The Spread of Aboriginal Man to North America

Abstract

T ^HE question of the first peopling of North America has been vigorously attacked in recent years along many lines.' According to the best of our belief the findings may be summed up thus: The first man to arrive in North America was of modern type and probably at the Neolithic stage of culture. He came from northeastern Asia to Alaska and probably spread along the eastern foot of the Rocky Mountains where an ice-free corridor had formed some 20,000 to I5,000 years ago. He seems to have reached the Southwest at the age of transition between the pluvial and the post-pluvial epochs, or roughly I2,000 years ago. Reputed older finds need verification. All the human skeletal remains found in the Americas are, according to Ales Hrdli6ka, of modern types, closely resembling living Indians and Eskimos. Neither Neanderthal man nor any other primitive human species seems to have reached these continents. All sure remains of human culture so far found in the Americas are referred to the Neolithic age by most conservative workers.2 However, many artifacts are believed by some archeologists to be of Paleolithic age. Thus flint artifacts from Cuba and Hispaniola are regarded by Harrington3 as Aurignacian in type and the Folsom dart points as Solutrean.