Ethnographic analogy and migration to the western hemisphere

• Main Author: Kelly, Robert L
• Format: Book Part
• Language: unknown
• Published: Oxford University PressOxford 1995
• Subjects: Arctic; Subarctic; Alaska; Beringia
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198523185.003.0015; https://academic.oup.com/book/chapter-pdf/52426040/isbn-9780198523185-book-part-15.pdf

Abstract The western hemisphere was first occupied by Asians who crossed Beringia into Alaska. Linguistic, dental, and genetic data suggest three to four migrations (Turner 1992), possibly more. People were in North America by at least 11 500 years ago (Goebel eta/. 1991); perhaps earlier if dates from Bluefish Cave, Meadowcroft, Monte Verde, and other South American sites prove accurate. The lives of these first inhabitants have been reconstructed with a heavy reliance on ethnographic analogies to Arctic or Subarctic large game hunting cultures. Given the bias towards hunting in these models, a ‘generalized foraging model’, based largely on South African foragers, and which emphasizes small game and plant utilization, has been used more recently. Let me say immediately that ethnographic analogies are useful, and Paleoindians were undoubtedly similar to ethnographically known foragers in some ways. But models of past lifeways are linked to explanations of that past. A model of Paleoindian society must account not only for similarities between Paleoindians and modern foragers, but also for differences. Archaeological data suggest that the early occupants of the western hemisphere differed from modern foragers in ways that limit the usefulness of the broad brush of ethnographic analogy. Reconstructions of the Paleoindian lifeway must proceed hand-in-hand with a theoretical framework focusing on how unpopulated continents would be occupied by Homo sapiens sapiens.