Successive waves of migration from Siberia created the Inuit populations in North America today. (Credit: Illustration by Kerttu Majander, Design by Michelle O’Reilly)

Who
were the First Americans? It’s a question that for decades has divided researchers,
who have proposed competing theories as to how humans moved from Eurasia into
North America.

The
question is far from settled, though it is clear that by about 14,500 years ago
(and perhaps as far back as 30,000 years ago) humans had mov