Resilience and Human History by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789811540912
Publisher: Springer Singapore

7.2 Human Migration and Establishment, the Formation of the Andes Civilisation, and Resilience

7.2.1 Human Migration and Establishment of the South American Continent

From around 15,000 years ago, Homo sapiens had travelled from Asia to the North American continent walking along the current Bering Strait which had transformed into a continuous ground due to the decline of the sea level in the glacial period. Human beings at the time had little pathogens and no infections from livestock because they had not domesticated animals other than dogs. In addition, as they were isolated in a very cold place (such as Alaska) for a long time, human beings were protected from various infections. Once the glacial climate ended 13,000 years ago and the enormous ice plates in Canada melted, human beings began to travel southwards. They steadily and rapidly increased their population with excellent hunting techniques, successfully catching large mammals as mammoths, mastodon, and large sloths. After moving and spreading throughout North America, human beings passed to South America through the Panama isthmus. Some groups may have been pushed away by population pressure, and other groups may have headed into the unknown world in search for richer environment. Finally, human beings are believed to have reached the southernmost part of the South American continent in the stretch of around 1000 years since they began their journey from south Alaska (Akazawa et al. 1993).

Human beings began living in the Andean Highlands from around 12,000 years ago. At that time, hunters camped in the caves of the Andean Highlands and used small stone points to hunt deer, camelids, and rodents. Many of those caves are in the plateau at an altitude of around 4000 m. These caves were also found at lower location such as the Guitarrero Cave (altitude 2580 m) located in the northern highlands of Peru. It is hypothesised that people habituated in the high plateau and used the western coasts and mountainous areas of the Andes as their active region (Onuki 1995). The spread of mankind in South America is thought to have moved on the Andean high plateau as it is relatively flat and was easy to travel.

Soon after the end of the last glacial period, environmental changes caused by abrupt rise in temperature and excessive hunting by humans caused the extinction of large mammals in the Americas leading to serious food shortages. Hence, human beings shifted the centre of their livelihood from hunting to farming, relying also on the abundance of the ocean.

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