HIS 2213 Learning Unit 2 Lecture

1. Learning Unit #02 Lecture:
“Who Were the First Americans
& When Did They Arrive?”

2. Part One:
Defining Race & Ethnicity
2

3. Race & Ethnicity
• ‘Race’ is a modern idea based on perceived
physical & biological differences.
– The terms ‘race’ & ‘ethnicity’ are not
interchangeable; each has a distinct meaning
for social scientists.
– Prior to DNA research, many wrongly
assumed that huge differences existed among
Earth’s various peoples due to their diverse
appearances; racial hierarchies resulted. In
the 21st century, ‘race’ is useful only to
describe an individual’s physical traits, such
as skin color & the shapes of certain facial
e features.

4. Race & Ethnicity
• Slavery pre-dates the invention of ‘race.’
– When I say that “race is a modern idea,” it
means that in the ancient world, peoples such
as the Greeks & Romans believed themselves
superior to other societies, but this sense of
superiority was based on the achievements of
their respective civilizations, not their skin
color or a belief that they were biologically
superior to other groups.
– In the ancient world slavery was not based on
the color of one’s skin; slaves & masters
frequently shared the same skin color.

5. Race & Ethnicity
• The idea of ‘race’ is not supported by genetic
research & has no basis in science; only a
tiny percentage of our genes (haplotype)
determine our physical appearances.
– From a DNA standpoint, it makes no sense for
humans to think of themselves as divided into
“races” b/c of skin color; DNA tells us that all
humans are 99.99% the same, no matter
how different we may appear on the
outside!

6. Race & Ethnicity
• ‘Race’ is an illusion, but historically societies
have used ‘race’ to serve the interests of a
dominant group. Unfortunately, the racism
they create is real.
– “For a long time, people have tried to use the
physical differences among groups to divide
human beings into...‘races’. Many schemes have
been proposed; none has worked. There are too
many exceptions, too much overlap among
groups. Humans just don’t sort neatly into
biological categories, despite all the attempts of
human societies to create and enforce such
distinctions.”--Steve Olson, Mapping Human History

7. Race & Ethnicity
• Because social scientists no longer consider
“race” to be a useful concept, the focus of
analysis has shifted to “ethnicity,” i.e., an
emphasis on a cultural, linguistic, religious,
and/or territorial community.
– Today it is possible, particularly for white
Americans, to enjoy some degree of
“situational ethnicity,” in their ethnic self-
identifications. Ex. Greek to friends & family,
Polish at work, Welsh on official documents.
– Skin color can be one ethnic indicator, but not
necessarily. Ex. Black Caribbean Hispanics

8. Race & Ethnicity
• We all share the same ancestors; here’s why:
– “With each generation going back through
time, the number of our ancestors doubles. [If
we use 20 years as the measure of a human
generation,] just ten generations [200 yrs.]
ago, each of us had 1,024 [direct ancestors].
20 generations ago = more than 1 million
ancestors; 30 generations ago (circa the year
1400) = more than 1 billion ancestors.
EXCEPT, there were only around 375 million
people on earth in 1400, which means the
exponential rise in the number of our
ancestors must break down at some point, &
all our family trees must link up.”-- Steve
Olson, Mapping Human History

9. Racism, the belief that some
groups of people are genetically
superior to others, has no basis in
science.

10. Part Two:
Populating the Americas (i.e., the
Western Hemisphere)

11. The Western
Hemisphere was
Paleo-Indians walked across Beringia
and developed into the Clovis Group
Clovis-First
the last part of by 13,500 years ago.
Theory
the planet to
be settled by (Route 1)
humans.
Conventional “Clovis-first”
Theory of Human This theory was
accepted as THE
Settlement in the
ONLY ANSWER
Americas until about
--Beringia (land bridge) 1975.
exposed 70,000 to
10,000 years ago
--Ice free corridor near
end of last Ice Age Clovis points are
found all over the
Continental USA
& as far south as
Belize, but NOT
in Alaska or
Siberia or
anywhere else on
Earth.

12. Clovis points
“The glacial history of Alaska, Canada, and the Great Lakes region indicates that, for the
first time in at least 15,000 years, an ice-free, trans-Canadian corridor opened up
approximately 12,000 years ago. Since Clovis points are distributed from coast to coast
south of the Valders ice border, the abrupt appearance of Clovis artifacts in the stratigraphic
record of the High Plains some 700 years later suggests that Clovis progenitors passed
through Canada during Two Creeks time [11,800 years ago].”—C. Vance Haynes, Jr.,
Archaeologist & Clovis-first theorist, 1964
(NOTE: For radiocarbon dating done prior to the 1980s, add 2000 years to estimates.)

13. Ground Sloth
N. American
Megafauna
Short-faced bear
American Mastodon
All these species died out between
9,000 to 11,000 years ago,
probably due to a combination of
climate change (possibly a comet)
& human overkill.
Saber-tooth Cat

14. The Case for Pre-
Clovis People
(Route 2)
3 Waves
• Coastal Entry hypothesis: --Paleo-Indians
Early humans avoided ice (Pre-Clovis)
sheet by hugging possibly 20-
coastline in small 30,000 years
ago. Develop-
watercraft ed into Clovis
• Archaeological sites people by
13,500 y.a.
– Meadowcroft Rock
Shelter, western PA (Post-Clovis)
(16,000-19,000 y.a.) --Na-Dene
10000-11000
– Monte Verde, Chile (at least years ago.
This migration
route from 1000 yrs. before earliest N. --Inuit
Australia & N. Zealand American Clovis site) 5000-7000 y.a.
to S. America could also
have been possible.

15. Meadowcroft Rock
Shelter, PA
Why are pre-
Clovis people so
elusive?
• Not many of them.
• Things they used
were mostly made
of wood and fibers,
which degrade w/
time.
• Water has risen;
coastlines have
receded.

16. What DNA Tells Us about the
Earliest Americans
• Native Americans (“Indians”) are the closest
living relatives of early Americans.
• Within the contemporary Native American
population, there are 4 haplo-groups (A, B, C, D)
• A,C, & D’s nearest kin live near the border of
Mongolia and Siberian Russia. (No surprise.)
• Group B’s nearest kin are in China and
Southeast Asia. (No surprise.)
• Humans have been in the Americas more than
20,000 years; Group B arrived about 15,000
years ago. (Hence, both these dates point to a
much earlier arrival than the Clovis-First
timeframe.)

17. Surprise! Haplo-group X
• ‘X’ is found among Algonqian-speaking Native
Americans living around the Great Lakes.
• ‘X’ had previously been found only in Europe
among Druze, Italian, & Finnish populations.
Long walk
across
Eurasia? Atlantic
How did genetic crossing?
a genetic marker
from a European
population enter the
Native American gene pool
in prehistoric times?

18. When
Columbus
met the
Arawak
(or Tainos)
Indians on
the shores of
San
Salvador, he
was
encountering
his own
distant
cousins. Some conservatives justify the Europeans’ taking of
Native American lands by claiming that the original
occupants were merely colonists too.

19. First Americans Timeline/Summary
• OLD ASSUMPTIONS • WHAT NEW DNA
BASED ON EVIDENCE ADDS TO
ARCHAEOLOGICAL THE STORY:
EVIDENCE: – Paleo-Indians (a.k.a.
– Paleo-Indians probably Groups A, C, & D) must
have left Northeast Asia as
arrived c. 14,000 y.a. &
early as 20,000 to 30,000
developed Clovis points by
y.a.
13,500 y.a.
– Na-Dene People
– Na-Dene People arrived (a.k.a. Group B) arrived as
10,000-11,000 y.a.
early as c. 15,000 y.a.
– Inuits arrived 5,000-7,000 – European genetic
y.a.
markers (Group X) were
also present in prehistoric
Americans’ gene pool. How
was this possible?

20. Atlantic Coastal Route?
The Atlantic Ocean
was about 400 ft.
lower & the Arctic
ice sheets extended
further south prior
to the end of the
last ice age.
If Stone Age Europeans crossed the Atlantic and came to the
Americas, the group most likely to have pulled off such a feat was the
Solutreans of southern France & northern Spain, innovators of cave
art & their own distinctive stone spear point.

21. Solutrean
Cave
Paintings
? ?
? ?
One problem with the Atlantic
Crossing theory is explaining why
no Solutrean cave art exists in the
Solutrean Americas. Why would they bring
Stone their spearpoint technology but not
Spear point their art?

22. Atlantic
Coastal
Route?
(Route 3)
The Solutrean Theory could
explain why the distribution
of Clovis points does not follow
a north-to-south pattern, and
more Clovis sites are found on
the East Coast than any other
part of the USA.

23. Clovis & Solutrean
Solutrean
Clovis
Different shapes, but similar technology.
Might Solutrean points have been the
predecessors of Clovis points?

24. Some archaeologists are convinced that this
stone tool found at Cactus Hill, VA (center),
represents the “missing link” between Solutrean
24
& Clovis technologies.

25. OR….
Maybe the Clovis
point was not
based on any
pre-existing
technology.
Maybe the Clovis
point is the first
great American
invention.

26. Part Three:
Who Was Kennewick Man?
26

27. Kennewick Man – 9500 yrs. old
The oldest, most complete skeleton ever found in N. America was
discovered in 1996 & quickly became the focus of disputes concerning
his racial identity & which contemporary ethnic group should have
custody of his remains. Scientists eventually convinced a judge that KM
was old enough to be related to us all & should be studied for the benefit
of everyone.

28. The legal battle
pitted scientists
against Native
American tribes,
with the former
prevailing. After
one anthropologist
remarked on what
he interpreted as
KM’s “European
features,” white
supremacists
came out of the
woodwork trying
to claim KM as
their ancestor.

29. DNA analysis has
since shown that
Kennewick man
shares the closest
genetic similarities
with the
contemporary Ainu
people, who live in
the northernmost
Japanese Islands
and are well-known
for their hirsute
characteristics (i.e.,
their ‘hairiness’).

30. Today there are individuals
whose classification into a
single so-called ‘racial’
category is problematic
because of their multi-
ethnicity. That being the
case: How then is it
possible to apply our
contemporary racial
classifications to
individuals such as
Kennewick Man, who lived
thousands of years ago
and are therefore related to
President us all? The answer is: We
Obama
can’t.

31. Computer-generated,
Multiethnic-Composite
Woman, Time, 1993
Tiger
Woods
Vin Actor
Diesel
“The USA is a cross
-breeding integration
of humans from all
the nations of the
planet Earth….. The North Americans [including
Canadians and Mexicans] are evolutionarily
cross-breeding into a single hybrid family of
world humans.”—Buckminster Fuller, 1981 News Soledad
Anchor O’Brien

32. Part Four:
Early Native Cultures of North
America
32

33. Native Americans
developed maize (corn)
from a wild grass,
selectively cultivating its
special characteristics
over thousands of years.
Beginning about 7000 yrs. ago, maize (corn), beans,
squash, and chilies revolutionized N. American
agriculture and led to more settled existences for some
Native American peoples.

34. Native
American
agriculture
was
superior to
that of Corn
Europeans, Beans
which meant
more people
were freed
from the land
to live in
Squash
cities. A
number of
impressive
civilizations
had risen and
fallen in the
Americas prior
to the arrival
of Europeans.

35. The Classic Maya (600-800 CE)
The Maya were the
cultural innovators
of Mesoamerica,
developing the most
impressive literature,
mathematics, & art
in the New World.
Southern Mexico and Central America

36. The Mississippian (850-1250 CE)
Pyramid mounds were the chief characteristic of Mississippian culture. Most mounds did not contain
burials but were used instead to denote the status of important residents & for ceremonial purposes.
Monks Mound (Cahokia, IL) extends over an area larger than the Great
Pyramid at Giza, Egypt.

37. Cahokia was the center of a vast
riverine trading network.
Artifacts such as turquoise &
copper, which could only
have come from
hundreds of miles
away, have been
found there.

38. The Anasazi,
(900-1350 CE)
In the American Southwest,
the Anasazi managed for a
time to successfully irrigate
& farm the challenging desert
environment. They also
engaged in extensive road
construction & turquoise
mining/trading. A
combination of climate
change, environmental
collapse, & hostile invaders
most likely explains the
abandonment of their early
population centers. Their
Pueblo descendants were the cliff-
dwelling Native Americans
Bonito encountered by the Spanish,
New who called them “Pueblo,”
Mexico meaning “village.”

39. “The largest [planned village], at Pueblo Bonito, in Chaco Canyon, contained about 800 rooms
and may have housed as many as 1200 persons. No larger apartment-house type construction
would be seen on the continent until the late nineteenth century in New
York City.” -- Gary Nash, Red, White & Black: The Peoples
of Early North America
Chaco
Canyon,
New Mexico

40. Late-period Anasazi villages were frequently built on sites
easily defended against hostile northern invaders, such as
the ancestors of the Navajo. In fact, the word “Anasazi” is
a Navajo term that means “ancestral enemies.”
Cliff Palace at Mesa Verde, CO

41. Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital, as it probably looked at the time
the Spanish arrived in the fall of 1519.

42. At least 20-25
million people
(& perhaps
significantly
more) were
living in N.
America at
the time of
European
contact. Each
native group
had
developed a
“500 distinct
culture
Nations” because of
specific
adaptations
made to their
local
environments.