Synthesizing what we've learned

Today we started with small groups to review what we have learned about the first North Americans.  Our group started with the question - How do you look for physical evidence and document it?
 We were given seven topics to think about and we completed this outline:
A. Environment - food, water, shelter, and space
    1. animal remains, shells
    2. ice age
    3. water source
    4. caves, simple huts
B. Technology - simple
    1. tools and pottery
    2. where materials came from    
 

                                                                                                           Clovis Point: fluted paleoindian point C. Subsistence
     1. processing sites
     2. animal bones, fruits, plants
     3. fire (hearth)
D. Settlements - along entry points
   1. nomadic bands (25 or fewer people)
   2. near kill sites
E. Social Organization - hunters and gathers in small groups because of  the scarcity of  animals
F. Ideology - believed in spirits, magic, gods
G. Date - 20,000 years ago using relative and radio carbon 14 dating methods

Professor Theler then introduced the Folsom, circa 11,500 YBP, and the Clovis , circa 13,000-13,500 YBP,  Points - flint stones used on spears that have been found mostly in central and eastern United States and down the Pacific Coast of South America.  Thousands of fluted points have been found in Illinois. There is clear evidence that these have been found in Mastodons and Mammoths which are ice age animals. The Paleoindians, also spelled Paleo Indians, are considered the first people to live in North America during the Pleistocene or last "Ice Age." There are different theories of when and where they came here, but he likes the one that expounds that they came from Siberia to Beringia through the ice free corridor roughly 12,000 BP (before present AD 1950).  There is DNA linking them to people from Siberia. They came here because their population density forced them to find new food sources. They have O blood type. There is a site in Washington State along the Columbia River where a human skeleton that is 9,200 years old was found and which had European or Caucasoid characteristics.   In Europe, artifacts have been found from 25,000 years ago that show similar projectile points by the Atl Atl or spear throwers. We know that the Vikings, led by Erik the Red,  founded Greenland around  AD 982. The question is who really discovered North America?