Expert: Ralph Salier - 10/16/2001

Question
Some time ago, I read an article and saw a program on PBS that discussed a race of people living in N.America before the people who are now known as Native Americans made their way over the Bering Straits.  I cannot now remember either the magazine or the TV program; however, I am trying to support my contention of that previous culture in a kind of ongoing disagreement I'm having with a friend.  Can you point me in any direction that would lend support for my 'Pre-Bering Strait Culture' for lack of a more informed term; or am I imagining the whole thing?
Thanks for your attention.
Regards,
Duncan McKelvey
Dmactds@bellsouth.net

Answer
I am not aware of a PBS story or news article regarding  this however I am familiar with the various groups who must have come across the Bering Straits while it was either Iced over or dry land.  The first peoples to come across were in all liklihood some 30 to 45,000 years ago and may have been from South East Asia.  Later peoples of the inner steppes of Mongolia moved into the straits and in to NA.  These peoples came across some 20,000 years ago during one of the interstasials and still more came some 10 to 15,000 years ago during the last interstasial before the end of the ice ages.  These various waves of peoples had distinct culutral and ethnic backgrounds and the tool kits they had were very different.  Within each wave there were different tribes and these had differrent speach patterns and tool technologies too.  The Athebathkins were among these last peoples to come over.  

The peoples we call Paleo Indians came across during the last interstasial.  We know very little of the peoples who came across during the first some 20,000 years ago.  We are finding some sites scattered across the Americas.  There were very few of them and they were widely dispursed.

Those peoples who came over prior to this are poorly understood and there were not many of them.  In all liklihood however these peoples became the native peoples who now reside in the Amazon basin as they appear to predate the last two waves both genetically and culturally.


there is eveidence  that some peoples also came to the Americas via the ocean too.