The Role of High Altitude Landscapes in the Peopling of the New World

Discussions of the "Peopling of the Americas" only rarely mention the high-altitude landscapes of the South American Andes, North American Rocky Mountains, or other mountainous regions of the western hemisphere. This needs to change, because recent research shows that First Americans used even exceptionally high altitudes as early as the terminal Pleistocene (i.e., nearly as early as they penetrated every other region of the Americas). This symposium showcases some of the earliest sites of high-altitude North and South America, in the process revealing the wide-ranging economic and spiritual importance of high mountains for First Americans. The session also includes papers exploring bioarchaeological and genetic data that illuminate and explain early migration patterns and physical challenges that First Americans overcame to utilize the very high altitudes they so clearly valued from the earliest moments of their arrival in the New World.