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鈥淐LOVIS First鈥� was once the rallying call of archaeologists studying humanity鈥檚 settlement of the Americas. It referred to the idea that the prehistoric people who made the distinctive Clovis bone and ivory tools must have been the first human to enter the New World, about 13,000 years ago. Now we know better.

Like much of the received wisdom about human evolution, the peopling of the Americas has been subject to revision in recent years. New discoveries leave no doubt that people arrived earlier than 13,000 years ago, possibly far earlier. Some of the evidence for occupation is still hotly contested.

Who the pioneers were is also proving difficult to pin down. However, there seems little doubt that they entered the last continental landmass to be inhabited by humans from the north. They came via Beringia, an area centred on the Bering Strait between Siberia and Alaska. These people also didn鈥檛 simply migrate through this subarctic region. They took up residence there and became isolated from the rest of humanity for thousands of years, as the world was plunged into an icy period.

These were the first people known to inhabit subarctic regions. We are now starting to piece together the story of how they survived in this harsh environment, and how that experience shaped them genetically and physically (see 鈥淭he first Americans: The untold story of the pioneers of the New World鈥�). Intriguingly, we can track some of their genetic adaptations right down into Central and South America, where they could explain puzzling anomalies found in ancient human remains and among modern indigenous Americans.

鈥淐lovis First鈥� has now been comprehensively refuted and a new picture is emerging. The conquest of the New World didn鈥檛 entail a single group of people marching from north to south. There were different populations, ebbing and flowing and interbreeding.

In other words, it is complicated. But that is the new normal when it comes to human evolution. And it will continue to be so. Watch this space.