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We are living through a revolution in the scientific study of human history. Because of recent technical developments in approaches for recovering and analyzing DNA, plus sequencing whole genomes, geneticists’ and archaeologists’ ability to ask and answer questions about the past has improved dramatically.

Scientists once thought the peopling of the Americas occurred around 13,000 years ago, following the last ice age, when a small group of people crossed the Bering Land Bridge from Northeast Asia to Northwestern Alaska. In the last 10 to 20 years, however, a mountain of new evidence has emerged, showing us that people had been in the Americas for thousands of years before then.

This is not a surprise to Indigenous peoples, many of whom have Traditional Histories that situate their origins within what is today known as the Americas. Some Indigenous people view their origin stories as literal, while some see them as metaphorical and compatible with Western science. Indeed, some Native American archaeologists have demonstrated the importance of Oral Traditions in interpreting the archaeological record and call for careful and analytical study of these traditions and the integration of any clues they might give for understanding the past.

I present this history of the last 36,000 years of migration from the perspective of a Western scientist who places genetic evidence in the forefront of the investigation and then tests the models it produces with archaeological, linguistic, and environmental evidence. For many Indigenous peoples, this is not the whole story or the only story that should be told.

As you read this genetic chronicle, please do not lose sight of the dignity of the human beings who lived this history and the rich complexity of individual existences that are lost in the telling. The story I tell here is akin to reconstructing a person’s entire life by stitching together the photos they posted on Instagram. Not inaccurate, necessarily, just … incomplete.

Excerpted from Origin: A Genetic History of the Americas. © 2022 by Jennifer Raff. Published by Twelve Books.

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