The Settlement of the Americas

Just when we thought the problem of the peopling of the Americas was solved, along came Tom Dillehay. It was thought that the first Americans crossed the Bering Strait from Siberia during the last Ice Age and traversed an ice-free corridor to the Great Plains. From there they quickly spread throughout the New World. This all began around 11,200 years ago, and the great hunters were called Clovis people, after a small town in New Mexico where their remains were first identified. This theory of the peopling of the Americas lasted barely 50 years before Dillehay, of the University of Kentucky, discovered a site in southern Chile that produced human artifacts and C-14 dates 1,300 years earlier than Clovis. The Monte Verde site, which Dillehay excavated between 1977 and 1989, is now widely accepted as the first proven pre-Clovis site. This realization has unleashed a full-scale assault on the Clovis-first thesis that is the subject of this very readable book. Dillehay writes about his research at Monte Verde and about early sites throughout South America that he believes are the key to solving the problem of the peopling of the Americas. In addition to archaeology, he uses linguistics, geology, and ecology to support his thesis. Land routes and sea routes are explored, and Dillehay brings us up to date on all of the latest theories, including a migration from Europe. Archaeologists are rapidly rewriting the adventures of the first Americans, and The Settlement of the Americas is an essential contribution.