Ancieny Societies, Anthropology 1040-05 1. Explain and discuss the process of pe

Question

Ancieny Societies, Anthropology 1040-05

1. Explain and discuss the process of peopling America. Describe routes, date and other evidence taht supports the ways that forst Americans took, and the controversy about some data. (chapter 4)

2. Discuss the diverse theories about plant and animal domestication and the places where it occured. (chapter 5 and 6)

3. Discuss the main traits of formation of the city and the state. ( Chapter 8)

4. Describe the historical evolution od societies in Mesopotamia . Point names and dates when changes happened. (chapet 9)

Explanation / Answer

1. During the last Ice Age limited possible migration routes available to the first humans to colonize the America. The preponderance of linguistic and biological evidence indicates that Native Americans most likely originated somewhere in northeastern Asia. Two possible routes have been identified for the first humans to enter the America from Northeast Asia:

by watercraft along the Northwest Coast, or by a pedestrian terrestrial route across the Bering Land Bridge and then south through central-western Canada.

The Continental Route: Traditionally, scientists have believed that the first humans to colonize the America arrived during the last Ice Age, or Pleistocene, via the Bering Land Bridge. The climate was much colder then, and massive glaciers in eastern and western Canada formed a huge ice sheet covering most of the country. The continental shelves and the floor of the Bering and Chukchi Seas were exposed, creating the Bering Land Bridge, which, along with adjacent regions of Siberia and North America, formed a geographic area known as Beringia.

The idea that humans may have first entered the America via a land route in the high northern latitudes was first suggested by a Spanish priest and over time this concept has become deeply rooted in scientific thought. It is believed that these early colonists were adapted to the interior environments of Asia and hunted large Ice Age animals, including the extinct woolly mammoth, as well as other species that did not become extinct such as bison. According to this theory, after these early people had crossed the Land Bridge into Alaska they then moved south into central western Canada and from there to more southern areas of North America and eventually into South America.

During the height of the last Ice Age, massive glaciers covered much of northern North America. The first humans to enter the region would have been confronted by a seemingly endless icescape reaching from Canada’s Yukon Territory in the north to the Great Lakes in the south. The continental glaciers would have blocked human migration southward until the ice melted sufficiently to enable plants and animals to colonize the deglaciated land.

Recent studies demonstrate that Beringia and the unglaciated areas of North America remained separated by the continental glacier until about 11,000 BP (12,550 cal BP) when the glaciers had melted enough to enable people to move from eastern Beringia southward into the lower latitudes of North America because the ice sheets blocked this southern route, the North American continent south of the glaciers could not have been colonized by humans on foot until sometime about 11,000 BP (12,550 cal BP). Support for this conclusion has been presented by paleontologists working in central Canada. They have found no animal bones dating between about 21,000 to 11,500 BP in the region formerly believed to be the ice-free corridor. This demonstrates fairly conclusively that the ice-free corridor did not exist and that the glaciers prevented the area from being inhabited by animals during the last Ice Age.

Coastal Migration Hypothesis: A few researchers suggest that the earliest human migration to North America may have occurred with the use of watercraft along the southern margin of Beringia and then southward along the northwest coast of North America. This would have enabled humans to enter southern areas of the America prior to the melting of the mid-continental glaciers.

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