Skull Analysis Concludes the Americas Were Settled by More than One Wave of Migrants

Has there ever been a more exciting adventure than when humans spread out across the globe with their primitive tools and not so much as a hand-drawn map? A new study of cranial shapes of prehistoric people shows it’s possible there were several migrations of Asians and possibly Australian or Polynesian people who undertook this great trek into the Americas thousands of years ago.

The researchers’ paper says prehistoric human skull morphology of earlier South Americans more closely resembles Polynesian or Australasian peoples. They write that the cranial shapes can fill in gaps that scientists may never be able to close with studies of genes and DNA.

There is a contentious debate between anthropologists and Native Americans about whether there was one migration into the Americas via the Bering Strait land bridge between Alaska and northeastern Russia many thousands of years ago. That land bridge has been under water for millennia. Some researchers say the people of one big mass migration were the ancestors of all natives of the Americas.

• Rare Bones and DNA of tiny children surprise scientists, support ideas about migration into the Americas 11,000 years ago
• Did Paleoamericans Reach South America First?

Many natives deny this theory and say the people came to what they call Turtle Island from many places. This new research supports their viewpoint.