Homo sapiens expansión in the Americas.The great migrations: Asia to America

POLITIS, G.

Columbia University, New York

Encuentro; UNESCO-Embajada de Kazhastan en EEUU; 2011

UNESCO-Embajada de Kazhastan en EEUU

For decades the peopling of America has been one of the central subjects of American anthropology and, beyond a few certainties and the abundance of data presently available, there are still central points of the problem that remain unresolved. The answer to yet valid questions has become even harder because the debate has been polarized by opinions that sometimes seem more like acts of faith than hypotheses based on modern scientific criteria. In this summary we will succinctly offer an overview of the current state of discussion on this matter, seen from the perspective of South America. Under discussion will be the main ideas that have sought to explain when and how the continent was populated, and which is the relative degree of validation each of them enjoys today. We will lay special emphasis on the integration of data from the context of South American archaeological sites.