Written Assignment #1 Peopling of the Americas:
This week we focused on the first peopling of the Americas during the Pleistocene epoch and the major debates surrounding this topic. Your assignment is to write a short essay (700-1000 words) that summarizes the required readings assigned for Week 2 and includes the following:
- Compare and contrast the ‘Clovis first’/ice-free corridor hypothesis with the the coastal migration/‘kelp highway’ hypothesis. Specifically, what do each of these hypotheses claim in terms of the timing and migration routes of the first people in the Americas?
- For each hypothesis, include discussion of specific archaeological evidence/sites that are central to these debates. For example, what evidence supports and/or challenges each hypothesis?
- A critical synthesis of what you think is the most likely scenario given the evidence for or against each hypothesis.
- You must include both in-text citations and a bibliography for all articles you reference. Please format citations and references using APA style (i.e., not MLA). You may pull information from lecture material but it must be appropriately cited. You will be graded on writing quality, so be sure to check spelling, grammar, and sentence clarity.
Readings (see attached file):
1. Braje, T.J. et al. 2017. Finding the first Americans. Science 358, 592–594.
2. Waters, M. R., & Stafford, T. W. (2013). The first Americans: A review of the evidence for the Late-Pleistocene peopling of the Americas. Paleoamerican odyssey, 543-562.
3. Erlandson, J.M., et al. 2007. The Kelp Highway Hypothesis: Marine Ecology, the Coastal Migration Theory, and the Peopling of the Americas. The Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology 2, 161–174.
4. Potter, B.A., et al. 2018. Current evidence allows multiple models for the peopling of the Americas. Science Advances 4, eaat5473.
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