The First Americans

American History Hit

History Hit

America, History

4.5 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 22 December 2022

⏱️ 66 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Modern humans thrived in the Americas for thousands of years before the first European colonists arrived, but how and when did they get there?

What's more, did their arrival spell disaster for indigenous megafauna such as giant ground sloths and wooly mammoths, or was there another culprit behind the mass extinctions across North, Central & South America?

This is an episode is from our sister podcast, The Ancients. Host Tristan is joined by Professor David Meltzer, an archeologist from Southern Methodist University, to explore the nature of human migration into the Americas and how scientific developments now allow us to discover more about those very first Americans.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello all, welcome to American History Hit.
0:03.0	Glad you could join me, I to American History Hit.
0:13.0	Glad you could join me, I'm Don Wildman.
0:15.0	American History is a vast subject,
0:18.0	even looking back to Euro-colonial days.
0:20.0	Never mind the more fundamental origin story much further back.
0:24.0	When did the first human beings even show up on the North American continent?
0:28.0	How about the South American one?
0:30.0	For many, it's a surprisingly controversial issue these days with new science and new thinking
0:35.9	being done in many quarters, which challenges all that general grade school stuff we were raised
0:41.1	on, or at least I was, that mankind simply walked over back around the
0:45.6	last ice age chasing woolly mammoths with spears and clubs and whoops, here we are, a whole
0:50.2	new world.
0:51.2	Didn't really go like that. And today we have a chance to learn why and how.
0:56.0	Allow me to introduce my esteemed colleague at Historyhip, Tristan Hughes, who hosts a remarkable
1:01.5	and long-running podcast series called The Ancients, which I highly recommend wherever you get your pods.
1:07.0	And today, in just a short moment, we'll be hearing his discussion about this fascinating history.
1:12.0	Tristan, welcome to American history hit,
1:14.3	Long time No C.
1:15.6	Long time, no see, my friend.
1:17.1	I am so happy to be here.
1:19.7	This is the crossover at History Hit that we've been waiting for.
	...

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