History of the colonization of America. The settlement of man on Earth - the settlement of America The settlement of America by man began with

Today we will look at the human settlement of South America. Even now, archaeological finds challenge the generally accepted theory about the Clovis hunters. There is still controversy regarding the dates of the first human settlement of America. According to some estimates, this happened about 50 thousand years ago, and according to others - 14 thousand years ago.

Chronology issues

The chronology of migration patterns is divided into two scales. One scale is based on a “short chronology,” according to which the first wave of migration to America occurred no earlier than 14 - 16 thousand years ago. Proponents of the “long chronology” believe that the first group of people arrived in the Western Hemisphere much earlier, perhaps 20 - 50 thousand years ago, and perhaps other successive waves of migrations took place after it.

Generally accepted theory

First, let's take a look at the settlement of North America. About 15 thousand years ago there was an isthmus between Siberia and Alaska (Berengia). The Beringia Land Bridge was a vast area of ​​continental shelf that protruded above or was hidden beneath the sea surface due to cyclical changes in sea level. The most favorable conditions for the migration of fauna, people and animals were created 14 thousand years ago, when along the so-called ice-free Mackenzie corridor there was a path to the south up to 100 km wide and about 2000 km long. The landscape of Beringia was a cold tundra-steppe with islands of bushes and birch forests on the floodplains.

It is believed that ancient hunters crossed this isthmus following herds of large land mammals, whose meat formed the basis of their diet.

The oldest archaeological culture on the American continent is the Clovis culture. According to the latest data, representatives of the Clovis culture appeared approximately 15,000 years ago. The main occupation was hunting and gathering, this is confirmed by finds at sites of bones of mammoths, bison, mastodons and other mammals. In total, more than 125 species of plants and animals are known to be used by the Clovis people. It is characterized by stone chipped lanceolate spearheads with longitudinal grooves on both surfaces and a concave base, sometimes in the shape of a fish tail. Their anthropology is known from only two finds: the remains of a boy nicknamed Anzick-1 (Montana, 2013) and a girl (Mexican state of Yucatan, 2014).
The theory known as "Clovis First" has been prevalent among archaeologists since the second half of the 20th century. It implies that representatives of the Clovis culture were the first inhabitants of North and South America. The main argument in favor of the theory is that no convincing evidence has been found indicating the presence of humans on the American continent before the Clovis culture.

However, South American cultural finds, on the other hand, do not have the same consistency and represent diverse cultural patterns. Therefore, many archaeologists believe that the Clovis model is not valid for South America, calling for new theories to explain prehistoric finds that do not fit into the Clovis cultural complex. Let's look at these findings below.

Archaeological finds at Serra da Capivara indicate the possible arrival of people around 50 millennium BC. BC, but the evidence is still questioned by some researchers. This evidence points either to a crossing of the Bering Strait much earlier than previously thought, or to a maritime route for the settlement of America. In the northeast of Brazil near São Raymundo Nonato on an area of ​​40,000 square meters. km. A number of monuments of prehistoric art have been found, which represent both color drawings and contour images. Colored drawings were found near the foot of vertical coastal cliffs and in caves. Carved contour images are also found on individual rocks at the entrances to caves. Some galleries consist of more than a thousand images, but most include between 10 and 100 figures. These are mostly anthropomorphic images. People are presented on the move, some figures form very dynamic compositions, although their interpretation is difficult. Archaeological excavations have established an approximate chronology of settlement in this territory and the development of ancient art. The most ancient period, Pedra Furada, is divided into four successive phases. The appearance of art is usually attributed to the period of Pedra Furada I (about 46,000 BC), fragments of rocks with colored markings have already been found in the archaeological layers of this period. Carved outline images appeared only in the last stage (Pedra Fuada IV, around 15,000 BC).

At the Santa Elina site in a ravine under an overhanging rock cliff in western Brazil, many interesting things have been preserved. Large hearths and rubble of stones, plant remains and scatterings of skin ossifications - osteoderms of giant sloths Glossotherium, layers of ash and again the bones of sloths. Of course, there were also stone tools, although rather primitive ones, made of limestone. At the Santa Elina site, two pendants made from the osteoderms of giant sloths were found with holes drilled for hanging. The most interesting thing, of course, is the dating. The oldest layer with traces of settlement in the form of several flakes and drilled pendants has an antiquity of 26,887-27,818 thousand years ago. Above it, a couple more layers are dated 25,896-27,660 thousand years ago. After that follow silent strata, where no human traces are found, and the second time people came here 11,404-12,007 thousand years ago, after which they never disappeared anywhere. Thus, it turns out that in the center of South America, in the Amazonian jungle, people appeared close to thirty thousand years ago. Good stratigraphy and an abundance of consistent dating make these figures among the most reliable for the Americas.

The Monte Verde site in south-central Chile, where crude stone tools have been found. The age of the monument is determined to be 14.5 thousand years ago. Thus, Monte Verde, if its dating is correct, provides evidence for the arrival of Paleoindians in the Americas at least 1000 years before Clovis. The finds at Mont Verde were initially rejected by the archaeological community, but have become increasingly accepted over time, despite ongoing criticism from those who advocate the theory that the first wave of human settlement in the Americas was linked to Clovis. The culture of the inhabitants of Monte Verde is completely different from the culture of the Clovis hunters. Although the inhabitants of Monte Verde made advanced bifaces, they mainly made minimally processed pebble tools. And indeed, stone tools were mainly obtained by simply selecting pebbles that had been broken apart by natural factors. Some of them show no more or less traces of use. Others show signs of deliberate retouching of the working edge. This strongly resembles the description of European eoliths. By luck: the site is located in a swampy area in which deteriorating plants and animals have been preserved. Two pebble implements were stuck into a wooden handle. 12 building foundations were also discovered; they were made from boards and small logs driven into the ground. Large fireplaces and large coal stoves lined with clay were found there. On one piece of clay they saw the footprint of an eight or nine year old child. Also found were crude wooden stupas that stood on wooden supports, millstones, remains of wild potatoes, medicinal plants and plants from the sea coast with a high salt content. Overall, the Monte Verde site sheds light on the existence of creatures that could make and use crude pebble tools during the Pliocene and Miocene in Europe or at the Pliocene-Pleistocene boundary in Africa. In this case, this culture had all the comforts of home made from decomposing materials. The cultural level of the site is much higher than the cultural level of human ancestors. Thanks to accidental preservation, we see that the artifacts from Monte Verde represent an advanced culture, which was accompanied by the crudest types of stone tools.

The earliest human presence was found in Piedra Museo in the province of Santa Cruz and dates back to 11 thousand BC. e. Together with archaeological finds in Monte Verde (Chile) and Pedra Furada (Brazil), they are the most ancient sites of human habitation in South America and provide evidence for the theory of the early settlement of America, that is, before the emergence of the Clovis culture.

Anthropological question

According to the generally accepted theory, America was populated by representatives of Asian races (Mongoloids). However, many anthropologists have a different opinion. And there are reasons for this.

Luzia

The skull of a woman, which is about 11 thousand years old, was discovered in 1974 in the Lapa Vermelha cave (municipality of Lagoa Santa in the state of Minas Gerais) by a group of Brazilian and French archaeologists, led by Annetta Laming-Amperer (1917-1977). The name Luzia was given as an analogue of Lucy, a famous 1974 anthropological find in Tanzania, 3.5 million years old.
Skeletal studies have shown that Luzia was one of the very first inhabitants of South America. The woman's skull is oval in shape and small in size, her face has a protruding chin. Archaeologists suggest that Luzia was between 20 and 25 years old when she died in an accident or from a wild animal attack. The woman belonged to a hunting and gathering group.

While studying the cranial morphology of Luzia, Neves discovered features characteristic of modern aborigines of Australia and inhabitants of Africa (despite the fact that, according to modern ideas about races, Negroids and Australoids are genetically very distant from each other). Together with his Argentine colleague Héctor Pucciarelli of the La Plata Museum, Nevis formulated the hypothesis that the peopling of the Americas occurred as a result of two different waves of hunter-gatherers from Asia across the Bering Isthmus, which existed until the end of the last glaciation. Moreover, these waves represented biologically and ethnically completely different groups. The first (the so-called “aboriginals of America”) crossed the isthmus about 14 thousand years ago - Luzia was one of them. Kennewick Man, whose facial features are also different from those of the Indians, could also belong to the same group. The second group was racially close to the Mongoloids, and moved to America about 11 thousand years ago, and from it almost all modern Indian peoples of North and South America descend.

The Chinchorro culture is an ancient culture that existed on the western Pacific coast of South America in the territory of the modern Tacna region (Peru), and the Arica y Parinacota and Tarapaca regions (Chile) during the period of approximately 9-4 thousand BC. e. They were one of the first peoples with a village culture to ritually mummify all their dead. The age of the most ancient of the mummies is more than 9 thousand years - these are the most ancient human mummies in the world. For the first time, the remains of this culture were discovered and described by the German archaeologist Max Uhle. Archaeological remains of the Chinchorro culture are preserved and studied at the University of Tarapacá. The university has an archaeological museum where you can see some mummies. A study of 10 newly available ancient genomes from the Americas showed that the genome of the Chinchorro mummy had significantly more Caucasian admixture than the rest of the ancient Indian genomes examined. In representatives of the Chinchorro culture, mitochondrial haplogroup A2 was determined.

Although there is no archaeological evidence for American-Polynesian contacts, many researchers consider the assumption of such contacts to be credible. One of the evidence in favor of this theory is the fact that yams (sweet potatoes) were grown in Polynesia long before contact with Europeans. The birthplace of sweet potatoes, like regular potatoes, is America. It is believed that either the Polynesians brought the sweet potato from South America or American explorers introduced it to Polynesia. The “accidental” entry of sweet potato tubers into Polynesia by sea seems extremely unlikely. The very name of sweet potato in Polynesian languages ​​(Rapanui kumara, Maori kumāra, Hawaiian ʻuala) is associated with the Quechuan k’umar ~ k’umara “sweet potato”, which is also indirect evidence of American-Polynesian contact.
In addition, there should have been no chickens in South America before the arrival of Europeans, but the Spanish conquistadors first mentioned a breed of chickens laying blue eggs in 1526. The main feature of birds of this breed is that they lay blue or greenish eggs, and this is a dominant feature that could not have been formed in the 30 years since the discovery of the New World. It is most likely that these chickens were brought by Polynesian travelers.
In the legends and myths of the Polynesians, many memories of the voyages of their ancestors to distant lands in the east have been preserved. Thus, in the Marquesas Islands they tell a legend about a huge catamaran boat “Kahua”, which was built by people from the island of Hiva Oa. The boat was so large that the sailors bailing out water could not even reach the slots in the sides with their bailers. Its two sections were connected by a plank platform on which stood a canopy made of palm leaves. Food supplies were stored under it. This boat first sailed northwest to visit the island of Nuku Hiva, and then turned east, and after a long voyage came to the coast of a country which the Polynesians called Te Fiti. For some time, the Polynesian sailors stayed on the new land, and then, leaving some of their people here, they returned to the island of Hiva Oa. The only land lying east of the Marquesas Islands can only be South America, and the country of Te Fiti should be considered the coast of Ecuador or Peru.
And the inhabitants of the island of Rarotonga talk about how a large sea expedition led by the Maui chief Marumamao once set off from the island of Raiatea (Society Island) to the east. The Polynesian canoes passed by the island of Rapa Nui (Easter), and then sailed for a long time in an easterly direction until they reached the “country of mountain ranges.” Here the leader of Maui died, and his son Kiu, leading the expedition, went west to the islands of Polynesia.

Contacts with Africa

The legends of the Peruvian Indians preserve memories of the arrival of dark-skinned people from the east. And in 1513, the Spanish conquistador Vasco Nunez de Balboa discovered unusual Indians with black skin in Panama, on the Darien Isthmus. These were clearly descendants of Africans! In Spanish chronicles dating back to the times of the first conquistadors, there are frequent references to both the “Black Caribs” and the “Black Antilles”. The 16th-century chronicler Franco Garcia, who spent many years in America, reports that he saw an African tribe on an island near Cartagena (Colombia). The English historian Richard Eden is sure that there could be no mistake: when Europeans first arrived in the New World, they clearly distinguished the long black hair of the Indians from the curly hair of the “Moors.” In addition, there are known facts that in the 19th century, African fishermen were washed to the shores of Brazil by wind and currents.

Conclusion

As we can see from the above, the problem of settling South America has not yet been completely resolved. And I think many more interesting discoveries await us in this matter. Below is my version of the settlement of South America. I agree that the main flow went through Berengia, but the influence of Africans and Polynesians was felt on both coasts.

The first people settled on the northeastern edge of the North American continent between 22 and 13 thousand years ago. The latest genetic and archaeological evidence suggests that the inhabitants of Alaska managed to penetrate south and quickly populate the Americas about 15 thousand years ago, when a passage opened in the ice sheet that covered most of North America. The Clovis culture, which made a significant contribution to the extermination of American megafauna, originated about 13.1 thousand years ago, almost two millennia after the settlement of the Americas.

As is known, the first people entered America from Asia, using the land bridge - Beringia, which during the glaciations connected Chukotka with Alaska. Until recently, it was believed that approximately 13.5 thousand years ago, settlers first walked along a narrow corridor between glaciers in western Canada and very quickly - in just a few centuries - settled throughout the New World right up to the southern tip of South America. They soon invented extremely effective hunting weapons (Clovis culture*) and killed most of the megafauna (large animals) on both continents.

However, new facts obtained by geneticists and archaeologists show that in reality the history of the settlement of America was somewhat more complex. A review article by American anthropologists published in the journal Science.

Genetic data. The Asian origins of Native Americans are now beyond doubt. In America, five variants (haplotypes) of mitochondrial DNA are common (A, B, C, D, X), and all of them are also characteristic of the indigenous population of Southern Siberia from Altai to Amur. Mitochondrial DNA extracted from the bones of ancient Americans is also clearly of Asian origin. This contradicts the recently proposed connection between the Paleo-Indians and the Western European Paleolithic Solutrean culture***.

Attempts to establish, based on the analysis of mtDNA and Y-chromosome haplotypes, the time of divergence (separation) of the Asian and American populations have so far given rather contradictory results (the resulting dates vary from 25 to 15 thousand years). Estimates of the time when Paleoindians began to settle south of the ice sheet are considered somewhat more reliable: 16.6–11.2 thousand years. These estimates are based on the analysis of three clades**, or evolutionary lineages, of subhaplogroup C1, widespread among Indians but not found in Asia. Apparently, these mtDNA variants arose already in the New World. Moreover, analysis of the geographical distribution of various mtDNA haplotypes among modern Indians showed that the observed pattern is much easier to explain based on the assumption that settlement began closer to the beginning, rather than to the end of the specified time interval (that is, 15-16, rather than 11-16). 12 thousand years ago).

Some anthropologists have suggested that there were “two waves” of settlement in America. This hypothesis was based on the fact that the oldest human skulls found in the New World (including the “Kennewick Man” skull, see links below) differ markedly in a number of dimensional indicators from the skulls of modern Indians. But genetic evidence does not support the “two waves” idea. On the contrary, the observed distribution of genetic variation strongly suggests that all Native American genetic diversity stems from a single ancestral Asian gene pool, and widespread human dispersal across the Americas occurred only once. Thus, in all studied populations of Indians from Alaska to Brazil, the same allele (variant) of one of the microsatellite loci is found, which is not found anywhere outside the New World, with the exception of the Chukchi and Koryaks (this suggests that all Indians descended from single ancestral population). Judging by paleogenomics data, the ancient Americans had the same haplogroups as the modern Indians.

Archaeological data. Already 32 thousand years ago, people - carriers of the Upper Paleolithic culture - settled North-East Asia right up to the coast of the Arctic Ocean. This is evidenced, in particular, by archaeological finds made in the lower reaches of the Yana River ****, where items made of mammoth bone and woolly rhinoceros horns were discovered. The settlement of the Arctic occurred during a period of relatively warm climate before the onset of the Last Glacial Maximum. It is possible that already in this distant era the inhabitants of the Asian northeast penetrated into Alaska. Several mammoth bones were found there, about 28 thousand years old, possibly processed. However, the artificial origin of these objects is controversial, and no stone tools or other clear signs of human presence have been found nearby.

The oldest indisputable traces of human presence in Alaska - stone tools very similar to those made by the Upper Paleolithic population of Siberia - are 14 thousand years old. The subsequent archaeological history of Alaska is quite complex. Many sites dating back 12,000–13,000 years have been discovered here. different types of stone industry. This may indicate adaptation of the local population to a rapidly changing climate, but may also reflect tribal migrations.

40 thousand years ago, most of North America was covered with an ice sheet, which blocked the route from Alaska to the south. Alaska itself was not covered in ice. During periods of warming, two corridors opened up in the ice sheet - along the Pacific coast and east of the Rocky Mountains - through which ancient Alaskans could pass south. The corridors were open 32 thousand years ago, when people appeared in the lower reaches of the Yana, but 24 thousand years ago they closed again. People, apparently, did not have time to use them.

The coastal corridor opened again about 15 thousand years ago, and the eastern one somewhat later, 13–13.5 thousand years ago. However, ancient hunters could theoretically bypass the obstacle by sea. On Santa Rosa Island off the coast of California, traces of human presence dating back 13.0–13.1 thousand years were discovered. This means that the American population at that time already knew well what a boat or raft was.

Detailedly documented archaeology south of the glacier begins with the Clovis culture. The flourishing of this culture of large game hunters was rapid and fleeting. According to the most recent updated radiocarbon dating, the oldest material traces of the Clovis culture are 13.2–13.1 thousand years old, and the youngest are 12.9–12.8 thousand years old. The Clovis culture spread so quickly across vast areas of North America that archaeologists cannot yet determine the area in which it first appeared: the accuracy of dating methods is not sufficient for this. Just 2-4 centuries after its appearance, the Clovis culture disappeared just as quickly.

Traditionally, it was believed that the Clovis people were nomadic hunter-gatherers capable of moving quickly over long distances. Their stone and bone tools were very advanced, multifunctional, made using original techniques and were highly valued by their owners. Stone tools were made from high-quality flint and obsidian - materials that cannot be found everywhere, so people took care of them and carried them with them, sometimes taking them hundreds of kilometers from the place of manufacture. The sites of the Clovis culture are small temporary camps where people did not live for a long time, but stopped only to eat the next killed large animal, most often a mammoth or mastodon. In addition, huge concentrations of Clovis artifacts have been found in the southeastern United States and Texas - up to 650,000 pieces in one place. This is mainly waste from the stone industry. It is possible that the Clovis people had their main "quarries" and "weapons workshops" here.

Apparently, the favorite prey of the Clovis people were proboscideans - mammoths and mastodons. At least 12 undisputed Clovis “proboscidean kill and butchery sites” have been discovered in North America. This is a lot, considering the short-lived existence of the Clovis culture. By comparison, only six such sites have been found in the entire Upper Paleolithic of Eurasia (corresponding to a time period of approximately 30,000 years). It is possible that the Clovis people made a significant contribution to the extinction of American proboscideans. They did not disdain smaller prey: bison, deer, hares and even reptiles and amphibians.

The Clovis culture penetrated into Central and South America, but here it was not as widespread as in North America (only a small number of typical Clovis artifacts have been found). But in South America, Paleolithic sites with other types of stone tools were discovered, including those with characteristic fish-shaped points (“fishtail points”). Some of these South American sites overlap in age with the Clovis sites. It was previously believed that the Fish Tip culture descended from the Clovis culture, but recent dating has shown that perhaps both cultures descend from a common and as yet undiscovered “ancestor.”

Bones of an extinct wild horse were found at one of the South American sites. This means that the early settlers of South America probably also contributed to the extermination of large animals.

White the ice sheet during the period of greatest expansion 24 thousand years ago is indicated;
dotted line The edge of the glacier is outlined during the warming period 15–12.5 thousand years ago, when two “corridors” opened from Alaska to the south.
Red dots places of the most important archaeological finds are shown/
12 - site in the lower reaches of the Yana (32 thousand years);
19 - mammoth bones with possible traces of processing (28 thousand years);
20 - Kennewick; 28 - the largest “workshop” of the Clovis culture in Texas (650,000 artifacts); 29 - the oldest finds in the state of Wisconsin (14.2–14.8 thousand years); 39 - South American site with horse bones (13.1 thousand years); 40 - Monte Verde (14.6 thousand years); 41 , 43 - “fish-shaped” tips were found here, the age of which (12.9–13.1 thousand years) coincides with the time of the existence of the Clovis culture. Rice. from the article discussed in Science.

During the second half of the 20th century, archaeologists repeatedly reported finding more ancient traces of human presence in America than the sites of the Clovis culture. Most of these finds, after careful testing, turned out to be younger. However, for several sites, the “pre-Clovis” age is today recognized by most experts. In South America, this is the Monte Verde site in Chile, which is 14.6 thousand years old. In the state of Wisconsin, at the very edge of the ice sheet that existed at that time, two sites of ancient mammoth lovers were discovered - either hunters or scavengers. The age of the sites is from 14.2 to 14.8 thousand years. In the same area, bones of mammoth legs were found with scratches from stone tools; The age of the bones is 16 thousand years, although the tools themselves were never found nearby. Several more discoveries have been made in Pennsylvania, Florida, Oregon and other areas of the United States, indicating with varying degrees of certainty the presence of people in these places 14–15 thousand years ago. The few finds, the age of which was determined to be even more ancient (over 15 thousand years), raise serious doubts among experts.

Subtotals. Today it is considered firmly established that America was inhabited by a species Homo sapiens. There have never been any Pithecanthropes, Neanderthals, Australopithecines or other ancient hominids in America. Although some Paleoindian skulls differ from modern ones, genetic analysis has proven that all indigenous populations of America - both ancient and modern - are descended from the same population of people from southern Siberia. The first people appeared on the northeastern edge of the North American continent no earlier than 30 and no later than 13 thousand years ago, most likely between 22 and 16 thousand years ago. Judging by molecular genetic data, migration from Beringia to the south began no earlier than 16.6 thousand years ago, and the size of the “founder” population, from which the entire population of both Americas south of the glacier originated, did not exceed 5,000 people. The theory of multiple waves of settlement was not confirmed (with the exception of the Eskimos and Aleuts, who came from Asia much later, but settled only in the far north of the American continent). The theory about the participation of Europeans in the ancient colonization of America has also been refuted.

One of the most important achievements of recent years, according to the authors of the article, is that the Clovis people can no longer be considered the first settlers of the Americas south of the glacier. This theory (“Clovis-First model”) assumes that all more ancient archaeological finds should be recognized as erroneous, and today it is no longer possible to agree with this. In addition, this theory is not supported by data on the geographic distribution of genetic variations among Indian populations, which indicate an earlier and less rapid settlement of the Americas.

The authors of the article propose the following model of the settlement of the New World, which, from their point of view, best explains the entire set of available facts - both genetic and archaeological. Both Americas were inhabited approximately 15 thousand years ago - almost immediately after the coastal “corridor” opened, allowing the inhabitants of Alaska to penetrate south by land. Finds in Wisconsin and Chile show that 14.6 thousand years ago both Americas were already inhabited. The first Americans probably had boats, which may have contributed to their rapid settlement along the Pacific coast. A second proposed route for early migrations is west along the southern edge of the ice sheet to Wisconsin and beyond. Near the glacier there could have been a particularly large number of mammoths, which the ancient hunters followed.

The emergence of the Clovis culture was the result of two thousand years of development of ancient American humanity. Perhaps the center of origin of this culture was the southern United States, because this is where their main “working workshops” were found.

Another option is not excluded. The Clovis culture could have been created by the second wave of migrants from Alaska, who passed through the eastern “corridor”, which opened 13–13.5 thousand years ago. However, if this hypothetical “second wave” did occur, it is extremely difficult to identify using genetic methods, since the source of both “waves” was the same ancestral population living in Alaska.

* The Clovis culture is an archaeological culture of the Paleolithic era that existed at the end of the Wisconsin Glaciation throughout North America and parts of Central and South America. Named after the Clovis site in New Mexico (USA), explored since 1932 (American archaeologist E. B. Howard and others). Radiocarbon dating 12-9 thousand years ago. It is characterized by stone chipped lanceolate spearheads with longitudinal grooves on both surfaces and a concave base, sometimes in the shape of a fish tail. At typical sites that are hunting camps, arrowheads are found together with other tools (scrapers, choppers, engraving points, etc.) and mammoth bones.

** clade - a group of organisms containing a common ancestor and all its direct descendants. The term is used in phylogenetics.

***The Solutrean culture is an archaeological culture of the mid-Late Paleolithic, widespread in France and northern Spain. Dated (by radiocarbon method) 18-15 thousand years BC. e.

**** Yana River - Formed at the confluence of the Sartang and Dulgalakh rivers, flowing from the Verkhoyansk Range. It flows into the Yana Bay of the Laptev Sea.

By the middle of the 16th century, Spain's dominance on the American continent was almost absolute, with colonial possessions stretching from Cape Horn to New Mexico , brought huge income to the royal treasury. Attempts by other European states to establish colonies in America were not crowned with noticeable success.

But at the same time, the balance of power in the Old World began to change: the kings spent the streams of silver and gold flowing from the colonies, and had little interest in the economy of the metropolis, which, under the weight of an ineffective, corrupt administrative apparatus, clerical dominance and lack of incentives for modernization, began to lag further and further behind from the rapidly developing economy of England. Spain gradually lost its status as the main European superpower and mistress of the seas. The many years of war in the Netherlands, huge amounts of money spent fighting the Reformation throughout Europe, and the conflict with England accelerated the decline of Spain. The last straw was the death of the Invincible Armada in 1588. After the largest fleet of the time was destroyed by the English admirals and, to a greater extent, by a violent storm, Spain withdrew into the shadows, never to recover from the blow.

Leadership in the “relay race” of colonization passed to England, France and Holland.

English colonies

The ideologist of the English colonization of North America was the famous chaplain Hakluyt. In 1585 and 1587, Sir Walter Raleigh, by order of Queen Elizabeth I of England, made two attempts to establish a permanent settlement in North America. An exploration expedition reached the American coast in 1584, and named the open coast Virginia (Virginia) in honor of the “Virgin Queen” Elizabeth I, who never married. Both attempts ended in failure - the first colony, founded on Roanoke Island off the coast of Virginia, was on the verge of destruction due to Indian attacks and lack of supplies and was evacuated by Sir Francis Drake in April 1587. In July of the same year, a second expedition of colonists, numbering 117 people, landed on the island. It was planned that in the spring of 1588 ships with equipment and food would arrive in the colony. However, for various reasons, the supply expedition was delayed for almost a year and a half. When she arrived at the place, all the buildings of the colonists were intact, but no traces of people were found, with the exception of the remains of one person. The exact fate of the colonists has not been established to this day.

Settlement of Virginia. Jamestown.

At the beginning of the 17th century, private capital entered the picture. In 1605, two joint stock companies received licenses from King James I to establish colonies in Virginia. It should be borne in mind that at that time the term “Virginia” denoted the entire territory of the North American continent. The first of the companies, the Virginia Company of London, received rights to the southern part, the second, the Plymouth Company, to the northern part of the continent. Despite the fact that both companies officially declared their main goal to be the spread of Christianity, the license they received gave them the right to “search for and extract gold, silver and copper by all means.”

On December 20, 1606, the colonists set sail aboard three ships and, after a arduous nearly five-month voyage during which several dozen died of starvation and disease, reached Chesapeake Bay in May 1607. Over the next month, they built a wooden fort, named Fort James (the English pronunciation of James) in honor of the king. The fort was later renamed Jamestown, the first permanent British settlement in America.

Official US historiography considers Jamestown to be the cradle of the country; the history of the settlement and its leader, Captain John Smith of Jamestown, is covered in many serious studies and works of art. The latter, as a rule, idealize the history of the city and the pioneers who inhabited it (for example, the popular cartoon Pocahontas). In fact, the first years of the colony were extremely difficult, during the famine winter of 1609-1610. out of 500 colonists, no more than 60 remained alive, and according to some accounts, the survivors were forced to resort to cannibalism to survive the famine.

In subsequent years, when the question of physical survival was no longer so pressing, the two most important problems were tense relations with the indigenous population and the economic feasibility of the existence of the colony. To the disappointment of the shareholders of the London Virginia Company, neither gold nor silver was found by the colonists, and the main product produced for export was ship timber. Despite the fact that this product was in certain demand in the metropolis, which had depleted its forests, the profit, as from other attempts at economic activity, was minimal.

The situation changed in 1612, when farmer and landowner John Rolfe managed to cross a local variety of tobacco grown by the Indians with varieties imported from Bermuda. The resulting hybrids were well adapted to the Virginia climate and at the same time met the tastes of English consumers. The colony acquired a source of reliable income and for many years tobacco became the basis of Virginia's economy and exports, and the phrases “Virginia tobacco” and “Virginia mixture” are used as characteristics of tobacco products to this day. Five years later tobacco exports amounted to 20,000 pounds, a year later it was doubled, and by 1629 it reached 500,000 pounds. John Rolfe provided another service to the colony: in 1614, he managed to negotiate peace with the local Indian chief. The peace treaty was sealed by marriage between Rolf and the chief's daughter, Pocahontas.

In 1619, two events occurred that had a significant impact on the entire subsequent history of the United States. This year, Governor George Yeardley decided to transfer some power to the House of Burgesses, thereby establishing the first elected legislative assembly in the New World. The first meeting of the council took place on July 30, 1619. That same year, a small group of Africans of Angolan descent were acquired as colonists. Although they were not formally slaves, but had long-term contracts without the right to terminate, it is customary to begin the history of slavery in America from this event.

In 1622, almost a quarter of the colony's population was destroyed by rebel Indians. In 1624, the license of the London Company, whose affairs had fallen into disrepair, was revoked, and from that time Virginia became a royal colony. The governor was appointed by the king, but the colony council retained significant powers.

Timeline of the founding of the English colonies :

French colonies

By 1713, New France had reached its greatest size. It included five provinces:

Canada (the southern part of the modern province of Quebec), divided in turn into three “governments”: Quebec, Three Rivers (French Trois-Rivieres), Montreal and the dependent territory of Pays d'en Haut, which included the modern Canadian and American Great Lakes regions, of which the ports of Pontchartrain (French: Pontchartrain) and Michillimakinac (French: Michillimakinac) were practically the only poles of French settlement after the destruction of Huronia.

Acadia (modern Nova Scotia and New Brunswick).

Hudson Bay (modern Canada).

New Earth.

Louisiana (central part of the USA, from the Great Lakes to New Orleans), divided into two administrative regions: Lower Louisiana and Illinois (French: le Pays des Illinois).

Dutch colonies

New Netherland, 1614-1674, a region on the eastern coast of North America in the 17th century that ranged in latitude from 38 to 45 degrees north, originally discovered by the Dutch East India Company from the yacht Crescent ( nid. Halve Maen) under the command of Henry Hudson in 1609 and studied by Adriaen Block and Hendrik Christians (Christiaensz) in 1611-1614. According to their map, in 1614 the Estates General incorporated this territory as New Netherland within the Dutch Republic.

Under international law, claims to territory had to be secured not only by their discovery and provision of maps, but also by their settlement. In May 1624, the Dutch completed their claim by bringing and settling 30 Dutch families on Noten Eylant, modern Governors Island. The main city of the colony was New Amsterdam. In 1664, Governor Peter Stuyvesant gave New Netherland to the British.

Colonies of Sweden

At the end of 1637, the company organized its first expedition to the New World. One of the managers of the Dutch West India Company, Samuel Blommaert, participated in its preparation, who invited Peter Minuit, the former general director of the colony of New Netherland, to the position of head of the expedition. On the ships "Squid Nyckel" and "Vogel Grip" on March 29, 1638, under the leadership of Admiral Claes Fleming, the expedition reached the mouth of the Delaware River. Here, on the site of modern Wilmington, Fort Christina was founded, named after Queen Christina, which later became the administrative center of the Swedish colony.

Russian colonies

Summer 1784. The expedition under the command of G.I. Shelikhov (1747-1795) landed on the Aleutian Islands. In 1799, Shelikhov and Rezanov founded the Russian-American Company, the manager of which was A. A. Baranov (1746-1818). The company hunted sea otters and traded their fur, and founded its own settlements and trading posts.

Since 1808, Novo-Arkhangelsk has become the capital of Russian America. In fact, the management of the American territories is carried out by the Russian-American Company, the main headquarters of which was in Irkutsk; Russian America was officially included first in the Siberian General Government, and later (in 1822) in the East Siberian General Government.

The population of all Russian colonies in America reached 40,000 people, among them the Aleuts predominated.

The southernmost point in America where Russian colonists settled was Fort Ross, 80 km north of San Francisco in California. Further advance to the south was prevented by Spanish and then Mexican colonists.

In 1824, the Russian-American Convention was signed, which fixed the southern border of the Russian Empire’s possessions in Alaska at latitude 54°40’N. The convention also confirmed the holdings of the United States and Great Britain (until 1846) in Oregon.

In 1824, the Anglo-Russian Convention on the delimitation of their possessions in North America (in British Columbia) was signed. Under the terms of the Convention, a boundary line was established separating British possessions from Russian possessions on the west coast of North America adjacent to the Alaska Peninsula so that the border ran along the entire length of the coastline belonging to Russia, from 54 ° N. latitude. to 60° N latitude, at a distance of 10 miles from the edge of the ocean, taking into account all the bends of the coast. Thus, the line of the Russian-British border in this place was not straight (as was the case with the border line of Alaska and British Columbia), but extremely winding.

In January 1841, Fort Ross was sold to Mexican citizen John Sutter. And in 1867, the United States bought Alaska for $7,200,000.

Spanish colonies

The Spanish colonization of the New World dates back to the discovery of America by the Spanish navigator Columbus in 1492, which Columbus himself recognized as the eastern part of Asia, the eastern coast of China, or Japan, or India, which is why the name West Indies was assigned to these lands. The search for a new route to India was dictated by the development of society, industry and trade, and the need to find large reserves of gold, for which demand had risen sharply. Then it was believed that there should be a lot of it in the “land of spices”. The geopolitical situation in the world changed and the old eastern routes to India for Europeans, which now passed through the lands occupied by the Ottoman Empire, became more dangerous and difficult to pass, meanwhile there was a growing need for the implementation of other trade with this rich region. At that time, some already had ideas that the earth was round and that India could be reached from the other side of the Earth - by sailing west from the then known world. Columbus made 4 expeditions to the region: the first - 1492-1493. - discovery of the Sargasso Sea, the Bahamas, Haiti, Cuba, Tortuga, the founding of the first village in which he left 39 of his sailors. He declared all the lands to be the possessions of Spain; the second (1493-1496) - the complete conquest of Haiti, the discovery of the Lesser Antilles, Guadeloupe, the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico and Jamaica. Founding of Santo Domingo; third (1498-1499) - discovery of the island of Trinidad, the Spaniards set foot on the shores of South America.

In preparing the material, articles from Wikipedia- free encyclopedia.

Scientists have always been interested in the phenomenon of settling the American continent.
Recently, evidence has emerged that the first settlers who crossed from Russia to Alaska across the Beringian land bridge about 30 thousand years ago had to wait another 20 thousand years to move on and populate the Americas. This is exactly how long it took for a passage to form in the glaciers of Alaska.

Based on genetic studies, as well as similarities in languages ​​and structural features, scientists came to the conclusion that the settlement process was most likely one-time or took a short period of time. Although there is an alternative point of view that distinguishes three waves of migrants from Russian Eurasia - the Amerindians (American Indians), the Na-Dene and the Aleut Eskimos. However, these two theories, upon careful examination, do not contradict each other.

Mitochondria is an organelle of the cytoplasm of animal and plant cells in the form of filamentous or granular formations. Consists of protein, lipids, RNA and DNA. The main function of mitochondria is to produce energy.
Thanks to the latest analyzes of mitochondrial DNA and the Y chromosome, geneticists believe that this was, after all, a single migration from Russia that happened 30 years ago. Settlers from the mainland, according to rough estimates, ranged from 70 people to 5,000. A new study by scientists from the University of Florida not only combined, but also clarified the contradictory data that has accumulated to date. It turned out that the settlement occurred once, but in three stages.
The oldest and rarest artifacts belong to the Asian part of Beringia - the territory now occupied by eastern Chukotka and the Bering Strait. It is they who suggest that the north of eastern Beringia - the place where western Alaska is now located - was also inhabited 30 thousand years ago.
Now let's compare with the events of this time that took place in Lukomorye, a territory that today coincides with European Russia. Here the most ancient sites of the Cro-Magnon man, our ancestor, are found on the banks of the Oka River. Their age is 70 thousand years. And on the banks of the Don River in the village of Koslenki, Voronezh region, many sites were discovered, the age of which is estimated at 50 thousand years ago. Moreover, in the cultural layer, archaeologists at the turn of 30-32 thousand years ago discovered a significant layer of volcanic ash. Moreover, these ashes are from the territory of modern Italy. There are all the signs of a climate catastrophe that forced people to leave the original world - Rus'. At this time, the previous type of man, the Neanderthal, began to disappear everywhere. It seems that ash has covered European glaciers in a thick layer, and their intensive melting has begun. The Neanderthal either did not survive climate change, or he could not withstand the competition with our Cro-Magnon ancestors. In any case, the time of the first settlement of the planet, including America, by our ancestors and the time of the disappearance of the Neanderthal on Earth coincides.

Since the ocean level at that time was 100-200 meters lower than the existing one, nothing prevented people from reaching the American continent, since it was connected to Siberia in the north. Alaska and Chukotka were not separated by the Bering Strait. This area is called Beringia by today's researchers. It was fenced off from the north, east and west by glaciers, which created relatively tolerable living conditions here. The climatic conditions here were approximately the same as those in the icy valley on the other side of Eurasia, in Rus'. The first Proto-Russians arrived here. They formed the first wave of our ancestors who settled the American continent. In many ways, the American Indians in their new homeland preserved the way of life that was characteristic of the ancient Russians, who then lived in approximately the same area as today. At that distant time, they lived in tents, hunted mammoths, rhinoceroses, bison, cave bears and other large animals that lived in abundance at the foot of the glaciers. They were reverent about nature and watched the stars. When European colonialists rediscovered this civilization, they seemed to meet themselves, living in different historical eras.

Archaeological sources confirm the spread and active settlement of America about 13 thousand years ago - the time of the formation of the Clovis culture. Finds in Alaska and Chile date back two and a half thousand years earlier.

The Clovis culture is a prehistoric Aboriginal culture of North America, the first evidence of which is 13,000 years old (11,000 radiocarbon years). What will happen in the original world of Rus' at this time? An analysis of Greenland's glaciers showed that the Arctic Ocean froze at that time. The Siberian rivers had nowhere to drain and their waters began to flood Eurasia. This is how the internal Eurasian Ocean was formed. The time of the flood has come. People who at that time lived in Western Siberia and Central Asia, parts of European Russia, had to look for new habitats. They are again heading to the American continent. The Eurasian internal ocean was not connected to the world's oceans. They had different levels. As a result of the fact that water was bound in glaciers, the world's oceans were significantly lower than modern levels. Therefore, Siberia and North America were a single whole.

Starting 60 thousand years ago, there was land on the site of the Bering Strait - the so-called Bering Bridge. It was flooded 11-12 thousand years ago. At this time, the waters of the Eurasian Ocean broke through the Black and Mediterranean Seas into the Atlantic. In a very short time, a mass of water found its way into the world ocean - its level rose significantly, flooding huge coastal lowlands. This is how both America and Japan separated from Eurasia. From that moment on, the civilization of the American Indians began to develop separately from the civilization of Rus'.
A period of global warming begins, which continues to this day.

But most of America remained cut off from Berengia by glaciers and was not inhabited until the 12-13th millennium BC. e. Only after the opening of the intercontinental corridor between the ice sheets of the Cordillera and the Laurentian Ice Sheet, which extended to the Atlantic coast of what is now Canada and the United States, did people begin to populate the vast expanses of America. . Paleontological finds say that before this, people in this part of the world lived only in Beringia.

Stages of ancient American history:
1) 32 -30 thousand years ago - the first migration of Proto-Russians to Beringia
2) 30 - 13 thousand years ago - the creation of the civilization of Beringia, as a branch of Hyperborea.
3) 15 - 11 thousand years ago - the time of separation from the mother civilization of Rus' during the Flood. A new wave of migration from the west of Rus', Western Siberia and Central Asia.
4) 11 -12 thousand years ago - the flooding of Berengia, passage through the glacial corridor and the beginning of the settlement of the American continent

As you can see, the first Americans who came from Russia had to wait 20 thousand years for the ice to melt and a passage to the south to open up. Fortunately, the living conditions allowed this. And when the opportunity presented itself, they moved to the continent in search of a better life. Unfortunately, most of the sites created by people during the 20 thousand years of waiting now rest on the bottom of the Bering Strait.

After some time, as described in the Bible, however, in relation to other events and peoples, “the waters closed behind them,” saving them from the “pursuit” of other colonialists who were thousands of years late. These geological changes created unique conditions for isolated development. Separated from the mother civilization of Rus', closed enclaves retain their primitive features for a very long time. Thus, for more than 500 generations, the Indians preserved the way of life of their ancient ancestral home - primordial Rus'. When they met again, after 10 thousand years of separation, the civilizations did not recognize each other.

10 thousand years ago, a phenomenally rapid settlement occurred, which in a few thousand years allowed people to occupy almost all the spaces up to the Strait of Magellan. The number of "discoverers" of America, based on time-adjusted DNA diversity, ranged from 1,000 to 5,400. America was rediscovered about a thousand years ago by the Vikings of Norway. After Magellan's expedition, the civilization of Europe, which had gone 10 thousand years ahead, practically destroyed the civilization of the Indians in an equally short period of time. In other respects, this natural process of ethnogenesis is repeated on Earth with enviable regularity.

Gennady Klimov

Book "History of Rus'"
Second edition

From school we are told that America settled by residents of Asia, who moved there in groups across the Bering Isthmus (in the place where the strait is now). They settled throughout the New World after a huge glacier began to melt 14-15 thousand years ago. Did the indigenous population of America really come to the continent (or rather two continents) in this way?!

However, recent discoveries by archaeologists and geneticists have shaken this harmonious theory. It turns out that America was populated more than once, this was done by some strange peoples, almost related to the Australians, and besides, it is not clear on what transport the first “Indians” got to the extreme south of the New World.

Population of America. First version

Until the end of the 20th century, American anthropology was dominated by the “first Clovis” hypothesis, according to which this culture of ancient mammoth hunters, which appeared 12.5-13.5 thousand years ago, was the oldest in the New World.

According to this hypothesis, people who came to Alaska could survive on ice-free land, because there was quite a bit of snow here, but then the path to the south was blocked by glaciers until the period 14-16 thousand years ago, because of which settlement in the Americas only began after the end of the last glaciation.

The hypothesis was harmonious and logical, but in the second half of the 20th century some discoveries that were incompatible with it were made. In the 1980s, Tom Dillehay, during excavations in Monte Verde (southern Chile), found that people had been there at least 14.5 thousand years ago. This caused a strong reaction from the scientific community: it turned out that the discovered culture was 1.5 thousand years older than Clovis in North America.

In order not to rewrite students and not change their view of the characteristics of the American population, most American anthropologists simply denied the discovery scientific credibility. Already during the excavations, Deley faced a powerful attack on his professional reputation, it came to the closure of funding for excavations and attempts to declare Monte Verde a phenomenon not related to archaeology.

Only in 1997 did he manage to confirm a dating of 14 thousand years, which caused a deep crisis in understanding the ways of settling America. At that time, there were no places of such ancient settlement in North America, which raised the question of where exactly people could get to Chile.

Recently, the Chileans invited Deley to continue the excavations. Under the influence of the sad experience of twenty years of excuses, he at first refused. “I was fed up,” the scientist explained his position. However, he ultimately agreed and discovered tools at the MVI site, undoubtedly made by man, whose antiquity was 14.5-19 thousand years.

History repeated itself: archaeologist Michael Waters immediately questioned the discoveries. In his opinion, the finds may be simple stones, vaguely similar to tools, which means that the traditional chronology of the settlement of America is still out of danger.

Delay's "guns" found

Seaside nomads

To understand how justified the criticism of the new work is, we turned to anthropologist Stanislav Drobyshevsky (MSU). According to him, the tools found are indeed very primitive (processed on one side), but made from materials not found in Monte Verde. Quartz for a significant part of them had to be brought from afar, that is, such objects cannot have a natural origin.

The scientist noted that systematic criticism of discoveries of this kind is quite understandable: “When you teach in school and university that America was settled in a certain way, it is not so easy to abandon this point of view.”

Mammoths in Beringia

The conservatism of American researchers is also understandable: in North America, recognized finds date back to a period thousands of years later than the period indicated by Deley. And what about the theory that before the glacier melted, the ancestors of the Indians blocked by it could not settle south?

However, Drobyshevsky notes, there is nothing supernatural in the more ancient dates of the Chilean sites. The islands along what is now the Pacific coast of Canada were not covered by a glacier, and remains of bears from the Ice Age have been found there. This means that people could easily spread along the coast, crossing by boat and without going deep into the then inhospitable North America.

Australian footprint

However, the strangeness of the settlement of America does not end with the fact that the first reliable discoveries of the ancestors of the Indians were made in Chile. Not long ago it turned out that the genes of the Aleuts and groups of Brazilian Indians have features characteristic of the genes of the Papuans and Australian aborigines.

As the Russian anthropologist emphasizes, the data of geneticists fits well with the results of the analysis of skulls previously found in South America and having features close to Australian ones.

In his opinion, most likely, the Australian trace in South America is associated with a common ancestral group, part of which moved to Australia tens of thousands of years ago, while others migrated along the coast of Asia north, up to Beringia, and from there reached the South American continent .

The appearance of Luzia is the name of a woman who lived 11 thousand years ago, whose remains were discovered in a Brazilian cave.

As if this were not enough, genetic studies in 2013 showed that the Brazilian Botacudó Indians are close in mitochondrial DNA to the Polynesians and some of the inhabitants of Madagascar. Unlike the Australoids, the Polynesians could easily have reached South America by sea. At the same time, the traces of their genes in eastern Brazil, and not on the Pacific coast, are not so easy to explain.

It turns out that for some reason a small group of Polynesian sailors did not return after landing, but overcame the Andean highlands, which were unusual for them, to settle in Brazil. One can only guess about the motives for such a long and difficult overland journey for typical seafarers.

So, a small part of the American aborigines has traces of genes that are very distant from the genome of the rest of the Indians, which contradicts the idea of ​​​​a single group of ancestors from Beringia.

30 thousand years before us

However, there are also more radical deviations from the idea of ​​settling America in one wave and only after the melting of the glacier. In the 1970s, Brazilian archaeologist Nieda Guidon discovered the cave site of Pedra Furada (Brazil), where, in addition to primitive tools, there were many fire pits, the age of which radiocarbon analysis showed from 30 to 48 thousand years.

It is easy to understand that such figures caused great resentment among North American anthropologists. The same Deley criticized radiocarbon dating, noting that traces could remain after a fire of natural origin.

Guidon reacted sharply to such opinions of her colleagues from the United States in Latin American language: “A fire of natural origin cannot arise deep in a cave. American archaeologists need to write less and dig more.”

Drobyshevsky emphasizes that although no one has yet been able to challenge the dating of the Brazilians, the doubts of the Americans are quite understandable. If people were in Brazil 40 thousand years ago, where did they go later and where are the traces of their presence in other parts of the New World?

Toba volcano eruption

The history of mankind knows cases when the first colonizers of new lands almost completely died out, leaving no significant traces. This happened with Homo sapiens, who settled in Asia. Their first traces there date back to a period up to 125 thousand years ago, but geneticists say that all of humanity descended from a population that came out of Africa much later - only 60 thousand years ago.

There is a hypothesis that the reason for this could be the extinction of the then Asian part as a result of the eruption of the Toba volcano 70 thousand years ago. The energy of this event is considered to exceed the total power of all combined nuclear weapons ever created by humanity.

However, even an event more powerful than nuclear war is difficult to explain the disappearance of significant human populations. Some researchers note that neither Neanderthals, nor Denisovans, nor even Homo floresiensis, who lived relatively close to Toba, became extinct from the explosion.

And judging by individual finds in South India, local Homo sapiens did not become extinct at that time either, traces of which for some reason are not observed in the genes of modern people. Thus, the question of where the people who settled in South America 40 thousand years ago could have gone remains open and to some extent casts doubt on the most ancient finds such as Pedra Furada.

Genetics vs genetics

Not only archaeological data often come into conflict, but also such seemingly reliable evidence as genetic markers. This summer, Maanasa Raghavan's team at the Natural History Museum in Copenhagen announced that genetic data refute the idea that more than one wave of ancient settlers contributed to the settlement of the Americas.

According to them, genes close to Australians and Papuans appeared in the New World later than 9 thousand years ago, when America was already populated by people from Asia.

At the same time, the work of another group of geneticists led by Pontus Skoglund came out, which, based on the same material, made the opposite statement: a certain ghost population appeared in the New World either 15 thousand years ago, or even earlier, and, perhaps, settled there before the Asian wave of migration, from which the ancestors of the vast majority of modern Indians originated.

In their opinion, the relatives of the Australian Aborigines crossed the Bering Strait only to be forced out by the subsequent wave of “Indian” migration, whose representatives came to dominate the Americas, pushing the few descendants of the first wave into the Amazon jungle and the Aleutian Islands.

Ragnavan's reconstruction of the peopling of America

If even geneticists cannot agree among themselves about whether the “Indian” or “Australian” components became the first aborigines of America, it is even more difficult for everyone else to understand this issue. And yet something can be said about this: skulls similar in shape to Papuan ones have been found on the territory of modern Brazil for more than 10 thousand years.

The scientific picture of the settlement of the Americas is very complex, and at the present stage is changing significantly. It is clear that groups of different origins took part in the settlement of the New World - at least two, not counting the small Polynesian component that appeared later than the others.

It is also obvious that at least some of the settlers were able to colonize the continent despite the glacier - bypassing it in boats or on ice. At the same time, the pioneers subsequently moved along the coast, quite quickly reaching the south of modern Chile. Apparently, the first Americans were very mobile, expansive, and skilled in the use of water transport.