Imagine a vast continent devoid of human inhabitants – just land and animals. Many thousands of years ago, North and South America were uninhabited by humans.
The exact timing and method of human arrival remains uncertain. But one theory suggests that ancient hunters migrated from Asia to the northwestern regions of the Americas. Over thousands of years, more people crossed from Asia, and their descendants gradually spread southward and eastward. These people, now known as Indigenous peoples, eventually inhabited all of North and South America. By the 1400s, they were the sole human inhabitants of the Americas. But soon others would arrive from distant lands, transforming the United States into a nation of remarkable diversity.
