From 1932 to the 1990s, it was thought the first human migration to the Americas actually took place around 13,500 years ago, based on spear points discovered near Clovis, New Mexico. You may have heard of this referred to as the "Clovis-First Model." Over the last 20 years however, the discourse surrounding the story of the first Americans has come into a new light -- one that challenges the previously accepted theories and replaces them with even more shocking and exciting ones.
With these new ideas, the question regarding the story of the first Americans needed to be asked again: if those proverbial first Americans didn't populate the continent over the Bering Land Bridge, who were they, where did they come from and when, and how did they get here? It began in 1997 with the discovery of an archaeological site in Monte Verde, Chile, dating back to 14,500 years ago - a full millennium older than what was previously thought to be the first people in the new world, and indicating they settled much further south than expected.
Although there was strong debate regarding the dating of the Monte Verde findings, it brought up an interesting question: if humans settled in the Americas so much earlier than previously thought and traveled as far as South America, is it possible that these humans journeyed to the new world through a different route?
One radical theory claims it is possible that the first Americans didn't cross the Bering Land Bridge at all and didn't travel by foot, but rather by boat across the Atlantic Ocean. Though the evidence for this theory is minimal, proponents argue that the artifacts were developed by an earlier and still more ancient European group, known as the Solutrean culture. This style bears an uncanny resemblance to that of the Clovis tools found in the United States, which could suggest that humans may have entered America from the east over a route that has been dubbed the Atlantic Maritime route.
A somewhat more widely accepted maritime theory looks to modern cultural anthropology and linguistics, claiming a striking resemblance between the cultures of Australia, Southeast Asia, and South America. Support for this idea is found partially in the discovery of a 9,500 year old skeleton in Washington State. Dubbed the "Kennewick Man," the skeleton bears a strong physical resemblance to the Japanese Ainu people, suggesting that a pan-Pacific journey via boat might have brought the first Americans to our shores.
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