Old Controversies and New
Theories: The Peopling of the Americas - Insights and New Developments
Huronia Museum, Midland, Ontario at 7 pm, Thursday, May 9, 2013
Huronia Museum, Midland, Ontario at 7 pm, Thursday, May 9, 2013
Bill Fox gave an interesting, detailed
talk on theories about how the Americas were peopled.
It’s a shame more people did not make it
out to this entertaining and informative talk.
As you may recall from school, for a
long time educators taught the theory that the Americas were populated by
peoples moving from Asia across the Bering land bridge (now the Bering Sea
between Siberia and Alaska) and gradually moved south eventually to the foot of
South America. Associated with this are the archaeological sites with what are
known as Clovis Points.
Bill Fox showed maps and illustrations
of artifacts of Americas and spokein some detail about theories old and
new. He described the Clovis Point sites
and the theory that followed from that analysis with people entering the
Americas via a Bering Land Bridge. He went on to show many other sites that
have been carefully worked that show artifacts that pre-date the Clovis sites
and its related theory. He showed a great deal of detail about the specific
artifacts and their dating from a range of sites throughout North, Central and
South America. For example, at Monte
Verde in Chile dating some artifacts back from 14,000 to 15,000 down to a layer
of material dating back to 33,000 years ago. Very heated discussions and
controversy resulted to this new work that challenged the people who believed
strongly in the Clovis Point view of the peopling of America.
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| BILL FOX |
Bill spoke also about genetic analysis,
in particular how the Ojibway have a large concentration of genetic commonality
with Eastern European groups. Another
topic he outlined was that of skull shape and how this adds a
Australo-Melanesian component to the answer to the question of where did the
people come from who inhabited the Americas.
The new theory points to a combination of Bering Land Bridge and peoples
traveling along the ice pack edge from northern Europe to the eastern coast of North America.
