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How did the origins of South American Indigenous peoples relate to migration across the Bering Strait?

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distribution of aboriginal South American and circum-Caribbean cultural groups — South American nomad Distribution of aboriginal South American and circum-Caribbean cultural groups.

Most anthropologists believe that the Indigenous peoples of South America are descendants of populations that migrated from Asia to North America at least 16,500 years ago, and potentially much earlier. These ancestors crossed the Bering Strait—a region known as Beringia that served as a land bridge during periods of lowered sea levels in the Pleistocene Epoch.123

While the exact timing and method of arrival remain subjects of research, it is widely accepted that these early hunter-gatherer groups moved into the Americas as glaciers receded. Once in North America, these populations gradually migrated southward through Central America and into South America over thousands of years. Archaeological evidence confirms that humans were present in Chile by at least 11,000 BCE, establishing that these early migrants had successfully populated the continent long before the rise of complex agricultural civilizations.3415