MAforum: Topic 1
"Who Were the First Americans?"
That's the question we'll begin exploring on Tuesday

13 March 2006
The question "Who were the first Americans?"
keeps reappearing and reappearing.
Articles on the populating of the Americas suggest
people coming from different directions!
And there are different hypotheses
about what happened to the earliest peoples in America:
Last extinction
NOVA program HomeSite
(56 min., 2009, DVD 1842)
End of the Big Beasts
The Extinction Debate
Extraordinary Artifacts
Modeling a Comet Airburst
Stone Age Toolkit
Before Clovis
A year ago National Geographic announced
the discovery of what might be the oldest skeleton in America:
Oldest Skeleton in Americas Found in Underwater Cave?
<http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/09/080903-oldest-skeletons.html?source=rss>
National Geographic News
03 September 2008

Before that a lead Articles in Anthropology in the News was:
Gene Study Supports Single Main Migration Across Bering Strait
-- EurekAlert
(11/26/07)
<www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-11/uomh-gss112607.php>
And before that other news on the First Americans included . . .
Did First Americans Come from Europe?: Archaeologist suggests prehistoric hunters from Spain sailed west
-- MSNBC (2/19/06)
<www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11451616/>
Look at two or three of the related sites, above, and/or at
Clovis People Not First Americans, Study Shows
-- National Geographic News (2/23/2007)
Retrace the trek of the first Americans <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3077301/>
Did the first Americans come from Australia? <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5927028/>
First Americans Arrived Recently, Settled Pacific Coast, DNA Study Says
-- National Geographic News
(1 February 2007)
Americas Settled by Two Groups of Early Humans, Study Says
-- National Geographic News
Scientist traces ancient "kelp highway": Ancient seafarers may have grazed their way from Asia to Americas
-- MSNBC (2/19/06)
<http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11451754/>
New Land-Bridge Evidence Adds to Mystery of 1st Americans
-- National Geographic News (17 October 2006)
Another important question . . .
"Who was the Kennewick Man?"

reconstruction
by Jim Chatters and Thomas McClelland
the Kennewick Man entry from Wikipedia:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennewick_man>
Other information can be found on . . .
Kennewick Man Class Page
and on the
"Who were the First Americans?" Class Page
Have a look at two or more of these articles
then evaluate the ideas put forth
Questions:
Of all of the hypotheses ("theories") currently available,
what do you think is the best explanation of the peopling of the New World?
How might the discovery of "Eve of Naharon" change answers
to the question "Who were the first Americans?"
[Oldest Skeleton in Americas Found in Underwater Cave?]
Why? |