The Role of the Rocky Mountains in the Peopling of North America

Summary

Discussion of the prehistoric peopling of the New World is as old as North American archaeology, and peopling-related debate has only intensified through the decades. Starting with the Great Plains in the 1920s, the major physiographic regions of North America have each experienced “moments in the sun,” as archaeologists have researched Clovis and sometimes pre-Clovis sites in their midst. For reasons that make little sense in retrospect, the Rocky Mountains are the last major North American region to have joined the peopling conversation. Yet this paper argues that if we critically examine the most likely points of Old World, Ice-Age origin for would-be North American colonists, it is difficult to accept that the Rockies did not play a vital role in the colonization process. By virtual definition, the First Americans were “mountain people;” they lived among the mountains that blanket the northeast Asian landscape most believe spawned New World immigration. An equally mountainous (and thus, familiar) region beckoned to prospective North Americans from eastern Beringia. From there, it was an easy and logical step to populate the Rockies—and First Americans did just that.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• The Role of High Altitude Landscapes in the Peopling of the New World

Keywords