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Comment by rtkaratekid | Hacker News Reader

Very interesting! Bit of a tangent question, but does anyone know of good resources to read upon current theories of human migration (such as the migration to North America mentioned in the article)?

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First Peoples in a New World is a wonderfully approachable introduction. If you want something a bit more modern and technical, there's New Perspectives on the Peopling of the Americas.

Other people have mentioned Graham Hancock and Jared Diamond. These authors are fine as entertainment, but they're pretty far removed from the academic consensus.

Were they far removed from academic consensus when they came out, or became so by the moving of academic perspectives?

Hancock was far removed when he first came onto the scene in the mid 90s, and is slowly finding his theories more and more supported.

I'm the one that mentioned him elsewhere in the thread. It's sad to me that he gets so much shit in scientific circles when he's quite reserved with making truth claims, instead making hypotheses that are unfortunately misaligned with current theories and so derided as pseudo-science or bullshit.

Diamond's particular brand of geographic determinism was outdated by the 70s, let alone by when he published GG&S. I'm not sure Hancock has ever been in the same zip code as consensus, let alone ballpark, but criticizing him brings enough people out of the woodwork that I'm trying to word things more carefully.

Wikipedia? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Settlement_of_the_Americas

“1491” goes into great detail on this subject - highly recommended.

David Reich‘s Who We Are and How We Got Here.

“Guns, Germs and Steel” by Jared Diamond.

That’s a great book, but it’s from 1997. I think some theories have changed in 23 years. For example, the Siberia-Alaska land bridge theory is just one possible way humans got to the Americas.

I felt his book was more arguing against racist notions of developmental inequality by painting a picture of how systemic and environmental factors influence societal evolution. We've learned more but the central thesis holds..

That said, do you know of a more current layman-accessible book on the topic?

One possible way, but the one best supported by evidence. The west coast of North America continues to yield evidence of human settlement and migration, sometimes just offshore. Genetics also supports the out of Siberia hypothesis.

First migrants by Peter Bellwood

Here's a nice article on Kelp Highways and Cultural Diffusionism! https://grahamhancock.com/davidga6/

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