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From Asia to the Americas
Andrea Flood ‘03
 On
April 9, Professor Theodore Schurr from the department of anthropology
at the University of Pennsylvania presented a lecture titled, “From
Asia to the Americas: New perspectives from Archeology, Linguistics, and
Genetics on early migration.” His lecture explained how an interdisciplinary
approach, inclusive of the above studies, has assisted in understanding
where people settled in America.
“This is a story of the peopling of the new world…an awareness
gathered to reconstruct the pathway people took from Siberia to the Americas,”
Schurr explained. Where did the original inhabitants and aboriginals come
from and how did they arrive in America?
Schurr’s lecture explored these issues through the examination of
three key questions. After posing, “When did humans first come to
the Americas?” he also inquired, “In how many migration waves
did they come and how did these multiple migrations contribute to the
diversity of ancestral Amerindians?”
These comprehensive questions were considered in light of archeological
background, craniometric data, linguistic evidence, mitochondrial DNA
evidence and Y-chromosome data. Studies involved in these areas have been
able to assist in understanding who the first Americans were and how specifically
they arrived here.
Investigations concerning biological data suggest that, “The two
different skeletal populations may have colonized the Americas, possibly
originating at different times and in different places in Asia,”
said Schurr.
The event was co-sponsored by the departments of biology, English, history,
humanities and Augustinian tradition, political science, and sociology,
as well as the liberal studies master’s degree program, the Latin
American studies concentration, and the anthropology working group.
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