Inventions: Who Were First Americans?

Who Were the First Americans? It has long been the belief that the first Americans migrated from Asia some twelve thousand years ago by crossing the then frozen Bering Strait. In 1932, stone artifacts were found alongside mammoth bones in Clovis, New Mexico that supported this theory. In recent years, however, new evidence and discoveries challenge those beliefs. These new discoveries pre-date the Clovis artifacts and are located in different parts of North and South America. Along with those new discoveries, new theories have developed as to when, where, and how the first Americans arrived.
For example: In 1973 James Adovasio, a young archaeologist from the University of Pittsburgh began excavating a sight known as the Meadowcroft Rockshelter outside of Avella, Pennsylvania. Adovasio uncovered an ancient campsite under a protective rock overhang that dated back sixteen thousand years - approximately four thousand years before the crossing of the Bering land bridge. While fire pits have been the most commonly found artifacts, human modified objects made of stone, wood, and bone have
been found along with animal remains of 149 different species. At first, no one wanted to believe that this site dated backed sixteen thousand years. Adovasio’s critics claimed that his dating had to be wrong. And while there is still much debate over the carbon dating of the site, it has become widely accepted as pre-Clovis. Adovasio doesn’t claim to know the exact date of the Paleo-Indians arrival in the New World. But, he does estimate that it could have been earlier than twenty thousand years ago.
In 1975, a discovery in Monte Verde, Chile challenged all theories of Clovis supporters.
Along a small creek located 500 miles south of Santiago, the most well preserved site of a possible pre-Clovis civilization was found. The remnants of at least twelve wooden structures, hundreds of stone artifacts, medicinal plants, and mastodon bones were found preserved in the peat bog. Despite these findings, it took the archeological community over twenty years to validate the site. In 1997, a group of archeologists sponsored by The Dallas Museum of Natural History visited the site and confirmed its authenticity. Through their observations, all agreed that this site pre-dated the New Mexico discovery by over a thousand years. This confirmation by these archeologists had changed the near 70 year belief that the earliest record of human existence in the Americas was now in Monte Verde,
Chile.
And now, a more recent theory has the archeological world in an uproar. What if the very first Americans did not migrate from Asia? What if they came from Europe on boats across the Atlantic Ocean? Dennis Stanford, curator of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, is one of the leading archeologists pushing this theory. His theory compares the Clovis tools found in America to those of Solutrean artifacts found allover Spain and France. He argues that there are more similarities between European tools than with those found in Asia of the same time period. His theory states that Solutrean peoples could have crossed the Atlantic Ocean long before those crossed the Bering land bridge from Asia. One compelling piece of evidence found on Eppes Island, VA helps to support this theory. “In the 1970s, an archeological excavation of a seventeenth-century homestead on Eppes Island, Virginia, turned up an unusual biface. The investigators of the site recognized it as a Solutrean laurel leaf.” The term “biface” refers to a stone tool made by chipping or flaking of stone to make a sharp instrument used for hunting. Further scientific tests confirmed that the biface was actually French flint. Because this particular biface was found under a clay chimney base of the homestead, they believe it is unlikely to have been brought over by a seventeenth century colonist. They believe it was there long before his arrival. This is but one example of many artifacts found along the East coast of European origins. So the question is, how and when did these artifacts come to be in North America? Dr. Stanford believes that while this evidence is not the end-all be-all answer as to who the first Americans were, it is very compelling evidence that questions the currently accepted theories.
So, who were the first humans to come to the Americas and when did they get here? This has long been a debate and probably will be one for quite some time. New discoveries are constantly being made that either support or reject current theories of Paleo-Indian settlement of North and South America. Some believe that humans first arrived along the West coast from Asia, while others suggest the first to arrive were from Solutrean-Age Europe. While both theories have strong scientific evidence to support them, it seems that the challenging theory of European humans crossing the Atlantic might end up being the accepted theory. Strong arguments from Dennis Stanford, Bruce Bradley, and James Adovasio are leading the way to this new way of thinking.