First Americans “Leap-Frogged†Continents to Settle the Americas
By Roni Dengler | November 8, 2018 4:08 pm
A new report finds people spread through the Americas in multiple independent, relatively quick migrations. The discovery contrasts the notion that the peopling of the continents took the form of a slow expansion from the northern regions of modern day Alaska into South America as populations grew.
“The findings imply that the first peoples were highly skilled at moving rapidly across an utterly unfamiliar and empty landscape,†David Meltzer, an anthropologist at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, who co-led the new work, said in a statement. “They had a whole continent to themselves and they were traveling great distances at breath-taking speed.â€
The work also confirms that Native Americans were descendants of these First Americans, a point that some researchers had contested.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2018/11/08/first-americans-leap-frogged-across-continents/#.W-WSI-JRe6Y
