In modern times, it has always been thought that American Indians migrated to North America via a landmass between Siberia and Alaska. Now, researchers Briggs Buchanan and Mark Collard have determined that the first Native Americans did come from the north, some12,000 years ago, by analyzing early arrowheads.
It has also always been thought that American Indians were of Asian decent, Buchanan and Collard think their studies results "point toward an Asian origin of the Paleo-Indians."
“June 5, 2007 — Like a popcorn trail left by hikers, stone arrowheads map how and where prehistoric Native Americans first entered North America and the manner in which they populated the rest of the continent thereafter, according to a new study.
By analyzing the early arrowheads — known as Clovis points — the same way other scientists use morphological or genetic data to track the dispersal of species, researchers Briggs Buchanan and Mark Collard determined the first Native Americans came from the north.
"More specifically, the data supports an entry in the Northern Plains, close to where the southern opening of the ice-free corridor would have been," Buchanan, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia, told Discovery News.”
