
The coastal migration hypothesis is one of two leading hypotheses about the
settlement of the Americas
It is believed that the peopling of the Americas began when Paleolithic hunter-gatherers (Paleo-Indians) entered North America from the North Asian Mammoth steppe via the Beringia land bridge, which had formed between northeastern Siberia and w ...
at the time of the
Last Glacial Maximum
The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), also referred to as the Last Glacial Coldest Period, was the most recent time during the Last Glacial Period where ice sheets were at their greatest extent between 26,000 and 20,000 years ago.
Ice sheets covered m ...
. It proposes one or more migration routes involving watercraft, via the
Kurile island chain, along the coast of
Beringia
Beringia is defined today as the land and maritime area bounded on the west by the Lena River in Russia; on the east by the Mackenzie River in Canada; on the north by 70th parallel north, 72° north latitude in the Chukchi Sea; and on the south ...
and the
archipelagos off the Alaskan-British Columbian coast, continuing down the coast to
Central and
South America
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...
.
The alternative is the hypothesis solely by interior routes, which assumes migration along an ice-free corridor between the
Laurentide and
Cordilleran ice sheets during the Last Glacial Maximum.
The coastal migration hypothesis has been bolstered by findings such as the report that the sediments in the Port Eliza caves on
Vancouver Island
Vancouver Island is an island in the northeastern Pacific Ocean and part of the Canadian province of British Columbia. The island is in length, in width at its widest point, and in total area, while are of land. The island is the largest ...
indicate the possibility of a survivable climate as far back 16 ka (16,000 years) in the area, while the continental ice sheets were nearing their maximum extent.
Despite such research, the hypothesis is still subject to considerable debate.
Carlson, Erlandson, and others have argued for a coastal migration from Alaska to the Pacific Northwest pre-11ka (before ≈13,000 calendar years ago) that predates the hypothesized migration of
Clovis
Clovis may refer to:
People
* Clovis (given name), the early medieval (Frankish) form of the name Louis
** Clovis I (c. 466 – 511), the first king of the Franks to unite all the Frankish tribes under one ruler
** Clovis II (c. 634 – c. 657), ...
people moving south through an ice-free corridor located near the continental divide. The coastal migrants may have been followed by the
Clovis culture
The Clovis culture is an archaeological culture from the Paleoindian period of North America, spanning around 13,050 to 12,750 years Before Present (BP). The type site is Blackwater Draw locality No. 1 near Clovis, New Mexico, where stone too ...
when the final retreat of the
Cordilleran Ice Sheet opened migration routes between interior and coastal Alaska.
A 2017 discovery on
Triquet Island by an archaeological team from the
University of Victoria
The University of Victoria (UVic) is a public research university located in the municipalities of Oak Bay, British Columbia, Oak Bay and Saanich, British Columbia, Canada. Established in 1903 as Victoria College, British Columbia, Victoria Col ...
appears to verify local
First Nation oral history
traditions
A tradition is a system of beliefs or behaviors (folk custom) passed down within a group of people or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past. A component of cultural expressions and folklore, common exa ...
that the island was inhabited during the
ice age. A hearth excavated at the site was determined by
radiocarbon dating
Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method for Chronological dating, determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of carbon-14, radiocarbon, a radioactive Isotop ...
to be between 13,613 and 14,086 years old, making it one of the oldest settlements in North America.
While some archaeologists believe that the Clovis people moved south from
Alaska
Alaska ( ) is a non-contiguous U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. Part of the Western United States region, it is one of the two non-contiguous U.S. states, alongside Hawaii. Alaska is also considered to be the north ...
through an ice-free corridor located between modern
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...
and
Alberta
Alberta is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Canada. It is a part of Western Canada and is one of the three Canadian Prairies, prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to its west, Saskatchewan to its east, t ...
, recent dating of Clovis and similar Paleoindian sites in Alaska suggest that Clovis technology actually moved from the south into Alaska following the melting of the continental ice sheets at about 10.5 ka.
[Dixon 1999]
In North America, the earliest dog remains were found in Lawyer's Cave on the Alaskan mainland east of
Wrangell Island in the
Alexander Archipelago
The Alexander Archipelago () is a archipelago (group of islands) in North America lying off the southeastern coast of Alaska. It contains about 1,100 islands, the tops of submerged coastal mountains that rise steeply from the Pacific Ocean. Deep ...
of southeast Alaska;
radiocarbon dating
Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method for Chronological dating, determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of carbon-14, radiocarbon, a radioactive Isotop ...
indicates it is 10,150 years old. A genetic-based estimate indicates that this dog's lineage had split from the Siberian
Zhokhov Island
Zhokhov Island (; ) is an island in the East Siberian Sea, situated 128 km north east of Novaya Sibir Island, the easternmost of the New Siberian Islands. Administratively the island belongs to the Yakutia administrative division of Russia.< ...
dog lineage 16,700 years ago. This timing coincides with the suggested opening of the North Pacific coastal route into North America.
Sea levels
Dating the initial coastal migration is challenging because of the flooding of early settlement sites by the rise of the eustatic
sea level
Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an mean, average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal Body of water, bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical ...
accompanying deglaciation. Dates for sites such as ones at Ground Hog Bay in SE Alaska (10.2 ka) and Namu, about 800 km south of Ground Hog Bay near modern
Bella Coola (9.7 ka) thus represent early mainland settlement above the present-day sea level after earlier waterborne migration while the sea level was lower and the coastal mainland was still glaciated. Full understanding of the initial migration requires careful reconstruction of the land and ecological resources available to the migrants in their contemporary environment.
Evidence from Southeast
Alaska
Alaska ( ) is a non-contiguous U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. Part of the Western United States region, it is one of the two non-contiguous U.S. states, alongside Hawaii. Alaska is also considered to be the north ...
and
Haida Gwaii
Haida Gwaii (; / , literally "Islands of the Haida people"), previously known as the Queen Charlotte Islands, is an archipelago located between off the British Columbia Coast, northern Pacific coast in the Canadian province of British Columbia ...
(Queen Charlotte Islands) in
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...
, provides some data about food and land resources during early settlement. Fedje and Christensen (1999:642) have identified several sites on Haida Gwaii that date to post 9ka. The oldest human yet found on the west coast of North America are from
On Your Knees Cave, which is on
Prince of Wales Island in Southeast Alaska. The individual, a young man in his early twenties when he died, has been dated to ≈10,000 cal BP and isotopic analyses indicate he was raised on a diet primarily of marine foods.
These data suggest human occupation when the sea level was lower than present, and that submerged archaeological sites could occur along the paleocoastline beyond the current shorelines of Haida Gwaii (Fedje & Christensen, 1999) and Southeast Alaska.
Between 13 and 10.5 ka, Haida Gwaii had more than double its current land area (Fedje & Christensen, 1999:638). This area was flooded with a rapid rise in sea level between 11 and 9 ka. (Fedje & Christensen, 1999:638). Therefore, evidence of initial human occupation on the paleocoastline of Haida Gwaii would now be below sea level. Conversely, older sites that are located near modern shorelines would have been approximately from the coast (Fedje & Christensen, 1999:638).
The antiquity of the lithic scatters that Fedje and Christensen (1999) have found in intertidal zones along the Haida Gwaii coast suggests an early human occupation of the area.
Fedje and Christensen (1999) support Carlson (1990), and Fladmark's (1975, 1979 & 1989) initial coastal migration model rather than the ice-free corridor model through their investigations of intertidal zones on Haida Gwaii.
[In Fedje & Christensen, 1999:648]
The peopling of the Americas
The timing and route of human arrival to mid-latitude North America is highly contested and both the terrestrial and coastal routes suffer from a paucity of archaeological evidence.
Beringia
Beringia is defined today as the land and maritime area bounded on the west by the Lena River in Russia; on the east by the Mackenzie River in Canada; on the north by 70th parallel north, 72° north latitude in the Chukchi Sea; and on the south ...
is very difficult to access in modern-day because it is now below current sea level. However, hypotheses have been made based on mitochondrial DNA research to address the question of whether or not humans left Beringia and settled mid-latitude America during the LGM or stayed in Beringia throughout the LGM.
Three-wave model
The Three-wave model is an older model that attempts to explain the
peopling of the Americas
It is believed that the peopling of the Americas began when Paleolithic hunter-gatherers (Paleo-Indians) entered North America from the North Asian Mammoth steppe via the Beringia land bridge, which had formed between northeastern Siberia and we ...
suggested by Greenberg et al. (1986). Using linguistic and
genetic data as well as dental anthropology, Greenberg et al. subdivided Native Americans into three groups: Amarind,
Na-Dene
Na-Dene ( ; also Nadene, Na-Dené, Athabaskan–Eyak–Tlingit, Tlina–Dene) is a family of Native American languages that includes at least the Athabaskan languages, Eyak, and Tlingit languages. Haida was formerly included but is now general ...
, and Aleut-Inuit. They explained the linguistic, anatomical, and genetic differences they found in each group as a result of separate migrations or waves out of
Northeast Asia
Northeast Asia or Northeastern Asia is a geographical Subregion#Asia, subregion of Asia. Its northeastern landmass and islands are bounded by the Pacific Ocean, North Pacific Ocean.
The term Northeast Asia was popularized during the 1930s by Ame ...
to the Americas.
This model has been criticized by anthropologist
Emőke J.E. Szathmáry who thought that Greenberg's study overstated biological difference. Szathmáry argued that the differences between each group could be better explained by isolation rather than the three migrations. In 1977, Bonatto and Szathámry (1997) concluded that the presence of glaciers isolated the populations from one another, causing them to settle in Beringia rather than use it as a bridge or corridor for migration to mid-latitude America. Bonatto and Szathmáry suggest that after the LGM, humans actually migrated out of Beringia rather than out of Asia.
Beringian "Standstill" hypothesis
The Beringian "Standstill" Hypothesis proposed by Tamm et al. (2007) builds on Bonatto and Szathmáry's idea of migration out of Beringia after the LGM. Using
mitochondrial DNA
Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA and mDNA) is the DNA located in the mitochondrion, mitochondria organelles in a eukaryotic cell that converts chemical energy from food into adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Mitochondrial DNA is a small portion of the D ...
(mDNA) and computer modeling of ice sheets, Tamm et al. estimate an isolation period in Beringia of about ≈10,000 years, concluding that the isolated Beringian populations spread throughout mid-latitude and South America after the LGM due to blocked access to North America before 15,000 cal BP.
At the turn of the 21st century, more research began to favor the coastal migration theory over terrestrial theories for the peopling of the Americas.
[Erlandson, J. M., M.H. Graham, B.J. Bourque, D. Corbett, J.A. Estes, & R.S. Steneck. 2007. The Kelp Highway hypothesis: marine ecology, the coastal migration theory, and the peopling of the Americas. Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology 2:161-174.] Paleoecological evidence suggests that travel along the coast would have been possible between 13 and 11 ka as the ice sheets were retreating. The coastal region was quite hospitable by 13 ka to peoples with watercraft and a maritime adaptation.
Kelp highway hypothesis
This hypothesis addresses how humans could have settled the Americas before the ice sheets retreated, allowing for terrestrial migration. Erlandson et al. (2007) suggest that coastal migrations and settlements happened in higher latitudes, such as 35-70°N, where coastal ecosystems would be more productive because of geography and
upwelling
Upwelling is an physical oceanography, oceanographic phenomenon that involves wind-driven motion of dense, cooler, and usually nutrient-rich water from deep water towards the ocean surface. It replaces the warmer and usually nutrient-depleted sur ...
in the Northern
Pacific Rim
The Pacific Rim comprises the lands around the rim of the Pacific Ocean. The '' Pacific Basin'' includes the Pacific Rim and the islands in the Pacific Ocean. The Pacific Rim roughly overlaps with the geological Pacific Ring of Fire.
List ...
. The different kelps of the Pacific Rim are major contributors to the areas of productivity and biodiversity and support a wide variety of life such as
marine mammal
Marine mammals are mammals that rely on marine ecosystems for their existence. They include animals such as cetaceans, pinnipeds, sirenians, sea otters and polar bears. They are an informal group, unified only by their reliance on marine enviro ...
s,
shellfish
Shellfish, in colloquial and fisheries usage, are exoskeleton-bearing Aquatic animal, aquatic invertebrates used as Human food, food, including various species of Mollusca, molluscs, crustaceans, and echinoderms. Although most kinds of shellfish ...
,
fish
A fish (: fish or fishes) is an aquatic animal, aquatic, Anamniotes, anamniotic, gill-bearing vertebrate animal with swimming fish fin, fins and craniate, a hard skull, but lacking limb (anatomy), limbs with digit (anatomy), digits. Fish can ...
,
seabird
Seabirds (also known as marine birds) are birds that are adaptation, adapted to life within the marine ecosystem, marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behaviour and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent ...
s, and edible
seaweed
Seaweed, or macroalgae, refers to thousands of species of macroscopic, multicellular, marine algae. The term includes some types of ''Rhodophyta'' (red), '' Phaeophyta'' (brown) and ''Chlorophyta'' (green) macroalgae. Seaweed species such as ...
s that would also support a coastal community of
hunter-gatherer
A hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living in a community, or according to an ancestrally derived Lifestyle, lifestyle, in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local naturally occurring sources, esp ...
s.
While the benefits of kelp forests are very clear in the present day Pacific Rim, Erlandson et al. address the difficulties of understanding the ancient kelp forests as they would have existed at the end of the LGM. But, they were able to estimate where the kelp forests might have been distributed.
Archeological and geological evidence
Archaeological sites from the Pacific Northwest to Baja California have offered more evidence to suggest the coastal migration theory. Sites in the North Pacific have been discovered and researched to help develop a baseline of early coastal colonization data. In California, archeological sites with dates that support human settlement in the migration period 12,000 -7,000 ybp are:
Borax Lake, the Cross Creek Site,
[Jones, T.L., R.T. Fitzgerald, D.J. Kennett, C. Micsicek, J. Fagan, J. Sharp, & J.M. Erlandson *2002 The Cross Creek Site (CA-SLO-1797) and its Implications for New World Colonization. American Antiquity 67:213–230.] Santa Barbara Channel Islands, Santa Barbara Coast's Sudden Flats, and
the Scotts Valley site, CA-SCR-177. The
Arlington Springs Man is an excavation of 10,000-year-old human remains in the Channel Islands.
Marine shellfish remains associated with Kelp Forests were recovered in the Channel Island sites and at other sites such as Daisy Cave and Cardwell Bluffs dated between 12,000 and 9000 cal BP.
In South America, evidence of human presence as early as 12,500 cal BP was discovered at the
Monte Verde
Monte Verde is a Paleolithic archaeological site in the Llanquihue Province in southern Chile, located near Puerto Montt, Los Lagos Region. The site is primarily known for Monte Verde II, dating to approximately 14,550–14,500 calibrated years ...
site pointing to coastal migration south over inland migration as the ice sheet would not yet be retreated.
Further evidence to support the coastal migration hypothesis has been found in the biological viability of regions after deglaciation. Lesnek et al. 2018 found that the deglaciation of the Pacific coastal corridor allowed for biological productivity, availability of food resources, and an accessible migration route for early colonization.
Zoo-archaeological evidence
Further evidence of a coastal ecology sufficient to support early coastal migrants comes from zoo-archaeological finds along the Northwest coast. Goat remains as old as 12 ka have been found on
Vancouver Island
Vancouver Island is an island in the northeastern Pacific Ocean and part of the Canadian province of British Columbia. The island is in length, in width at its widest point, and in total area, while are of land. The island is the largest ...
, British Columbia, as well as bear remains dating to 12.5 ka in the
Prince of Wales Archipelago, British Columbia.
Even older remains of black and
brown bear
The brown bear (''Ursus arctos'') is a large bear native to Eurasia and North America. Of the land carnivorans, it is rivaled in size only by its closest relative, the polar bear, which is much less variable in size and slightly bigger on av ...
,
caribou
The reindeer or caribou (''Rangifer tarandus'') is a species of deer with circumpolar distribution, native to Arctic, subarctic, tundra, boreal, and mountainous regions of Northern Europe, Siberia, and North America. It is the only represe ...
,
sea birds,
fish
A fish (: fish or fishes) is an aquatic animal, aquatic, Anamniotes, anamniotic, gill-bearing vertebrate animal with swimming fish fin, fins and craniate, a hard skull, but lacking limb (anatomy), limbs with digit (anatomy), digits. Fish can ...
, and
ringed seal have been dated from a number of caves in Southeast Alaska by paleontologist Timothy Heaton. This means that there were enough land and floral resources to support large land mammals and, theoretically, humans.
Watercraft
Fedje and Christensen (1999:648) also argue that the coast was likely colonized before 13 ka, largely based on watercraft evidence from Japan before 13 ka.
[Erlandson 2001, 2002; Fedje & Christensen, 1999:648] Dietary evidence from middens in Indonesia indicates the development of offshore fishing, requiring watercraft, between 35 and 40 ka. Sea-going cultures were mobile in the island-rich environment off the late Pleistocene coast of east Asia, facilitating the spread of marine technology and skills through the Philippines, up the Ryukyu chain, to Japan. Warming of the climate after about 16 ka (although glaciation would remain) could have provided an impetus for seaborne migration up the Kurile island chain towards North America, through some combination of a more hospitable climate and increased ocean productivity. Although no boats have been recovered from early Pacific Coast archaeological sites, this may be due to poor preservation of organic materials and the inundation of coastal areas mentioned above. We can still infer water travel based on the presence of artifacts made by humans found at island sites.
Anecdotal evidence comes from the surviving
Bella Bella oral tradition, as recorded by
Franz Boas
Franz Uri Boas (July 9, 1858 – December 21, 1942) was a German-American anthropologist and ethnomusicologist. He was a pioneer of modern anthropology who has been called the "Father of American Anthropology". His work is associated with the mov ...
in 1898. "In the beginning there was nothing but
water
Water is an inorganic compound with the chemical formula . It is a transparent, tasteless, odorless, and Color of water, nearly colorless chemical substance. It is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known liv ...
and
ice
Ice is water that is frozen into a solid state, typically forming at or below temperatures of 0 ° C, 32 ° F, or 273.15 K. It occurs naturally on Earth, on other planets, in Oort cloud objects, and as interstellar ice. As a naturally oc ...
and a narrow strip of shoreline." Some believe this story describes the environment of the Northwest Coast during the last deglaciation.
Migration south
Further south, California's
Channel Islands
The Channel Islands are an archipelago in the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. They are divided into two Crown Dependencies: the Jersey, Bailiwick of Jersey, which is the largest of the islands; and the Bailiwick of Guernsey, ...
have also produced evidence for early seafaring by Paleoindian (or Paleocoastal) peoples.
Santa Rosa and
San Miguel islands, for instance, have produced 11 sites dating to the Terminal Pleistocene, including the
Arlington Man site dated to ≈11 ka and Daisy Cave occupied about 10.7 ka.
Significantly, the Channel Islands were not connected to the mainland coast during the Quaternary, so maritime peoples contemporary with the Clovis and Folsom complexes in the interior had to have seaworthy boats to colonize them. The Channel Islands have also produced the earliest fishhooks yet found in the Americas, bone bipoints (gorges) that date between about 8.5 and 9 ka (10,000 and 9500 calendar years).
Even further south, the
Monte Verde
Monte Verde is a Paleolithic archaeological site in the Llanquihue Province in southern Chile, located near Puerto Montt, Los Lagos Region. The site is primarily known for Monte Verde II, dating to approximately 14,550–14,500 calibrated years ...
site in Chile has become accepted as the earliest settlement in South America, dating to at least 14,500 years ago. This is believed to indicate migration through northern coastal regions before that date. The Monte Verde site produced the remains of nine types of seaweeds, including kelp.
Western Stemmed Tradition
Paleocoastal Channel Islands settlers were equipped with finely made stemmed points, as well as
chipped stone crescents generally similar to those found in Western Stemmed Tradition (WST) sites of western North America.
Such ancient stemmed point lithic technology is widely attested at many sites in North America. For example, at
Buttermilk Creek, Texas (Debra L. Friedkin site) these artifacts are dated to ≈13.5 to ≈15.5 ka ago. At the nearby
Gault site, stemmed projectile points dated to ≈16 ka ago are also found; they are located below a Clovis stratigraphic horizon at this site.
At
Paisley Caves
The Paisley Caves or the Paisley Five Mile Point Caves complex is a system of eight caves in an arid, desolate region of south-central Oregon, United States north of the present-day city of Paisley, Oregon. The caves are located in the Summer L ...
, Oregon, these WST projectile points are dated to ≈12.7 to ≈13 ka ago—soon after the earliest occupation level here. At Cooper's Ferry, Idaho, similar WST dates are reported.
At
Meadowcroft Rockshelter
The Meadowcroft Rockshelter is an archaeological site which is located near Avella in Jefferson Township, Pennsylvania. The site is a rock shelter in a bluff overlooking Cross Creek (a tributary of the Ohio River), and contains evidence that the ...
, Pennsylvania, the Miller point (similar to WST) can be dated to ≈14 ka ago.
In Mexico, a stemmed projectile point is associated with the bones of a mammoth buried at
Santa Isabel Iztapan (Ixtapan). Four hundred meters away, two other stemmed points were associated with butchered mammoth bones. The dates are similar to the above.
In South America, there is also a long history of the use of stemmed points. Here they are known as 'El Jobo points', from which later developed 'Stemmed Fishtail points'. In particular, El Jobo points are found at
Monte Verde
Monte Verde is a Paleolithic archaeological site in the Llanquihue Province in southern Chile, located near Puerto Montt, Los Lagos Region. The site is primarily known for Monte Verde II, dating to approximately 14,550–14,500 calibrated years ...
, Chile in use as early as ≈14.2 ka ago. El Jobo and Fishtail points became widespread across South America ≈13 ka ago.
On the
Channel Islands
The Channel Islands are an archipelago in the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. They are divided into two Crown Dependencies: the Jersey, Bailiwick of Jersey, which is the largest of the islands; and the Bailiwick of Guernsey, ...
,
Jon Erlandson Jon M. Erlandson is an archaeologist, professor emeritus in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Oregon, and the former director of the University of Oregon Museum of Natural and Cultural History. Erlandson’s research interests inc ...
and his colleagues have identified several early shell middens located near sources of
chert
Chert () is a hard, fine-grained sedimentary rock composed of microcrystalline or cryptocrystalline quartz, the mineral form of silicon dioxide (SiO2). Chert is characteristically of biological origin, but may also occur inorganically as a prec ...
, which was used to make stone tools.
[Erlandson, J.M., T.C. Rick, T.J. Braje, M. Casperson, B. Culleton, B. Fulfrost, T. Garcia, D. Guthrie, N. Jew, D. Kennett, M.L. Moss, L.. Reeder, C. Skinner, J. Watts, & L. Willis. 2011. Paleoindian seafaring, maritime technologies, and coastal foraging on California’s Channel Islands. Science 441:1181-1185.] These quarry/workshop sites have been dated between about 10 and 10.5 ka and contain crescents and finely made stemmed projectile points probably used to hunt birds and sea mammals, respectively.
See also
*
*
Huaca Prieta
Huaca Prieta is the site of a prehistoric settlement beside the Pacific Ocean in the Chicama Valley, just north of Trujillo, La Libertad Province, Peru. It is a part of the El Brujo Archaeological Complex, which also includes Moche (culture) s ...
*
Solutrean hypothesis
The Solutrean hypothesis on the peopling of the Americas is the claim that the earliest human migration to the Americas began from Europe during the Solutrean Period, with Europeans traveling along pack ice in the Atlantic Ocean. This hypothesi ...
References
Literature
*
*
*
*
{{Early human migrations
Paleo-Indian period
Western Stemmed Tradition
Hypotheses
Human migration
Peopling of the Americas