A new study based on cutting-edge genetic analysis has revealed startling new information about South American migration patterns. By carrying out a complete genetic sequencing of DNA provided by human remains excavated in Brazil, researchers have pieced together a vision for how humans first settled South America and made inroads into resolving the Americas puzzle.
Following the Clues to Understand South American Migration
After leaving Africa in large numbers between 90,000 and 60,000 years ago, modern humans gradually spread all across the globe, leaving Antarctica as the only unsettled continent. The American continent was the last to be occupied and settled by these ancient migrants, who traveled over the Bering Strait land bridge (Beringia) from what is now Siberia into northern North America between 30,000 and 11,000 years ago.
Many people crossed over this land bridge during this time period, moving first eastward and then southward along the coastline of the Americas. Other migrants may have sailed southward along that coast, using Beringia as a launching point.
Once they arrived in South America, the earliest migrants dispersed in many directions. Archaeologists and other researchers have had a hard time tracing their exact movements, in part because the evidence is scarce and in part because the clues that has been found are often confusing. It seems that migration and settlement patterns in the earliest days of the Americas were complex and may not have followed along the…
