One of the displays in the San Bernardino County Museum in Redlands, California, is entitled Sacred Earth and subtitled Understanding our past and honoring cultures that thrive today. The first section of this display looks at American Indian cultures between 16,000 years ago and 8,000 years ago.
According to the Museum display:
“Some archaeologists believe humans first came to this continent by following the great bison and other megafauna over the Beringia land bridge at the end of the last Ice Age. Others contend that humans arrived by boat across the Pacific. Either way, people quickly spread across the continent, settling on the California coast around 10,000 to 12,000 years ago.”
Some archaeologists use the terms Paleoindian and paleoarchaic to describe these earliest American cultures. Shown below are some of the displays in the San Bernardino County Museum used in the discussion of this time period.