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9500 B.C. to 8000 B.C.

Exactly when the first people discovered America is one of the most hotly debated subjects in American archaeology. There is increasing evidence that people arrived in the New World before the Clovis culture (9500 B.C. to 8000 B.C). Sites such as Meadowcroft Rockshelter in western Pennsylvania and Monte Verde, Chile, indicate that people have been here since at least 13000 B.C. Evidence from sites such as Topper, South Carolina; hint that people may have been in America even earlier.

See Also

• Clovis Culture
• Paleoindian Period

References

1. Bonnichsen, Robson, Bradley T. Lepper, Dennis Stanford, and Michael R. Waters, editors, Paleoamerican origins: beyond Clovis.  Center for the Study of the First Americans, College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2006. 
2. Lepper, Bradley T. Ohio Archaeology: An Illustrated Chronicle of Ohio's Ancient American Indian Cultures. Wilmington, Ohio, Orange Frazer Press, 2005. 
3. Lepper, Bradley T. and Robert E. Funk "Paleo-Indian: East." Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 3, edited by Douglas Ubelaker, pp. 171-193.  Washington, D.C., Smithsonian Institution Press, 2006. 
4. Lepper, Bradley T., and Robson Bonnichsen, eds. New Perspectives on the First Americans.  College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2004.
5. Meltzer, David. First Peoples in a New World: Colonizing Ice Age America. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009.