page_title: Paleo-Indians
section_title: South America
hierarchical_section_title: Paleo-Indians / Periodization / South America
caption_attribution_description: English: Native American autosomal genetic tree. Each language stock is given a color, and if all populations subtended by an edge belong to the same language stock, the clade is given the color that corresponds to that stock. Branch lengths are scaled according to genetic distance, but for ease of visualization, a different scale is used on the left and right sides of the middle tick mark at the bottom of the figure. The tree was rooted along the branch connecting the Siberian populations and the Native American populations, and for convenience, the forced bootstrap score of 100% for this rooting is indicated twice. In the neighbor-joining tree, a reasonably well-supported cluster (86%) includes all non-Andean South American populations, together with the Andean-speaking Inga population from southern Colombia. Within this South American cluster, strong support exists for separate clustering of Chibchan–Paezan (97%) and Equatorial–Tucanoan (96%) speakers (except for the inclusion of the Equatorial–Tucanoan Wayuu population with its Chibchan–Paezan geographic neighbors, and the inclusion of Kaingang, the single Ge–Pano–Carib population, with its Equatorial–Tucanoan geographic neighbors). Within the Chibchan–Paezan and Equatorial–Tucanoan subclusters several subgroups have strong support, including Embera and Waunana (96%), Arhuaco and Kogi (100%), Cabecar and Guaymi (100%), and the two Ticuna groups (100%). When the tree-based clustering is repeated with alternate genetic distance measures, despite the high Mantel correlation coefficients between distance matrices (0.98, 0.98, and 0.99 for comparisons of the Nei and Reynolds matrices, the Nei and chord matrices, and the Reynolds and chord matrices, respectively), higher-level groupings tend to differ slightly or to have reduced bootstrap support.
context_page_description: Paleo-Indians, Paleoindians or Paleo-Americans, were the first peoples who entered, and subsequently inhabited, the Americas during the final glacial episodes of the late Pleistocene period. The prefix "paleo-" comes from the Greek adjective palaios, meaning "old" or "ancient". The term "Paleo-Indians" applies specifically to the lithic period in the Western Hemisphere and is distinct from the term "Paleolithic".
  Traditional theories suggest that big-animal hunters crossed the Bering Strait from North Asia into the Americas over a land bridge. This bridge existed from 45,000 to 12,000 BCE. Small isolated groups of hunter-gatherers migrated alongside herds of large herbivores far into Alaska. From c. 16,500 – c. 13,500 BCE, ice-free corridors developed along the Pacific coast and valleys of North America. This allowed animals, followed by humans, to migrate south into the interior of the continent. The people went on foot or used primitive boats along the coastline. The precise dates and routes of the peopling of the New World remain subjects of ongoing debate.
context_section_description: In South America, the site of Monte Verde indicates that its population was probably territorial and resided in their river basin for most of the year. Some other South American groups, on the other hand, were highly mobile and hunted big-game animals such as mastodon and giant sloths. They used classic bifacial projectile point technology.
  The primary examples are populations associated with El Jobo points (Venezuela), fish-tail or Magallanes points (various parts of the continent, but mainly the southern half), and Paijan points (Peru and Ecuador) at sites in grasslands, savanna plains, and patchy forests.
  The dating for these sites ranges from c. 14,000 BP (for Taima-Taima in Venezuela) to c. 10,000 BP. The bi-pointed El Jobo projectile points were mostly distributed in north-western Venezuela; from the Gulf of Venezuela to the high mountains and valleys. The population using them were hunter-gatherers that seemed to remain within a certain circumscribed territory. El Jobo points were probably the earliest, going back to c. 14,200 – c. 12,980 BP and they were used for hunting large mammals. In contrast, the fish-tail points, dating to c. 11,000 B.P. in Patagonia, had a much wider geographical distribution, but mostly in the central and southern part of the continent.
caption: An autosomal genetic tree showing the main neighbour-joining relationships within Amerindian populations.
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