The book provides an overview of the history of American settlement from the advent of man to the era of European contact. Materials of archeology, ethnography, linguistics, physical anthropology were used. The focus is on issues of continuity of cultural development in certain regions from the Arctic to Tierra del Fuego. It is proposed to reconstruct the past according to folklore and mythology, trends of distribution among Indians and Eskimos of more than a thousand folklore motifs are revealed. Based on these data, a scenario of the settlement of North and South America is proposed.