Indigenous People Migration and Settlement Patterns

• The Bering Strait was above sea level and formed the Beringia land bridge 25000 years ago.
• There was no land bridge between Siberia and Alaska but there was an ice bridge.
• During the ice age, people from northern Asia are believed to have crossed either of these bridges as they were fleeing the icy conditions or chasing migratory herds of deer, buffalo, seal and caribou.
• The indigenous people are believed to have crossed and pushed south to the very end of the South American mainland.
• The indigenous people are believed to be the forefathers of the people living in the Americas who Columbus encountered.
• The indigenous people are believed to have entered the Caribbean islands from North, Central and South America.
• Factors which influenced the location of these settlements include access to fresh water, abundance of food/game, a need for defense and fertility of soil.
• Historians have always sought to explain events based on their analysis of certain facts to explain how the Caribbean was settled.
• Theories have been formulated to explain the settlement of the Caribbean, including: following food source, migration of a group of Asiatic people (Mongolians) who followed animals (mammoth, deer and caribou- large reindeer) that migrated from Siberia to Alaska in search of food, and the migratory pattern of the indigenous people.
• Over 25,000 years ago, the first set of people arrived from Asia to North America, crossing by means of the land and ice bridge which connected Siberia and Alaska (The Bering Strait).
• These people did not all arrive at once, they came in different groups, sometimes thousands of years apart.
• Around 1000 B.C., there was another phase of migration from S

  America, in the region of the Orinoco River of Venezuela, up the Chain to the Leeward Islands towards the Greater Antilles.
• The migration involved the Amerindian group of the Tainos and Kalinago.
• The Amerindians migrated to the Caribbean from South America around 1000 B.C., driven by factors such as nomadism, population outgrowing available food supply, changes in climatic conditions, warlike nature, need for a larger settlement area with available resources, and access to fresh water.