Читать книгу Anglo-American Cultural Studies - Jody Skinner - Страница 38

when to start?We could start with the earliest traces of human habitation in what is now the United States (but then probably American history wouldn’t be shorter) – if only someone really knew when that was. It used to be commonly accepted that the first Americans came from Asia crossing a land bridge that later became the water (the Bering Straits) that now separates Russia from AlaskaAlaska around 10,000 or maybe 20,000 years ago. This view was based on the old bones and tips of spears archaeologists love. Nowadays DNA comparisons have generated other theories suggesting that the first inhabitants could have come from Asia across the Pacific or even from Western Europe across the North Atlantic, which was partially frozen back then. And a “Stone AgeStone Age / Ice Age ColumbusColumbus” could have arrived from southern Europe around 30,000 years ago according to another controversial theory.

1492?We could begin with the one date that probably every American school child knows: 1492, when the non-Stone AgeStone Age ColumbusColumbus “discovered” the New WorldNew World. Unfortunately there are at least three problems with this date. Firstly, 1492 is very late, and secondly Columbus didn’t actually set foot on any of the land that was later to become the United States (unless Puerto RicoPuerto Rico becomes the 51^st state51st state). Thirdly, if we started with 1492 and Columbus, we run the risk of not paying tribute to those people who later would become known as the Native AmericansNative Americans. ( 7)