Indigenous Nations and Territorial History

The initial peopling of the Americas is generally attributed to migration out of Siberia across Beringia, the land bridge exposed by lower sea levels during the Last Glacial Maximum, and possibly along the adjacent Pacific coastline as well. For decades the dominant "Clovis-first" model, named for the distinctive fluted stone spear points first identified near Clovis, New Mexico, in the 1930s, dated the earliest confirmed human presence in North America to roughly 13,000 to 13,500 years ago.