It's the Engines on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host and in today's podcast

where we're going away from the ancient Mediterranean, we're going to the Americas, to North

America, to the story of how the first modern humans, the first homo sapiens, reached the

Americas. How do they do it? When do they do it? And what do we know about there? They're

spreading out into the Americas, their interactions with the fauna of the Americas and even now

extinct megafauna such as woolly mammoths, sabertooth tigers and so much more.

Let's talk through all of this. I was delighted to get on the podcast, Professor David Meltzer.

David, he's an archaeologist from Southern Methodist University and he is one of the leading

experts in this field and it was a pleasure to chat to David because he explains how this

field, how this study of when the first modern humans came to the Americas, well it's evolving.

It's growing every year with new scientific developments in genomics, in genetics, being

able to find out so much more about this nature of human migration into the Americas.

David, this was an amazing chat. We cover all things from the great land bridge between Siberia

and modern day Alaska, tens of thousands of years ago. We cover the descent down into the Americas

into the modern day USA and we also look at why this field is looking so exciting in the years ahead.

So that further ado, to talk all about the arrival of the first modern humans in the Americas,

what the science, what the archaeology is telling us, here's David.

David, it is great to have you on the podcast today. Thanks for inviting me.

You are very welcome indeed. I've been waiting to do a topic on America for so long and I'm so

glad that we're now doing this one because when looking at when the first modern humans

reach the Americas, David, it feels like this in an extraordinary field where even recently,

in the last few years, the wealth of knowledge available is just growing and growing.

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