I am not surprised that the date for arrival of people in the Americas  
is being pushed back. The techniques used by archaeologists and just  
the sheer number of archaeologists will result in more sites being  
found. When Providing it was possible to reach the Americas, there is  
no reason that as time goes by the date for the arrival of people will  
get earlier and earlier. Finding the earliest is going to be difficult  
as there was only one of her or him, or at most a band. They would not  
have left much behind for archaeologists to find. It is also probable  
that they followed the coast and with the glaciers, sea level was  
2-300 feet below what it is now. Meaning that the sites are under a  
lot of water. Archaeology at those depths is practically impossible  
today. But technology will improve.



The same is true of the first family of Virginia. There was at most a  
band of them. And finding where 20-100 people camped is difficult.



Estimates for peopling of Americas getting earlier

March 13, 2008
Courtesy Science
and World Science staff

Archeologists are presenting what they call the latest evidence that a  
traditional account of the peopling of the Americas is wrong.

The mainstream view pre vail ing in the past sev er al dec ades holds  
that hu mans en tered the con ti nent about 12,000 years ago us ing a  
tem po rary land bridge from north east ern Asia to Alas ka. These mi  
grants would have giv en rise to a cul ture of mam moth hunters known  
for their un ique stone pro ject ile-points and dubbed Clo vis, af ter  
re mains found near Clo vis, N.M., in the 1930s.


Excavation of the Schaefer mammoth in Wisconsin, thought by  
archaeologists to date to about 14,500 years ago. (Image courtesy D.  
Joyce and available on request)

But in re cent years ev i dence has turned up that the first Amer i  
cans might have been con sid erably old er, some ar chae o lo gists ar  
gue.

A new re view pub lished in the re search jour nal Sci ence con tends  
that that the first Amer i cans had their roots in south ern Si be  
ria, ven tured across the Ber ing land bridge probably around 22,000  
years ago, and mi grat ed down in to the Amer i cas as early as 16,000  
years ago.

In the pa per, Ted Goebel of Tex as A&M Uni ver s ity and col leagues  
ar gue that the lat ter date is when an ice-free cor ri dor in Can a  
da opened and en abled the migra t ion.

The new ac count is bol stered by ge net ic ev i dence and the dis cov  
ery of new ar chae o log i cal sites and more ac cu rate dates for old  
sites, ac cord ing to the re search ers.

Ge net ic ev i dence, they wrote, points to a found ing popula t ion  
of less than 5,000 peo ple at the be gin ning of the sec ond migra t  
ion in Can a da.

Moreover, they added, ar chae o log i cal ev i dence sug gests the Clo  
vis cul ture may have been rel a tive late com ers to the Amer i cas  
or de scen dants of ear li er Paleo-Indian popula t ions rep re sented  
at ar chae o log i cal sites such as Mon te Verde in Chil e. That site  
is thought to have been oc cu pied 14,600 years ago.

The re search by Goebel and col leagues ap pears in the jour nal’s  
March 14 is sue.
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