AMERICAN INDIAN

also called Amerindian, Amerind, Indian, or Native American member of any of the aboriginal peoples of the Western Hemisphere, with the exception of the Eskimos and Aleuts. The ancestors of the American Indians were nomadic hunters of Asian Mongoloid stock who migrated chiefly over the Bering Strait land bridge into North America probably during the last glacial period (about 20,000 to 35,000 years ago), though some debated estimates place the earliest migrations much earlier. These migrants shared certain cultural traits with their Asian contemporaries, including the use of fire, the domesticated dog, and particular rites. Other traits of Old World culture (e.g., animal husbandry, cultivation of certain plants, and the wheel and the plow) were absent in the Americas.