Abstract
Migration is as old as humankind, a phenomenon that lies at the root of human dispersal across both ecological and cultural frontiers. It seems safe to assume that population growth and conflicts within and between adjacent bands were instrumental in the initial human dispersal. Then came a second wave of migration, leading to permanent settlements at places where food resources were either abundant, or could easily be concentrated. Eventually, agriculture emerged in those settlements and population increased, thus producing a new pattern of migration, as pioneers left overcrowded landscapes and sought out fertile soils. This constant process of settlement, population growth, conflicts, and migration was confined to the vast ecological and cultural frontiers of Africa and Eurasia. However, after 1492, the phenomenon of human dispersal that first started in the east African Savanna, where our ancestors evolved, eventually reached the New World where American immigration has been playing out in many forms and has left many different marks, including the destruction of Native Amerindians by European settlers as well as the many infectious diseases that they transmitted, the massive enslavements of Africans, and indentured labor, and where how cultural and other differences will be accommodated and modified remains a capital question for the 21st century. Copyright ยฉ 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.