Talk:Paleo-Indians

Australoid origin theories

Instead of merely being obstructive like certain users are, can somebody point out to me a way we can integrate the information from this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australoid_race#The_first_Americans.3F into this one? Volunteering to edit Wikipedia is already enough without being treated like garbage. Ladril (talk) 13:38, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

The problem is that its all just a guess and old - No so called "Australoid" DNA markers have been found in the Americans as of yet. Pls note that all the links at Luzia Woman referring to her as Australoid are dead because they were removed when found to be invalid.Moxy (talk) 19:58, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Can't it be mentioned as a theory without genetic evidence? DNA is not the only source of evidence for theories. Ladril (talk) 23:45, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Why would we mention something that most think is make believe - pls see Wikipedia:Fringe theoriesMoxy (talk) 23:59, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

"Indian" Etymology

While the modern world is mostly, even totally shaped by the European "Renaissance", it's hard to understand why the scientific/ academic community insists on perpetuating errors. "Indian" has nothing to do with any analysis of original American settlers and inhabitants and merely reflects an error made by a very small number of people in the middle ages. ```` — Preceding unsigned comment added by SBader (talk • contribs) 10:55, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

We use it because it is the word commonly used by Native North Americans at least in the USA. We shouldn't be renaming them. And of couse as you say it's used by the scientific/academic community. This isn't a forum where we can debate such things. Dougweller (talk) 11:44, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

That's the problem, the use of 'Indian' to refer to Indigenous peoples of the Americas is always sourced from the USA and therefore the Columbus error in Identifying the peoples. As an example, in Canada 'Indian' is in disuse because 'Indian' refers to India. To say Paleo-Indian would suggest a relation to India - which there isn't one. It is highly misleading to say the least. Paleo-Aborigine or the like is far more accurate representative of whom is in reference. 65.92.205.173 (talk) 17:12, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

So we shouldn't use the name that they use in identifying themselves? Even if it's wrong, it's not Wikipedias role to Right Great Wrongs. Dougweller (talk) 17:44, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

I would have no problem with it moved to Paleoamericans - however the reason I pick Paleo-Indians is because the majority of links to the page use this term. The Smithsonian and Anthropology.net have been using Paleoamericans for a long time - however if someone were to search "Paleo-Indians" that would yield many many more results. Paleo-Aborigine is not a word and most would think it relates to Australians.Moxy (talk) 19:12, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps have a link to this Native American name controversy in the article? 96.235.129.30 (talk) 20:33, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

omg, how can the "scientific/ academic community" insist on keep calling the Greeks Greeks and the Germans Germans, when it is perfectly well known that the Graeci were just one, just. one. Hellenic tribe in Italy, and the Germani were all over the place and include the Anglo-Saxons. How can the "scientific/ academic community" keep calling a cable modem a "modem" when it clearly is not a modulator-demodulator at all? An electron an electron when clearly it isn't made from amber? For that matter, how can they keep calling India India, when clearly the Indus river is in Pakistan? It is all so wrong, wrong, WRONG. But maybe etymology isn't the same as definition? L'arbitraire du signe. --dab (𒁳) 06:07, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Couldn't help but notice your Sumerian symbol, nice. 178.120.53.119 (talk) 21:43, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Recent research results about Paleoamericans will probably generate traffic to this page. I'm a little surprised that the page is named "Paleo-Indian" in light of the Native American name controversy. Yes, there are a lot more Google hits and Google scholar hits for "Paleo-Indian" than for "Paleoamerican", but Google is not necessarily correct (see WP:GOOG), the results could be from the distant past and could be deemed insensitive today. I find the use of the term "Indian" to be somewhat offensive and questionable for a Wikipedia article, especially when a reasonable alternative (Paleoamerican) exists. Maybe times have changed and it is time to move this article to Paleoamericans? The point about Right Great Wrongs is well taken, but I'm not sure it completely applies here. This issue of the term "Indian" being controversial and not preferred by Indigenous peoples of the Americas is verifiable. Cxbrx (talk) 02:56, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

It is *somewhat* misleading to say that the term "Indian" is "not preferred by indigenous peoples of the Americas", because it suggests that "Native American" is preferred over "Indian", when this is simply not the case -- a greater number of the peoples in question, given the choice of those two terms, would prefer "Indian" or "American Indian" over the other. Now, if you personally are offended by the term "Indian", you most certainly have the right to demand that no one applies that label to you; however, you can't demand that others do the same for themselves.

Firejuggler86 (talk) 02:54, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Title - sg/pl

Since Wikipedia has a pretty strong policy about using singular forms instead of plural forms in article titles, I would like to ask why this article, like "Native Americans," uses a plural form.211.225.33.104 (talk) 01:30, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Because the term represent multiple peoples and/or groups of cultures as does Native Americans and First Nations. That said the term here is used for a time period and could be singular but there were phases in this time periods also. So not sure here. -- Moxy (talk) 01:40, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Pre-Clovis is too weakly covered.

There is no mention of the French work in Brazil that claims extremely old dates (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/28/world/americas/discoveries-challenge-beliefs-on-humans-arrival-in-the-americas.html?_r=0, ) or of Buttermilk Creek. Paisley Caves (http://www.sciencemag.org/content/337/6091/223) are only listed as a see also. Kdammers (talk) 04:20, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

There is also no mention of the controversial Cerutti Mastodon site Steven R. Holen et al. 2017. A 130,000-year-old archaeological site in southern California, USA. Nature 544: 479-483; doi: 10.1038/nature22065), which has reliably dated (not necessarily archaeological) material over 100K years old. Kdammers (talk) 12:43, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

South America

"TOM D. DILLEHAY, The Late Pleistocene Cultures of South America. Evolutionary Anthropology, 1999" is a review article. What's wrong with this source? Eio-cos (talk) 01:56, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

1999 is way old looking for modern scholarly source...bradshawfoundation.com also not the best source. If you like i can list some to read over. Like with Old Crow Flats ‎ dates being listed our out of dateKipfer, Barbara Ann (2010). Encyclopedic Dictionary of Archaeology. Springer Science & Business Media. pp. 403–. ISBN 978-0-306-46158-3. --Moxy (talk) 02:10, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

J. Oliver is a noted archeologist specialising in Venezuela. Bibliography:

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/people/staff/oliver/usercontent_profile/2-publications Eio-cos (talk) 02:15, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

All fixed ..even added DILLEHAY best publication.--Moxy (talk) 02:46, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

new paper on "Beringia and the Global Dispersal of Modern Human"

"Beringia and the Global Dispersal of Modern Humans," published in the April issue of the journal Evolutionary Anthropology. The authors examined recent developments in anthropological genetics, archaeology and paleoecology and how these findings inform us about the original migration to the Americas, as well as the human occupation of the former land bridge between Alaska and Siberia, known as "Beringia."Read more at:

Abstract

Until recently, the settlement of the Americas seemed largely divorced from the out-of-Africa dispersal of anatomically modern humans, which began at least 50,000 years ago. Native Americans were thought to represent a small subset of the Eurasian population that migrated to the Western Hemisphere less than 15,000 years ago. Archeological discoveries since 2000 reveal, however, that Homo sapiens occupied the high-latitude region between Northeast Asia and northwest North America (that is, Beringia) before 30,000 years ago and the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). The settlement of Beringia now appears to have been part of modern human dispersal in northern Eurasia. A 2007 model, the Beringian Standstill Hypothesis, which is based on analysis of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) in living people, derives Native Americans from a population that occupied Beringia during the LGM. The model suggests a parallel between ancestral Native Americans and modern human populations that retreated to refugia in other parts of the world during the arid LGM. It is supported by evidence of comparatively mild climates and rich biota in south-central Beringia at this time (30,000-15,000 years ago). These and other developments suggest that the settlement of the Americas may be integrated with the global dispersal of modern humans. Doug Weller talk 15:42, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

18,000-8,000 BCE ??

the article gave as sort of a title-time-indication: "Paleo-Indians (18,000-8,000 BCE)" but then the article states: "Archaeologists contend that Paleo-Indians migration out of Beringia (western Alaska), ranges from 40,000 to around 16,500 years ago." and further: "The few agreements achieved to date are the origin from Central Asia, with widespread habitation of the Americas during the end of the last glacial period, or more specifically what is known as the late glacial maximum, around 16,000–13,000 years before present." (that is 14,000 BCE) and: "From 16,500-13,500 BCE (18,500-15,500 BP), ice-free corridors developed along the Pacific coast and valleys of North America.[3] This allowed animals, followed by humans, to migrate south into the interior." so if you accept the beringian ice-free-corridor-theory the title-time-frame should be 16,500 - 8,000 BCE (8,000 being the defined limit to the archaic period); if you let the other theories (that evidently take the start of the beringian ice-bridge as the possible starting point for immigration ["Evidence suggests big-animal hunters crossed the Bering Strait from Eurasia into North America over a land and ice bridge (Beringia), that existed between 45,000-12,000 BCE (47,000-14,000 BP)."]) also exist, it should be something like: "(45,000?)/16,500 - 8,000 BCE", right? so I corrected the article in that sense, ok? --HilmarHansWerner (talk) 19:20, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

Best not to guess based on the article....just remove. most defs say .22,000–6000 b.c--Moxy (talk) 20:49, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

Climate change as factor in mammoth extinction

It seems the sources for climate change as a cause are quite old (2001). Are there any newer sources to back this up? --Zaurus (talk) 18:06, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

Douglas Ian Campbell; Patrick Michael Whittle (2017). Resurrecting Extinct Species: Ethics and Authenticity. Springer. pp. 37–38. ISBN 978-3-319-69578-5......--Moxy (talk) 21:22, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

If all the sources are old, most likely means it's a settled issue...and if no one is finding contradictory evidence, they aren't going to keep confirming the old conclusions are correct over and over.. Firejuggler86 (talk) 11:41, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Misleading statement

" Scientific evidence links *indigenous Americans* [unacceptably vague category] to Siberian populations." while not technically false, this is deceptive; "indigenous Americans" includes both the American Indians and the Eskimos, who are not closely related. The Eskimos are more closely related to east asians than to American Indians. It would be reasonable to assume that any statement about "indigenous Americans" is a statement that applies to American Indians, but in this case it would be untrue if it did include American Indians (in addition to Eskimos).

For analogy, it would be akin to a statement regarding "Asians" that truly only applied to Israelis...or azerbaijanis, or what have you... Firejuggler86 (talk) 10:52, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Humans in New Mexico around 21,000 to 23,000 years ago

Article in the BBC and Sciencee: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-58638854 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abg7586

Rather concrete evidence about early human settlement in the Americas. Definitely before the icefree corridors and pre Clovis. So the range of possible times for the migration into the Americas has to be moved back quite a lot.Jochum (talk) 14:21, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

Paleo-Indians vs. Paleo-Americans

There appears to be a philosophical divide between these terms, at least in some circles. As background, there is a law in the USA that says ancient remains need to be returned to modern day Indian tribes for reburial, if the remains are associated with those tribes. Thus, some scientists believe (or believed) that ancient skeleton's such as Kennewick Man are not related to modern Indians, do not need to be turned over. They believe the first people's were unrelated to modern Indians. These people they call the Paleo-Americans. Which are different from Paleo-Indians, who are the earliest ancestors of the Indians. An excellent source on this subject:

Kakaliqouras, Ann M. (2019). "The Repatriation of the Palaeoamericans: Kennewick Man/the Ancient One and the End of a Non-Indian Ancient North America". BJHS Themes. 4: 79–98. doi:10.1017/bjt.2019.9.

Of course Indians believe there is no divide, the first Indians were also the first Americans. This divide is sort of coming to an end, due to increasing DNA evidence which shows the Indians are correct. Nevertheless it is a real divide, more so a few decades ago. The article makes no mention of it, but there is a reason these two terms came about. -- GreenC 03:21, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

@GreenC: The outdated "Paleoamerican" hypothesis is mentioned in Peopling_of_the_Americas#Physical_anthropology. We probably should also add a short mention in this article, since it has very manifest consequences for the treatment of the remains of Paleo-Indians" as described in that paper. And this also brings into question if "Paleo-Americans" is in fact a alternative term for "Paleo-Indians" as the opening sentence suggest. I'm not too familiar with the topic, but is "Paleo-Americans" or "Paleoamericans" always used in the context ot the craniometry-based two-wave migration model, or is it also used outside of this hypothesis simply referreing to "Paleo-Indians" as defined here? –Austronesier (talk) 16:41, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure of the origins of the term "Paleo-Americans", or if it's used in context today to sometimes infer an alternative origin theory. It is possible to demonstrate, at one time at least, it sometimes meant something different from "Paleo-Indians" (BJHS Themes above). The distinction at a minimum should be discussed such as in a historiography section ("history of terms" etc..). Sometimes people might terms to signal a position. Like if one keeps saying "Paleo-American", when referencing Kennewick Man, and "Paleo-Indian" about some other earlier Indian remains, it sends a signal to those in in the know you believe it could be from different origins. Most people will see synonymous terms who are not familiar with the debates. -- GreenC 18:59, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

My opinion is that the term "Paleo-American" should be deleted from the first line of the article. That early mention gives the term more recognition than it deserves. If an explanation is needed for the term "Paleo-American" that can be provided later in the text -- making clear that "Paleo-American" is sometimes used as a claim, unsupported by science, of an alternate origin of the earliest people in the Americas.Smallchief (talk) 23:07, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

I'm generally in agreement with removal from the first line. Let's take a look at usage on Wikipedia. The term appears nowhere in our current article. For redirects, there are Paleo-Americans (3), Paleo-American (1), Paleo Americans (1), Paleo American (0), Palaeoamericans (1), Paleoamerican (2). So we barely use these terms on Wikipedia, and likely they could be redone and made into (0). Our article does contain this source from Smithsonian, authored partly by Douglas Owsley, the same scientist whose theories were discredited by the 2015 aDNA results of Kennewick Man. In the paper (2007) they continue to argue for a possible non-Indian origin. This "-american" terminology continues to look like a minority POV that we should not be giving too much weight, certainly not equal weight. -- GreenC 18:28, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

You're speaking for outdated nomenclature while claiming "Paleo-Indian" which has nothing to do with India? You're unlearned and relying on dated identifies while ignoring a recognized connection. Are they Indigenous American or Indigenous Indian? Do you even know the nomenclature of Indian? Milk Mead (talk) 11:01, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

You're speaking for outdated nomenclature while claiming "Paleo-Indian" which has nothing to do with India? You're unlearned and relying on dated identifies while ignoring a recognized connection. Are they Indigenous American or Indigenous Indian? Do you even know the nomenclature of Indian? Milk Mead (talk) 11:00, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

The term "Paleo-Indian" is never used in connection with the Indian subcontinent, and like it or not, the term "Indian" has been also associated with the Indigenous peoples of the Americas for over 500 years at this point. Hemiauchenia (talk) 14:09, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Make an etymology section? move out of the lead?

The term "Paleo-Indian" combines the Ancient Greek prefix "paleo-," meaning "old" or "ancient," with "Indian," a term historically misapplied by Columbus to the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. "Paleo-American" is a modern term that some researchers prefer to avoid the potentially inaccurate "Indian". Both terms use the Greek prefix paleo- meaning "old" or "ancient" and describe the lithic period in the Western Hemisphere and is distinct from the term Paleolithic.

Moxy🍁 15:25, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

the question is, as Smallchief has rightly asked, is "Paleoamerican" a straight equivalent to "Paleoindian"? Having looked more closely at the sources, despite originally putting it into the lead as an equivalent to Paleo-Indian, I think the answer is no. Williams and Madsen (2019) states: ...“Paleoamerican,” a term widely employed by South American archaeologists and physical anthropologists to refer specifically to genetic populations... and The only other term which has gained any leverage at all [to describe the pre-Clovis period in the Americas other than "pre-Clovis"] is “Paleoamerican,” but that term is used primarily by those working in South America and one that implies a disconnect, not just from the Old World but to later [Native American] populations. . Hemiauchenia (talk) 15:37, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

The norm is " In the 1990s, some prominent physical anthropologists and archaeologists began replacing ‘Palaeoindian’ with the new category of ‘Palaeoamerican’ to characterize the western hemisphere's earliest inhabitants.They were known as Palaeoindians – and more recently as Palaeoamericans by some archaeologists and biological anthropologists." Moxy🍁 15:43, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Yes, but "earliest inhabitants" is associated with the hypothesis of a first settlement wave that was later replaced by a second wave of settlement, and that modern Native Americans descend from the second wave but not the first. This was central to the controversies surrounding ancient North American human remains like the Kennewick Man, with the argument being he wasn't related to modern Native Americans and therefore he didn't need to be repatriated. This was in Kennewick Man's case, obviously later shown to be spectacularly wrong based on genetic evidence. Hemiauchenia (talk) 15:47, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

I take your new to the topic. Archaeogenetic studies do not support a two-wave model or the Paleoamerican hypothesis over a decade ago. Moxy🍁 15:52, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

I wrote the majority of the Clovis culture article, as well as the entirety of the Fishtail projectile point and Western Stemmed Tradition articles. I am very familiar with the literature surrounding the peopling of the Americas (including the genetic studies) and the Paleoindian period thank you very much. I am very well aware that the idea of this hypothesis is mostly rejected based on genetic evidence, but as a historical hypothesis that did previously have some support in the scientific literature, it is an important part of the history of the "Paleoamerican" term, and to the controversy surrounding the Kennewick Man. Hemiauchenia (talk) 15:57, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Paleoamericans appears to be a WP:FRINGE racist pseudoscience theory with no place on Wikipedia except on these terms. Paleoamerican search on Enwiki shows it still be used in wikivoice. These need to be fixed. Some editor(s) are doing this: [[Paleo-Indians|Paleoamericans]] probably because they were uncomfortable with the term "Indians" and found this other "Americans" term they believe is more neutral (but actually a hot mess). -- GreenC 16:19, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

There is definitely a strong connotation between "Paleoamerican" and this now largely rejected "two-wave hypothesis", but some researchers do seem to use "Paleoamerican" as a straight synonym for "Paleoindian" , but the number of scholars who seem to use the term like this is pretty small and "Paleoindian" seems to strongly predominate. I would support replacing "Paleoamerican" where "Paleoindian" is clearly meant for clarity. Hemiauchenia (talk) 16:31, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

An additional source, Moreno Mayar et al. (2018): However, disagreement exists over claims of earlier migrations into the Americas [prior to the migration of the ancestors of modern Indigenous peoples of the Americas] by people possibly related to Australasians or by bearers of a distinctive cranial form (“Paleoamericans”). It's clear from this paper that "Paleoamerican" has connotations with having a distinct skull morphology different from that of modern Native Americans and the "multiple migration" hypothesis, rather than just being a straight-synonym of Paleo-Indian. Hemiauchenia (talk) 16:47, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

The problem is that Paleoamericans is also a term used by racist groups to say Europeans were the first inhabitants of the Americas. We should not use Paleoamericans, unless it's qualified with context eg. "According to .. the term means .. does not mean.." .. as for "distinctive cranial form " what skeletons do they refer, is it even standard to call that form Paleoamericans or an edge case in one paper. Note they put Paleoamericans in quotes ie. questionable terminology -- GreenC 17:24, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

According to Chatters et al: (2014) ... the oldest skeletal remains from the Americas (>9 ka, the Paleoamericans) consistently fail to group morphometrically with modern Native Americans, Siberians, and other northeast Asians. Paleoamericans exhibit longer, narrower crania and smaller, shorter, more projecting faces than later Native Americans. In nearly all cases, they are morphologically most similar to modern peoples of Africa, Australia, and the southern Pacific Rim I think the Luzia Woman is a typical example of skeletons that have been attributed to the "Paleoamerican" type. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:58, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Piltdown Gang (1915)

Is cranial morphology even accepted anymore? Chatters also thought Kenewick Man was of European or Australian origin, based on skull morphology, and later DNA evidence proved him very wrong. Individuals have a wide variety of skull shapes. From Genetic history of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas: The study also dismissed the existence, inferred from craniometric data, of a hypothetical distinct non-Indigenous American population (suggested to have been related to Indigenous Australians and Papuans), sometimes called "Paleoamerican". Refs in the article, dated 2021. -- GreenC 18:10, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

I mean, when you consider paleoanthropology as a whole, if you're looking at the remains of Homo erectus or Homo heidelbergensis, the morphology of the skull is basically all you have to go off and so therefore it is widely used, so you can understand why some researchers would try to apply the same techniques to modern human skulls, and similar techniques are used in modern forensic anthropology to provide evidence of the ethnicity/race of a victim in the absence of genetic evidence (for better or worse, read this story in Science ). Even among archaic humans though, there is enormous controversy about the relationships between different groups of archaic humans to each other (the so called "muddle in the middle"), so just looking at skull morphology can't definitively resolve questions like this. Obviously, this whole "Paleoamerican" hypothesis and the subsequent DNA results rejecting it has in my view refuted the idea that you can just look at the morphology of modern human skulls and definitively determine their ancestry. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:28, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

What we teach the kids ...Barton, C. Michael; Clark, Geoffrey A.; Yesner, David R.; Pearson, Georges A. (2016-03-04). The Settlement of the American Continents: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Human Biogeography. University of Arizona Press. ISBN 978-0-8165-3282-7. Moxy🍁 18:54, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

I can't see the google books preview, so I am not sure what your point here is. This book is also from 2004, which means in this rapidly moving field it is quite dated. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:16, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

.... Page 54 talks about the evolution of the usage of the word. I'm not sure where you're getting the year 2004 from. Moxy🍁 19:20, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Quoting the relevant section here would be appreciated, as what Google books chooses to preview is inconsistent. The 2004 publication date is mentioned in various reviews of the book from when it originally came out e.g. , Google may have a new edition, but I'm not sure. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:23, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

I'm looking at the Google Books link on page 54 and the entire page is about stone tool technology. The relevant section is actually on page 52, in a section called "Paleoindian", which gives an interesting background about the term paleoindian, all cited to sources from the 1990s and earlier, suggesting this book was published in 2004; there is nothing about paleoamerican. -- GreenC 21:27, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

I've added a discussion of the origin of the term to the "periodization" section Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:56, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

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