Migration theories

The continents of North and South America were settled by Upper Paleolithic hunter-gatherers from North Asia between 20,000 and 10,000 years ago, by way of the Beringia land bridge which had formed between northeastern Siberia and western Alaska due to the lowering of sea level during the Last Glacial Maximum. The earliest populations in the Americas, between roughly 20,000 and 10,000 years ago are also known as Paleo-Indians. The settlement of the Americas from Asia is of intense interest to archaeologists and anthropologists. Advances in archaeology, Pleistocene geology, physical anthropology, and DNA analysis have shed progressively more light on the subject; however, significant questions remain unresolved.