies in North America in the early sixteenth century, this means hundreds of different voices in former times. Origin myth (British Columbia)Asked in former days where they came from, American Indians answered in as many voices as there were different cultures. Nature Transformed is made possible by grants from the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations.ĭirector, Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology at Brown University The Effects of Removal on American Indian Tribesīuffalo Tales: The Near-Extermination of the American Bison Paleoindians and the Great Pleistocene Die-Off Paleoindians and the Great Pleistocene Die-Off, Nature Transformed, TeacherServe®, National Humanities CenterĪmerican Indians: The Image of the Indian
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