Recent discoveries in New World archaeology along with new scientific methods for analyzing data have led to new ideas regarding the origin of the first peoples of the Americas and their time of arrival.

The traditional theory held that the first Americans crossed the land bridge from Siberia to Alaska around 11,500 years ago and followed an "ice-free corridor" between two large Canadian ice sheets (the Laurentide and Cordilleran) to reach unglaciated lands to the south. These first inhabitants, whose archaeological sites are scattered across North and South America, were called the Clovis people, named after the town in New Mexico where their fluted spear points used for hunting mammoth were first found in 1932.

舊觀點：11500年前越冰南下，這些第一批定居者散布在南北美洲，叫做Clovis人。

新觀點：有更早的12500年前，在智利的MV。