That this new land was superior to the old soon became apparent to the newcomers. Summers were longer: winters were less severe. Hunting and fishing were excellent and in the summer edible plants were common. Truly, here was a better land. The first crossing from Asia to America was made many thousands of years ago. From the evidence now at hand, fifteen or twenty thousand years seems to be not too great an antiquity for those first Americans. Even at that early date, however, man was well-developed mentally and physically and had all the capabilities of modern man. The first American was no primitive brute. He was Homo sapiens, little different from the fifteenth century foreigners who rediscovered America thousands of years later and gradually edged it away from its first settlers. Primitive human remains, such as those which have been found in the Old World, have never been found in America. Man went through his developmental stages in the Old World and came to America at a late date, a fully developed human being. Pithecanthropus erectus, Sinanthropus, Homo neanderthalensis—America has never known those tongue-twisting lowbrows! After the first discovery of the new land there were innumerable rediscoveries. One group of men after another came to America and those migrations continued for thousands of years. The latest migrants came to America very recently. Thus, America was populated by many successive waves of migration over a long period of time. It seems, almost, that after the first group came, word may have spread from one small tribe to another that off to the east lay a better land. People were disappearing over the eastern horizon. What lay in that direction? Curiosity urged them on! It is altogether possible that actual word of the new land in the east went back to the Asiatic continent. Perhaps there were small counter migrations or perhaps some small traveling group, feeling a bond with some other group in the old country, sent runners back to beckon them on. Certain it is that there was not just a single migration. Numerous groups of men filtered into America over a period of thousands of years. Slowly, aimlessly, they wandered. One group pushed another and was in turn pushed by an oncoming tribe. After a time, North and South America were covered with hundreds of small tribes of Indians. The members of these various tribes were not all alike. They differed greatly in appearance, in language, in religion and in mode of living. The answer is apparent. The various groups came from different parts of Asia. They came at different times. They settled in different parts of the New World and developed in different ways according to the natural resources in each region. As a result there came into being the many tribes of American Indians which were in America when Columbus came on his journey of rediscovery from the east.