Book contents
- The Unstoppable Human Species
- The Unstoppable Human Species
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Boxes
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Chapter 1 Introduction
- Chapter 2 Hard Evidence
- Chapter 3 Who Are These People?
- Chapter 4 How Did They Get Here?
- Chapter 5 Ancient Africans
- Chapter 6 Going East
- Chapter 7 Down Under
- Chapter 8 Neanderthal Country
- Chapter 9 Going North
- Chapter 10 A Brave New World
- Chapter 11 Movable Feasts
- Chapter 12 Distant Horizons and Stars Beckon
- Chapter 13 Unstoppable? Human Extinction
- Chapter 14 Conclusion
- Book part
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Index
Chapter 10 - A Brave New World
Pleistocene Americans
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 March 2023
- The Unstoppable Human Species
- The Unstoppable Human Species
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Boxes
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Chapter 1 Introduction
- Chapter 2 Hard Evidence
- Chapter 3 Who Are These People?
- Chapter 4 How Did They Get Here?
- Chapter 5 Ancient Africans
- Chapter 6 Going East
- Chapter 7 Down Under
- Chapter 8 Neanderthal Country
- Chapter 9 Going North
- Chapter 10 A Brave New World
- Chapter 11 Movable Feasts
- Chapter 12 Distant Horizons and Stars Beckon
- Chapter 13 Unstoppable? Human Extinction
- Chapter 14 Conclusion
- Book part
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
ch 10: This chapter examines the peopling of the “New World” (Beringia and the Americas) between 12 and 32 Ka. Like the peopling of Sahul, population movements brought Homo sapiens from Asia to American continents and offshore islands with no prior hominin presence. Historically, archaeologists envisioned these movements as land-based, passing through an “ice-free corridor” between major continental glaciers around 13 Ka, but evidence increasingly shows that humans were already present south of the ice sheets significantly earlier than this corridor existed. Unlike in Sahul, ancestral Native Americans systematically hunted many of the megafauna that became extinct during the Pleistocene-Holocene transition. Extensive alliance networks whose most durable archaeological traces include distinctive stoneworking traditions, such as the Clovis Complex, may have played a role in these mass extinctions.
Keywords
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Unstoppable Human SpeciesThe Emergence of Homo Sapiens in Prehistory, pp. 207 - 229Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023