Native Americans may have arrived in the Americas via several routes

[turbinetree]

Eileen Drage O'Reilly

In the long debate over how and when the first Native Americans arrived in the Americas, a group of scientists is arguing that multiple viable possibilities exist, according to a new study in Science Advances Wednesday.

Why it matters: Although there are many circulating theories, research over the past 20 years leans toward the idea that Native Americans arrived via a coastal route around 20,000 years ago. But, this team says they've reviewed enough evidence to indicate another theory is equally or even more strongly true — that they arrived via an inland route. Plus, they say, the earliest they arrived was closer to 16,000 years ago.

"We objected, in part, to assertions of certainty, with respect to positive arguments for coastal routes and negative arguments against interior routes. ... [T]he current data cannot definitively reject either route, and indeed, both routes may have been used."
— Ben Potter, study author

Background: The "peopling of the Americas," as scientists call it, is of great interest and debate. Advances in genome and artifact dating are transforming research but there is still no clear picture of how and when the different Native Americans, such as Amazonian Indians, the Native American tribes of North America, and Inuit tribes in Alaska and Canada, came to the Americas and when they diverged.

What they found: One of the problems is that there aren't a lot of sites that have been discovered with human remains. The oldest human remains located so far are: the 12,700-year-old Anzick Child found in Montana along with tools belonging to the Clovis culture, the 11,500-year-old remains of infants found in central Alaska, and the 8,500-year-old Kennewick Man located in Washington State (whose discovery actually led to a legal tug-of-war).

Other sites have artifacts and animal bones which can indicate human activity, such as: the discovery in Monte Verde, Chile, of 18,500-year-old stone tools and charred animal bones, the findings in the Channel Islands of California of 13,000-year-old stone tools and shell fragments, and most recently, what could be pre-Clovis artifacts found in Texas dated to around 16,000–20,000 years of age.

https://www.axios.com/how-native-americans-came-to-the-americas-debate-e06bcacb-894a-4cbe-bb62-77baaf377fed.html

[Bayard]

1. Interesting

Bookmarking for later.

[riversedge]

2. I love reading history. Thanks for post

[turbinetree]

3. Your welcome.................history my favorite subject................

[GulfCoast66]

4. I have always wondered if we have not been here longer than previously thought

And also how many different groups actually made it here. Those ancestors of ours were as smart as we are. And reaching North America is really no harder than reaching Australia.

And how much back-and-forth traffic was there between the old world in here before the glaciers melted. The Polynesians kept in touch and they had to cross entire oceans.

I love reading about this kind of stuff. Thanks for posting.

[turbinetree]

5. Your welcome..................