The First Americans

7th grade
 PAY ATTENTION TO THE FOLLOWING VIDEO

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EBknU7D1OI
• They probably came on foot from Siberia across the Bering Land
Bridge, which existed between Alaska and Eurasia from the end of
the last Ice Age until about 10,000 years ago. The area is now
submerged by water.
• There is still debate about when these first Americans actually
arrived and where they came from. But we are now getting closer to
uncovering the original narrative, and finding out who these first
Americans really were.
• To understand who the first Americans really were, we have to
consider when they arrived. While the exact timing is hard to pin
down. Nielsen's work gives some insight. By sequencing the
genomes of people from the Americas, Siberia, and Oceania, he
and colleagues could understand when these populations diverged.
The team concludes that the ancestors of the first Americans came
to Beringia at some point between 23,000 years and 13,000 years
ago.
• In many ways, the peopling of America presents scientists with a
golden opportunity to study these processes. There have been
multiple migrations both into and out of other regions of the world –
Africa, Europe and Asia, for instance. But the people who moved
into the Americas were on a one-way journey. "We know the original
inhabitants came from Asia into the New World with no other people
there, and no major back migrations, so it's the simplest model you
can conceive of."