Scientists have long theorized that the first people native to the Americas moved onto the western landmass via a land bridge which adjoined Siberian and Alaskan coastlines. The theory popularly known as “Bering Land Bridge” faces the challenge of being debunked after recent finds. The discovery of human artifacts in Oregon and other regions predating those found in Clovis, New Mexico (“The Clovis Theory” namesake) cause the theories for historical inhabitation of the Americas to be carefully reconsidered. This process must be mindful in at least three areas of inquiry to support new theorization: are said discoveries made by credible individuals, does the premise for new theorization include logical and factual evidence and how does the new theorization hold up against other long standing theories?
When confronted with the question of how the peopling of the Americas happened, it is important to acknowledge whom these first people were. This information provides a “go-to” point for deciding where they came from in order to consider plausible situations for how and from where they migrated. In 1929, James Ridgley Whiteman discovered remnants of man in the Burnet Cave of the Clovis site, it was the site’s first professional excavation and the oldest known example of human remains in America. Whiteman, led by Edgar Billings Howard, and his team from the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences at University of Pennsylvania proceeded via the academic forum granting them credible expert testimony to evidence of the Clovis people.
Again, the players in these new archeological discoveries, namely those made in Paisley, Oregon since the turn of the century, involve academic and research driven individuals. Senior research associate Dennis Jenkins from the University of Oregon teamed up with other academic professionals from around the world to begin using modern technology to extract DNA information from coprolites (i.e. petrified fecal matter) found at the excavation site, known as the Paisley caves. (Barnard) Jenkins’s research was published in the Science journal as “News of the Week” in April of this year claiming that his is “what some experts consider the strongest evidence yet for an earlier peopling of the Americas.” (Balter) With both professional credibility and an acclaimed publication making Jenkins’s findings newsworthy, it can be assumed that it will not take long for his discovery to spawn further transformations of universal concepts in archeological theory, including how people first migrated to the Americas.
The information concluded from Jenkins’s method includes archeological dating, the peoples’ race and diet. One of the most important conclusions from testing the coprolites is that they predate the Clovis findings by 1,000 years, which make the human remains of Jenkins’s discovery now the oldest known in North America. (Barnard) However, perhaps the most intriguing conclusion involves the race and diet of these people, which indicates where these early people migrated from and the agricultural products and animal proteins provided by their present-day environment. Jenkins gave Eske Willerslev, professor at Center for Ancient Genetics at the University of Copenhagen, some coprolites, which he handed off to a grad student to use in a project for extracting DNA. The grad student, whose name was not provided by the source “found DNA from two of the five Native American genetic groups, both have links to Asia.”(Barnard) In other studies tasking the genetic conundrum, they have similarly linked the possibility that they are related to haplogroups of DNA found in present day Mongolians and Siberians, but studies are on going. (www.pbs.org)
As mentioned, not only do we now have a more precise indication of where these people came from, but we also know what they ate. Given that the radiocarbon evidence from the coprolites suggests that these remains are 14,000 years old, a date that is just 500 years after the presumed end of the last ice-age, it is remarkable that Jenkins found “The coprolites contain pollen, seeds, chipmunk bones, sage grouse feathers, trout scales, things that ancient people would have been eating.”(Barnard) Accordingly, all of this information provides theorists’ new perspectives and new factors to consider when reconstructing the history of the Americas ancient culture.
Not only has the academic community shed new light on the earliest people of the Americas, they have also begun to shed new light on how they migrated. The “Bering Land Bridge” has long been accepted as the most convincing theory for migration to the Americas, but with more recent evidence concerning the geological environment of its time, the concept that people traveled by sea is being examined closely as a real possibility. Ted Goebel, anthropologist and anthropology team leader of Texas A&M, suggests that:
“If this is the time of colonization [13,000 BC or earlier], geological data from Western Canada suggests that humans dispersed along the recently de-glaciated Pacific coastline. The first Americans used boats, and the coastal corridor would have been the likely route of passage, since the interior corridor appears to have remained closed for at least another 1,000 years. Once humans reached the Pacific Northwest, they could have continued their spread southward along the coast to Chile, as well as eastward along the southern margin of the continental ice sheets, possibly following traces of mammoth and mastodon to Wisconsin.” (Boswell)
Goebel says this theory is consistent with the existence of humans in the Americas predating the originally assumed 12,000 to 10,000 BC year bracket. (Boswell) Goebel is not alone in considering this theory, as many publications have surfaced alluding to the possibility of boat migration. Including, a book published in 2000 called The Settlement of the Americas: A New Prehistory by Tom Dillehay, which also mentions the theory of the first migrants coming from Asia to Tierra de Fuego by skin covered boats. Dillehay also explains in his book that the corridor in northwest Canada would have been covered by ice, making this alternative theory conceivable. (Dillehay p.282-283) Although people like Goebel and Dillehay are reputable in their area of expertise and endorse the boat crossing theory, the theory lacks serious evidential support.
While the boat crossing theory seems like the only other logical explanation for how people migrated from Asia to the Americas, the theory has one flaw. Presently, there are no archeological finds suggesting the construction of boats or floating vessels indicating that they sailed across the Bering Strait or any other coastal region or that their boats were skin covered. Canadian scientists have been mindful of the British Columbia coastline to find evidence to support the boat crossing theory. In fact, according to The Vancouver Sun scientists have been watching and waiting for an opportunity to explore exposed sea caves on Vancouver Island and elsewhere in hopes of discovering evidence to substantiate this migration theory. (Boswell) So far, there is nothing to report. So why then argue that the earliest people of the Americas came by boat? Researchers know two things: the earliest people have DNA resembling Asian genetic haplogroups, and they migrated around the time of a warming climate indicating the probability of elevated sea levels. With these two elements considered in this new migration theory, how feasible would it be to have traveled by boat approximately 14,000 years ago?
The Bering Land Bridge theory suggests that either a glacier conjoined the space between the Siberian and Alaskan landmasses between the spaces of the Bering Strait or that the warming trend caused the sea floor to be exposed between the two landmasses after drying up. All things considered, it seems less likely that the sea floor would become exposed with a 98 to 160 foot depth, especially after the melting of an Ice Age that would cause sea levels to rise. The Bering Strait is 53 miles wide from the Siberian to Alaskan coastline, which in the last 100 years has been kayaked, canoed and even skied across. So it should seem at least possible that an ancient people would be able to make the same journey, if they had boats. In fact, Jeff Barnard of the Associated Press made this suggestion in his article “When Did the First People Come to America?”
“The Paisley coprolites indicate people had found another way, perhaps crossing the land bridge but then walking down the coast, or even crossing the ocean by boat, the way people went from New Guinea to Australia thousands of years earlier.”
If an earlier culture from the east is known to have traveled by boat, then it seems likely that another could employ the same method for travel. Theorists acknowledge “strength in numbers.” New Guinea is comprised of 600 islands that are situated 100 miles north of Australia making it 47 miles farther than the journey across the Bering Strait. Additionally, the movement of ocean water would permit a migration from Asia to the Americas. The ocean current moves upward away from the Equator along the Asia coastline and then turns downward along the North American coastline. Therefore, people could have launched their boats from the northeastern part of Asia or Siberia and been guided by the North Pacific current to North America.
The academic and research fields are proving to be persistent, breaking new ground in archeology, anthropology and genetics. With so much information available and becoming available, the boat migration theory could become the next theory to be adopted by primary schools, signifying continual progress in science history. One intricate find could corroborate a new history, but for now, not all of the academic community views these new discoveries with eternal optimism. Barnard wrote this about Vance Haynes, professor emeritus of geoarchaeology at the University of Arizona:
“He would like to see dates further confirmed by another radiocarbon dating because if it is accurate, the find offers important evidence that early people traveled down the coast as they spread through the continent, and then moved east, and did not need the ice-free corridor.”
Only as time and technology move forward will the accuracy of the boat migration theory be revealed.
Works Cited
Alda, Alan, comp. "Coming Into America: Tracing the Genes." Alan Alda: Scientific American Frontiers. Public Broadcast Systems. 28 Sept. 2008
Balter, Michael. "DNA From Fossil Feces Breaks Clovis Barrier." 4 Apr. 2008. Science AAAS. 28 Sept. 2008
Barnard, Jeff. "When Did People First Come to America." Technology &
Science/Science. 22 Sept. 2008. MSNBC. 23 Sept. 2008
Boswell, Randy. "First people came here by boat, researchers say." The
Vancouver Sun. 15 Mar. 2008. Canada.com. 24 Mar. 2008
Dillehay, Thomas D. Settlement of the Americas : A New Prehistory. New York: Basic Books, 2001.
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