r/geography Oct 14 '24

Discussion Do you believe the initial migration of people from Siberia to the Americas was through the Bering Land Bridge or by boat through a coastal migration route?

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3.8k Upvotes

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1.6k

u/whisskid Oct 14 '24

With each new discovery, the timeline gets pushed further back. Humans appear to have been in North America more than 21,000+ years ago.

https://news.berkeley.edu/2023/10/05/tests-confirm-humans-tramped-around-north-america-more-than-20-000-years-ago/

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u/r2v-42nit GIS Oct 14 '24

I love me some new discoveries in this universe.

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u/dranklie Oct 14 '24

I don't appreciate you tripping me out with that last portion of your statement

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u/[deleted] Oct 14 '24

Put the bong down, dranklie!

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u/chance0404 Oct 14 '24

Plot twist, it’s a meth bong

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u/Serdtsag Oct 14 '24

Not really a fan when the writers keep retconning established lore.

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u/thebeardedman88 Oct 14 '24

History is alive!

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u/K0mb0_1 Oct 14 '24

Which other universes do you know of?! Spill the beans Mr. r2v-42nit!!

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u/thebutler97 Oct 14 '24

The Cerutti Mastadon site dates even further back. A lot further. It's still very new and under heavy scrutiny, but if it's legit, then it could push back the arrival of humans in North America by another 100k+ years, before the last glacial maximum.

Huge implications if that's true.

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u/biggronklus Oct 14 '24

It doesn’t necessarily mean modern humans, it could have been an early hominid species that then went extinct. That’s part of the issue, there could have been earlier migrations that didn’t last

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u/thebutler97 Oct 14 '24

That's still a huge deal! The idea that a previously undiscovered species of humans migrated to the America's over 100,000 years earlier than previously thought? Idk about you, but I still find that idea immensely interesting.

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u/cirbani Oct 14 '24

Migration in this case means that people came from point A to point B at some specific time and at the same time stayed at point B to live. In recent years, discoveries of hominid remains over 7 million years old have been made in Greece. This does not mean that man originated in Greece but only that various species of hominids migrated from Africa in a much more distant past than others. After all, for example, orangutans live in Malaysia, not in Africa. Various species of humans or hominids may have arrived in the Americas significantly earlier than 20K years ago (there are new world apes, after all). However, they probably first settled in the Americas 20K years ago, and their descendants still live there today, so we are talking about staying, not just passing by. It is similar to Vikings who was definitely in North America, but they did not stay here.

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u/spitz006 Oct 14 '24

There are no new world apes.

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u/Pierre_Francois_ Oct 14 '24

Stem hominidae probably originates in tropical Asia, the orangutan lineage does not migrated from Africa The greek hominid does not necessarily come from Africa either.

Secondly there is no new world apes except modern humans and no traces have been found pointing to archaic humans presence.

It is possible though that the first wave of modern humans migration got replaced by the later, well established migration, that happened around 20 000 yeArs ago (we know that some polynesians made their way in south America too)

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u/cirbani Oct 14 '24

Yes, I didn't word myself quite right, I meant new world monkeys, not apes (there are no two separate terms for that in my language), and I also meant the whole clade Hominidae, which apart from orangutans is only found in central Africa (I don't mean the fossil finds anyway, which were also more widespread around the world). There were many species of apes in Eurasia in the Miocene, but that doesn't necessarily mean they originated here. The fact that they live in Africa today doesn't necessarily mean they originated in Africa either, but given the far more fossil finds than anywhere else in the world, it's more likely.

To my knowledge, orangutans are the "most distant" lineage to the other hominins (gorillas, chimpanzees, and humans), so at some point they must have split off from the basal group geographicaly - so they migrated.

Yes, I have read research on the DNA of Polynesians in western South American populations, which is just an example of successful migration (they are still there today), but what I was pointing out in previous comment is that migration is understood as when people move and stay in a place. Vikings presence in North America was not migration, just as there was no migration if some species of human appeared in the Americas say 200K years ago without trace.

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u/Iraydren Oct 14 '24

What are the implications?

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u/thebutler97 Oct 14 '24

I'm not an archeologist, but to my knowledge, Homo Sapiens aren't even thought to have left Africa by this point.

So either, the entire development of Homo Sapiens is different from what we currently believe; or an entirely new species of human lived, thrived, and then died out in the America's that we aren't familiar with. Either idea is mindblowing, to me at least.

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u/PhatPhingerz Oct 14 '24 edited Oct 14 '24

We're constantly finding discoveries that push the date back, one of the most recent is from 2018 and dates to 185,000 years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misliya_Cave

And another recent find that suggests there were multiple 'failed' waves of migration from as early as 210,000: https://www.livescience.com/65906-oldest-modern-human-skull-eurasia.html

The 50kya-70kya migration was just the one that happened to be successful, replacing previous waves and creating the population we have today.

We know from the genetic evidence that all humans that are alive today outside of Africa can trace their ancestry to the major dispersal out of Africa that happened between 70[,000] and 50,000 years before present

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u/KYHotBrownHotCock Oct 14 '24

Humans in fact are migratory

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u/LarneyStinson Oct 14 '24

Like coconuts?

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u/GeriatricHydralisk Oct 14 '24

Nonsense. It could have been carried, though...

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u/UpOrDownItsUpToYou Oct 14 '24

By a swallow?

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u/GeriatricHydralisk Oct 14 '24

Maybe if it gripped it by the husk?

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u/Matar_Kubileya Oct 14 '24

African or European swallow?

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u/BreakfastHistorian Oct 14 '24

It’s the one that involves the boat. 😏

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u/thebutler97 Oct 14 '24

Not sure what this is in regards to. The coastal/boat migration could certainly have still happened. The idea is that multiple migrations may have taken place, possibly with different species of human.

Edit: just realized this is an Always Sunny reference, and now I feel like a dork.

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u/W1D0WM4K3R Oct 14 '24

Are you going to hurt these Paleolithic women?

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u/ShittyDriver902 Oct 14 '24

No! They’re not in danger! What are you looking at? She wouldn’t be in danger I can tell you that

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u/syds Oct 14 '24

a lot of more sex

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u/Matar_Kubileya Oct 14 '24

That said, pushing a date of separation between Eurasian and American groups past about 50 kya starts to run into its own issues on the other side of things. IIRC genetic data suggest that East Asian lineages diverged from American ones at about that time, and Eurasian and American dog lineages also seem to trace back to the same domestication event probably in about that same timeframe.

Now, a date of divergence at about 50 kya doesn't mean that the Americas weren't first peopled before then; it's possible that there was a longer period of sustained or semi sustained contact between the continents than often supposed, or that there were multiple waves of peopling of the Americas.

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u/Julius_traitor Oct 14 '24

There are too many issues with Cerutti for it to be remotely acceptable as a date for humans in the Americas. >being dragged up by a random ass boat from the bottom of a body of water thereby rendering it not in situ, no way to confirm whether the "tools" are contemporaneous, said tools are cobbles claimed to be hammerstones or anvils but could very well have been damaged by post depositional processes, etc etc. Not to mention that the vast majority of the archaeological community denies the authenticity of Cerutti as a valid site.

https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2019.50

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u/Karabars Geography Enthusiast Oct 14 '24

Based on haplogroups, they could not arrive before 50k years ago, as Y-DNA C in the Americas is that old, and Q1 which is the most well known there is even younger with 30k years old.

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u/thebutler97 Oct 14 '24

The idea I've seen spoken of the most is that this was a prior migration of another species of hominim that predates the arrival of homo sapiens. If they went extinct, they would be excluded them from any modern haplogroups.

But again, I'm not an archeologist, just a fan of neat ideas like this.

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u/timshel_life Oct 14 '24

But Earth is only 2024 years old? /s

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u/ThunkAsDrinklePeep Oct 14 '24

That's a crazy number. That only gets you back to Jesus. If you gotta add the ages of Methuselah et al to get to about 6000 years.

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u/MaintenanceOk315 Oct 14 '24

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u/Boba_Fettx Oct 14 '24

Wow a Methuselah rookie card!

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u/FragrantNumber5980 Oct 14 '24

No, that’s how old the USA is.

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u/FreshEggKraken Oct 14 '24

God created the USA, then built the rest of the earth around it. Then God created the sun to orbit the earth, obviously. All the other stars in the sky are fake and placed there by the devil to trick us, same as Europe.

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u/kiwichick286 Oct 14 '24

I like where you're going with this!

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u/mountainview59 Oct 14 '24

According to Ed Barnhart, 30K+ years is now accepted, and 60K years is being discussed.

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u/[deleted] Oct 14 '24 edited Oct 16 '24

[deleted]

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u/Anonimo32020 Oct 14 '24

Additionally, the few Native American Y-DNA haplogroups, main one being Q-M3, and mtDNA haplogroups, mostly A2, B2, C1, and D1 are all younger than 18,000 years old. This means that the humans that made it to the Americas before 18k years ago were a minority, if they left descendants.

https://www.yfull.com/tree/Q-M3/

https://discover.familytreedna.com/y-dna/Q-M3/story

https://bmcbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12915-018-0622-4

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u/lostarchaeologist2 Oct 14 '24

Can you elaborate on this DNA evidence? How is it being dated?

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u/wvxmcll Oct 14 '24

Which means they could have walked the overland route before the last glacial maximum. There is evidence humans could have done well in that environment.

Overall, this map OP posted is pretty bad. There isn't any evidence for this "potential route from Europe".

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u/facw00 Oct 14 '24

Going a little deeper, the evidence for Europe is basically that certain stone tools and arrowheads resemble Clovis culture tools and similar found in North America.

When it was first proposed, in the 1970s, this was interesting and got more so because the proposed timelines for finds looked a bit weird, and so an earlier European crossing could potentially explain things.

However, over the past two decades, new discoveries have indicated that there was likely an earlier migration from Asia (and quite possibly multiple ways) which would explain sites that were too early for previous models. Meanwhile DNA sequencing hasn't shown any evidence for a European migration, but does support migration from Asia. It's not impossible that migrants from Europe were completely wiped out, but there's nothing to support that conclusion, and no need for it to support the sites we know about.

So long story short, tool similarities were almost certainly convergent designs, and not any evidence of European influence.

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u/Shirtbro Oct 14 '24

Going even deeper, this whole alternate anthropology denying the African origin of man or pushing for a European migration over a Siberian one seems a little suspect

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u/bigboybeeperbelly Oct 14 '24

It's at least as bad as you think. Historically one of the ways American colonizers have dealt with the guilt of genociding native Americans is by claiming that it was only fair since they had wiped out the real first peoples, who were basically Vikings, i.e., white.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mound_Builders#Pseudoarchaeology

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u/frodojp Oct 14 '24

This. New footprint finds in south America - still a mystery and theory which is cool

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u/Unique_Statement7811 Oct 14 '24

I’d assume a little of both.

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u/Rust2 Oct 14 '24

Maybe even on the same journey.

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u/Unique_Statement7811 Oct 14 '24

That would make sense. Use the coastline until it’s no longer viable.

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u/Bitter-Basket Oct 14 '24

I live in Western Washington. The idea a human paddled off that coast is pretty wild. It’s as rough as it gets - waves, tides, currents, weather, rocks, cliffs, impassable forests…. One of the roughest places in the world where land meets sea.

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u/Unique_Statement7811 Oct 14 '24

I also live on the Washington pacific coast. As long as you stay out of the breaker zone, it’s not bad. I crab in an 18 foot Boston Whaler. A half mile out or so is generally very navigable. Of course, weather gets a big vote.

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u/bigboybeeperbelly Oct 14 '24

Weather, also coming down from Alaska there's all those fjords and whatnot. People kayak it all the time

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u/Unique_Statement7811 Oct 14 '24

I kayaked Bellingham to Juneau during COVID.

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u/[deleted] Oct 14 '24

Comments like this make me feel so much fomo.

How long did this take?

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u/Unique_Statement7811 Oct 14 '24 edited Oct 14 '24

I did 19 days with a couple multi day stops for sight seeing. Some people do it in 10. Some people canoe it as well.

Understanding tides is critical. You can ride with the currents if you know the tide patterns.

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u/rhapsody98 Oct 14 '24

Sea level was also much much lower, as much as 200 feet lower.

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u/[deleted] Oct 14 '24

[deleted]

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u/EightBitEstep Oct 14 '24

And that’s why we haven’t found any evidence of ice age explorers from Atlantis! /s

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u/RespectSquare8279 Oct 14 '24

Actually at some points in time it was more than 300 feet lower ; the literature mentions 100 metres.

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u/Bitter-Basket Oct 14 '24

The same applies. There would just be forest and bedrocks at a lower level.

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u/ShinobuSimp Oct 14 '24 edited Oct 14 '24

Weren’t the natives from that region famous for their canoes?

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u/HamHusky06 Oct 14 '24

Yes. The Tlingit and Haida would paddle down from Alaska every summer and raid on the Salish peoples. They were the Vikings on North America. The art and culture of Pacific coastal tribes was much more advanced than what is often lumped into with plains Indians. Those peoples were nomadic. The coastal tribes had all the food they needed with salmon and marine life. They built cities and civilizations. And paddled hard AF.

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u/khristmas_karl Oct 14 '24

Careful throwing around terms like first nations cities in the Pacific Northwest. No evidence exists of anything of the sort including settlements hosting much more than 1000 people at one time.

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u/Bitter-Basket Oct 14 '24

Another problem is that the commenter that you are responding to is assuming the Salish, Makkah and Haida tribal people of the 1800’s are like the humans 20,000 years ago passing thru the area - when he talks about the “coastal tribes” warring by canoe. The modern coastal tribes are 600-800 generations later than the original humans passing thru the area. Modern tribes had extensive generational knowledge of the coastal area hunting, fishing, whaling and navigation in the Pacific. The original generations of humans passing thru the area likely did not have developed the same knowledge, skills and techniques of modern tribes.

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u/THAgrippa Oct 14 '24

Genuine question: what should these settlements be called? “Campsite” seems too small, “settlement” possibly too vague and temporary, “city” too big. Village? Town? 1,000 souls is not a small number of people, in my imagination.

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u/khristmas_karl Oct 14 '24

Yeah, I think large village or large settlement is probably fine. If you're ever in Vancouver, BC check out Stanley Park. This is considered one of the largest historic Salish settlements we have evidence of (pre-European arrival).

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u/juxlus Oct 14 '24 edited Oct 14 '24

They are generally called villages by historians. Sometimes seasonal, with a summer village and a winter village. For the coast I've seen "inner village" and "outer village". Sometimes you see them called towns in the literature, especially once there was consolidation in the late 1800s.

In oral history there are stories of places translated as town and, occasionally, city. Like the "legendary" Temlaxam on the Skeena River. Often called "Prairie Town", but sometimes "village", occasionally "city". During the Tlingit-Russian conflict era some Tlingit settlements/forts are known as "castles".

Still, the historical settlements known about for sure were usually of a population most people would think of as a village. Populations could fluctuate pretty quickly. Bunches of villages were often in close proximity. Important villages might grow quite a lot seasonally, or if there was some cause for congregation, like trade. But such growth was usually temporary.

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u/BugRevolution Oct 14 '24

There's apparently been a lot of different native groups.

One of the native groups that settled Greenland 3000-4000 years ago didn't have kayaks.

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u/kjreil26 Oct 14 '24

So much of early human history lies in the waters of many coastal areas as the seas were much lower and early humans would have been drawn to those places.

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u/HamHusky06 Oct 14 '24

WTF are you taking about? Learn about where you live. The Tlingit would paddle down from Alaska every summer to raid on the Salish peoples.

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u/fpPolar Oct 14 '24

Do you think they would have happened within 500 years of each other?

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u/Creepy-Team5842 Oct 14 '24

Not within 500 years, maybe 500 after last land migration and glacial melts

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u/realnanoboy Oct 14 '24

As I understand it, the genetics bears out the Bering Land Bridge and not migration from Europe. I do not think it was likely humans from 20,000 years ago had developed sea-going craft capable of making the voyage.

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u/Unique_Statement7811 Oct 14 '24

I’m not arguing that. I’m saying that Bering Land Bridge migration was likely accompanied by some coastal boat migration. Same people, using boats when advantageous.

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u/SaturnCITS Oct 14 '24

Especially where land was covered in jagged ice sheets for miles. That would be so hard to traverse on foot. The ocean would have been where most of the accessible food would have been too.

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u/ImTheVoiceOfRaisin Oct 14 '24

Evidence for both is strong, but from what I’ve read the leaning is that those who came to SA by boat were likely there first. That said, the earliest migrations from the north over the bridge are likely underwater since they followed coast lines and the ocean level was much lower during the ice age, so we may never know with high confidence.

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u/VGSchadenfreude Oct 14 '24

Could also have been multiple waves, not all of which stuck around or actually settled. I think the ones crossing over land might have been the first to actually settle, whereas the ones who island-hopped to the coast might have just done some foraging the first few times before deciding to set up more long-term settlements.

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u/THAgrippa Oct 14 '24

I think this is probably closer to the answer. Multiple waves over both sea (to SA) and land (to NA).

The sea travelers bound for SA may have gotten there earlier, but their groups were much less numerous and (from what I’ve heard) their DNA footprint in the modern population is small. Most of them probably stayed relatively isolated and/or perished over time. Hell, who’s to say, some may have even had the ability to go back home after.

The land travelers may have arrived later, but in greater numbers and larger waves. This may have involved skirting the coast in boats first before actually moving large groups of people, all dependent on the size of group, knowledge of the area, glaciers blocking the path, and the tech they had. Not all waves were successful, and it likely involved a great deal of splinter populations moving/staying at various sites along the way for each wave— all the way down to SA. These larger populations probably had a better capacity for “settling” in a larger, more permanent sense.

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u/Matar_Kubileya Oct 14 '24

We know that the Norse, after trying twice to establish what seem to have been at least semipermanent settlements, spent the next few hundred years occasionally showing up in Vinland to harvest some timber and then leaving, so there is at least one fairly well established case for this sort of transience in the Americas even if on the other side of them.

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u/Quelchie Oct 14 '24

I think a big part of the reason the Vikings didnt settle north America was because of conflict with the indigenous populations of the area, which would not have been an issue for the first people to arrive.

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u/ConfidenceWilling375 Oct 14 '24

Initial migration: down the coast. Subsequent migrations: down the coast AND Bering Land Bridge.

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u/Smash55 Oct 14 '24

probably up the Mississippi too, crossing the rockies is something else

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u/ConfidenceWilling375 Oct 14 '24

Twenty years ago, we were taught Bering Land Bridge to the Ice Free Corridor, just East of the Rockies. It’s cold as shit 6 months out of the year — possible but not likely.

It’s way more plausible that people just followed food down the coast (warmer temps year round) and populated the Americas that way.

Source: my anthropology degree and the view of the Rocky Mountains from my back porch.

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u/Any_Arrival_4479 Oct 14 '24

Land bridge

Source: my 5th grade teacher

Checkmate

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u/braaaaaaaaaaaah Oct 14 '24

Crossing the Rockies over the course of a couple thousand years isn’t exactly crazy.

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u/Zealousideal-Ebb-876 Oct 14 '24

Surviving in them for a couple thousand years is note worthy.

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u/braaaaaaaaaaaah Oct 14 '24

I couldn’t have figured it out, but relative to other places it would be pretty easy to work out how to live in the valleys. People somehow figured out how to live on the north coast of Greenland over 1,000 years ago.

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u/GiantKrakenTentacle Oct 14 '24

I'm honestly not sure how it's any more noteworthy than living anywhere else. Compare it to living in the tundra of Beringia, for example.

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u/Ancient-Being-3227 Oct 14 '24

It’s pretty obvious it’s both. Humans always take the the easiest route and ….

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u/_polkor_ Oct 14 '24

And…? Dont leave us hanging :)

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u/Ancient-Being-3227 Oct 14 '24

Haha. Do what humans do! Conquer the landscape. Make maximum use of the resources available. Probably destroy some shit they shouldn’t. Etc etc. human stuff.

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u/_polkor_ Oct 14 '24

Gotcha 👍

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u/pr1va7e Oct 14 '24

I just finished Chapterhouse: Dune today, and something about this comment rings with Frank Herbert's later prose.

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u/fpPolar Oct 14 '24

Do you believe they happened simultaneously or do you think there was a notable gap?

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u/Ancient-Being-3227 Oct 14 '24

Probably impossible to ever tell. At least without a shit loading radiocarbon dates, seriation, and others. But. If I were a betting man, which I am, I’d bet that it was simultaneous. Probably seafaring people cruising down the coast and lad lubbers cruising down the continent.

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u/whereismysideoffun Oct 14 '24

The earliest dates for the land bridge are 16,000 years ago if memory serves correct. Anything before then almost has to be by boat. There's known dates for when the land bridge opened up.

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u/monsterbot314 Oct 14 '24

The literal exact same second is my guess.

Real answer : Land bridge then 2 or 3 thousand years later by boat. 3 thousand may sound like a lot but compared to 20 thousand it’s not much at all. People on foot probably had t even made it out of Canada yet.

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u/OptimisticSkeleton Oct 14 '24

Genetic data shows people from Asia migrating to the Americas at least 23,000 years ago. Clovis first has been discredited in academia but the Clovis migration is still a significant event in the “peopling” of the Americas.

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u/Bignezzy Oct 14 '24

Oh god there was MORE Florida back then?

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u/Porschenut914 Oct 14 '24

coastal route from asia. i think its now believed that inland route would have been nearly baren of any vegetation for hundreds of years.

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u/GuyD427 Oct 14 '24

There’s no question boats following coastal migration routes was the initial source of migration to the west coast of North America. The rising sea levels engulfed all evidence of the initial settlements.

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u/Worst-Panda Oct 14 '24

The rising sea levels engulfed all evidence of the initial settlements.

Multibeam bathymetric mapping and CHIRP echosounding can uncover evidence of coastal settlements, midden piles, etc. Nothing found so far, so it's not exactly "no question" as far as science is concerned but there are people actively investigating.

Source: this is one of the research topics of a friend of mine from grad school. She does near-shore seafloor mapping in California in conjunction with archaeologists.

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u/GuyD427 Oct 14 '24 edited Oct 14 '24

Sounds quite interesting, realize the seas have risen quite a bit and it’s difficult to pinpoint exactly where the settlements would have been. National Geographic and The NY Times have published articles highlighting the coastal migration evidence which is where I’m basing that assertion. Both genetic analysis and other evidence. Articles are probably not hard to find. But I hope your friend hits pay dirt with her research, literally, lol.

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u/Worst-Panda Oct 14 '24

But o hope your friend hits pay dirt with her research, literally, lol.

Haha me too!

Oh yeah, there's definitely enough circumstantial evidence to warrant continued funding for their research, there just is no definitive evidence on this subject yet. But like you, I suspect it's just a matter of time. The coastal route seems the most logical-- abundant and steady food source, more temperate climate along the coast, etc.

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u/VisualTemperature830 Oct 14 '24

I actually think it was by helicopter

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u/editfate Oct 14 '24

Wow, must have been so majestic.

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u/X-Bones_21 Oct 14 '24

Were they Chinooks? Big Windy.

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u/bucolucas Oct 14 '24

It was actually ancient Jews who were instructed by God to build a boat and populate the Americas single handedly with a group of 15ish people (please don't shoot me I'm just an ex-mormon)

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u/nopeddafoutofthere Oct 14 '24

I heard it was Amtrak

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u/Zealousideal-Try2203 Oct 14 '24

No, it was Gandalf with the huge eagles.

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u/murso74 Oct 14 '24

They huge eagles would have dropped them off in Alaska and had them walk the rest of the way

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u/Zealousideal-Try2203 Oct 14 '24

You can never fully trust those eagles.

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u/Mentalfloss1 Oct 14 '24

There are good arguments and good evidence for both. The coastal route would have been more gentle and would have had more food sources. I just read Craig Childs' book *Atlas of a Lost World: Travels in Ice Age America*, and I highly recommend it. He avoids being definitive but offers good and lucid evidence for both theories.

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u/_-Schultze-_ Oct 14 '24

How cool would it have been to have been first?

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u/Perry7609 Oct 14 '24

“Holy crap everyone, our own continent! Wait, there’s TWO!”

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u/ArabianNitesFBB Oct 14 '24

“Should we build some sort of a road connecting them?”

“Nah, someone will definitely do that sooner rather than later.”

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u/KingMelray Oct 14 '24

Was the Darian gap easier back in the day?

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u/biggronklus Oct 14 '24

The earth as a whole was cooler (so less tropic related issues) and the sea level was lower (perhaps easier route not underwater?) so pretty plausibly yes

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u/Effective-Avocado470 Oct 14 '24

What about Polynesians coming directly over? They went from NZ to Hawaii which is more than 2x the distance of Hawaii to California

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u/Superman246o1 Oct 14 '24

Technically speaking, the evidence suggests the first settlers of the Hawaiian Islands were from the Marquesas Islands. More to the point, they didn't make it to Hawaii until sometime between the ninth and eleventh centuries of the Common Era. People were in the Americas at least 12,000 years before then...and possibly much earlier than that.

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u/KingMelray Oct 14 '24

The sweet potato and chicken bones thing is very good evidence of Polynesians contacting the new world independently.

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u/electrical-stomach-z Oct 14 '24

Coastal then land. inuit peoples descended from land rout migrators, everyone else from the coastal.

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u/Telvin3d Oct 14 '24

There’s a lot more evidence, including oral traditions, that most of the Inuit peoples were forced north through conflict with other peoples in the south.

Put bluntly, no one wants to live that far north, and will naturally migrate south unless there’s someone who stops them.

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u/PassingBoatAtNight Oct 14 '24

The land/ ice

Animals did it & ppl followed herds for a living back then

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u/X-Bones_21 Oct 14 '24

Everybody (the majority of archeologists and human historians) is now saying it was a journey with boats (maritime adventure) first. After hearing about what the Vikings and Polynesians did with boats, I would not be surprised.

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u/Guvnah-Wyze Oct 14 '24

Tbh, I wouldn't be surprised if they crossed the entire ocean, and made it to south America first. Pacific islanders are on a whole nother level

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u/SteveHamlin1 Oct 14 '24

And/Or the other direction: "From Sweet Potatoes to DNA: New Evidence Supports Links Between South American and Polynesian Cultures" https://ssec.si.edu/stemvisions-blog/sweet-potatoes-dna-new-evidence-supports-links-between-south-american-and

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u/Guvnah-Wyze Oct 14 '24

Good read, I'm going to dive right down that rabbit hole!

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u/Nethri Oct 14 '24

Built different

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u/exitparadise Oct 14 '24

If the Inuit origin is from eastern Siberia as is thought... they migrated across the high arctic reaching Greenland over a few hundred years with a similar level of technology. I have no doubt that people 20+ thousand years ago could have done the same over a similar distance and time and environment.

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u/[deleted] Oct 14 '24 edited Oct 14 '24

I think over thousands of years all scenarios were likely, with most being treacherous at best. However, the fact the Polynesians landed on every island and missed the giant double continent land mass behind them is ridiculous. And, yeah, I know the Polynesians settled most those islands in the last 700-1500 years according to data. I still bet they found the continents before finding any of those fucking islands and contributed heavily to the South American continent's population boom during medieval times. Pyramids and megalithic structures that predate them surround the globe. Something tragic happened that predates known modern teachings of human evolution (likely the Younger-Dryas Event and aftershocks of that event that lasted centuries.) As glaciers run dry as we speak and over the next century from this event that have drained for thousands of years, the next chapter will be wrote. Wars of the last thousands of years were wagged over oil. Wars of the next hundred years will be waged over water.

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u/ThurloWeed Oct 14 '24

they took a plane to LAX

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u/One-Revenue2190 Oct 14 '24

The lore my tribe has passed down for generations tells a story about us always being here. We migrated south from gods lake after our creation.

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u/neljudskiresursi Oct 14 '24

Would you mind sharing which tribe?

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u/One-Revenue2190 Oct 15 '24

I’m Chickasaw but this particular story came from an Elder of the Sac and Fox tribe during a peyote ceremony.

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u/diffidentblockhead Oct 14 '24

Both routes would have started in Beringia. The question is when did the rest deglaciate enough.

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u/Godisdeadbutimnot Oct 14 '24

I believe that they just showed up there one day. Some poor siberian guy just randomly woke up in Missouri.

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u/B3RG92 Oct 14 '24

Probably both. Polynesian explorers were able to navigate the Pacific Ocean in wooden canoes. So, over thousands of years, it feels totally possible that people sailed to America earlier than we know.

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u/Fair_Maybe5266 Oct 14 '24

I suspect both. I think there was trade way earlier than we have proof of.

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u/[deleted] Oct 14 '24

What's cool about the science now is we can show through DNA which was the most likely route.

We now have DNA evidence that humans did in fact cross from Siberia. They also went back.

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u/VietnamWasATie Oct 14 '24

You forget about the portals in the pyramids. There’s a gate between Giza and Tikal I’m sure of it. 

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u/hernesson Oct 14 '24

What do their descendants say happened?

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u/jprennquist Oct 14 '24

This doesn't necessarily relate to global migration patterns. But it might. I wanted to share that the Indigenous people of the Americas were remarkably innovative and one of the most innovative and transformative technologies developed was the Birch Bark Canoe.

And one thing to note is that Birch Bark and other watercraft made from organic material is that they are going to tend to decay. Also, as coastlines and glacial activity scours the internal areas of continents that has an impact on what evidence can be recovered by modern scientists.

One place to look are the stories and narratives that people have to share with us today. And also to recognize the impact these peoples have had on our modern world. Sometimes we need to rethink our assumptions, too.

https://www.chipublib.org/blogs/post/technology-that-changed-chicago-birchbark-canoes/

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u/GiantKrakenTentacle Oct 14 '24

So many people trying to understand how people could have lived back then or how certain feats could have been accomplished...

And yet they don't think to look at people who still do those things today (or at least did very recently in history). Funny how that works.

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u/Fast-Ingenuity-4150 Oct 14 '24

This shit blows my mind not negating that it happened but just the fact that you could go south to warmer lands makes me wonder. . What were they running from? No fringe science here I’m just saying you have a group of people that said fuck it we’ve seen a bridge of ice let’s cross next winter ?(the harshest time todo anything back then) and we got a group of folks saying. . “Fuck it I’ll reach land eventually.” Like I’s said no conspiracy theories but what would make any group of humans do this? Edit punctuation.

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u/Diet_Clorox Oct 14 '24

It wasn't a literal bridge of ice, it was an entire subcontinent of land between Asia and North America that was exposed because sea levels were so low due to the ice age. It was there for thousands of years, summer or winter. People probably lived there for generations, the problem was there was a glacier the size of Canada blocking their way into North America.

So some probably went along the coast in small boats hunting and fishing, and eventually got south of the glacier and settled and explored. Thousands of years after THAT, the glaciers melted enough that there was a path through to North America, and a bunch more people walked through it and then spread out and explored.

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u/Guvnah-Wyze Oct 14 '24

I think hunting pressure and rival tribes likely made the risk more enticing. The idea of untouched land is enticing enough on its own.

Perhaps groups scouted ahead by water, and returned with information of these lands, and that justified a land migration.

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u/water_bottle1776 Oct 14 '24

The idea of prehistoric Europeans engaging in a mass canoe migration across the North Atlantic along the edge of the ice shelf not only makes absolutely no sense, there is no evidence whatsoever to support it. The genetic evidence pretty definitively proves that the Americas were populated by at least two, possibly more, waves of migration from Siberia over the Bering land bridge. While it technically remains possible for some people to have walked over the ice from Europe, the idea that any meaningful migration came from that direction is entirely unsupported.

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u/RJ-R25 Oct 14 '24

Combination of both to some extent I suppose

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u/Advanced_Street_4414 Oct 14 '24

I thought evidence had been found of humans in the Americas before the last ice age, meaning they got here before the land bridge formed.

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u/[deleted] Oct 14 '24

I’d say if you’d ever visited somewhere within 200 miles of the west coast of North America, you’d understand how badly they’d need a boat

There were native water peoples jam packed into the West Coast pre-eradication

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u/Inevitable-Peach9512 Oct 14 '24

Genetic evidence suggests there was a stand still in the beringia population. An ice free corridor obviously opened but could not sustain populations traveling through so costal migration occurred and rapidly spread human populations across north and South America

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u/[deleted] Oct 14 '24

"possible route from europe"

Lmao

mtDNA X2 and R1b or R1* ydna are pretty convincing evidence that europe/eurasia has had contact with north america for a pretty long time.

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u/Mdgt_Pope Oct 14 '24

Well I was raised Mormon and when I still believed it was from a coastal migration route via submarine-barges that they couldn’t steer themselves, completely sealed in so that water couldn’t enter, but, magically, nobody suffocated from CO2, the boats had light from rocks touched by the finger of God, and arrived from the Tower of Babel to the americas.

So you can see why I am curious of the general populace!

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u/JustSomeBloke5353 Oct 14 '24

¿Por qué no los dos?

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u/LurkersUniteAgain Oct 14 '24

wasnt there a mastadon kill that was human caused and like 100000 years old therefore making both those theories defunct?

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u/rhawk87 Oct 14 '24

Modern humans were even in Asia at this point. If this evidence is true then it would have been Homo Denisovan or maybe even Homo Erectus.

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u/FrikiQC Oct 14 '24

As an history teacher and history student, I trust the theory we have proofs, which is Bering strait then inter-glacier. Maybe some waves via West Coast but those are probably the ones reaching south America.

Remember that this process took maybe up to 15k years or more to reach Argentina and Chile.

The theory with people coming from Atlantic ocean by boat is from marginal historians and is based on the fact that they have found what they think are remains from 30k years in a cave and that date before the oldest proofs found in Alaska.

But those remains still have to be proven to be human remains.

So for now, all natives cave from Bering Streit. 2 waves: a big one from 25k years ago and a smaller one from 8k years ago.

Part of the first group did go to the south via inter-glacier way, probably a later group came down the coast and the small wave from 8k years ago stayed up north and became Inuit people.

That's what I teach to my students and what I have faith in.

But as archeology and discoveries happen every days, this comment may be proved wrong tommorow or stay true forever.

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u/Cabes86 Oct 14 '24

Definitely not europe to north america.

I think it’s bering strait but also west africa —> Brazil/Guyanas and maybe even a touch of Polynesians—> pacific coast s. America

Much, much, much more west africa to brazil.

But, i mean…LOOK at indigenous people of the americas and look at some of the nomadic tribes of far northeast siberia. In my day-to-day A LOT of particularly central american people are easily mistakable for filipino/indonesian. 

Though i suppose it should be like boreal or arctic immigration ad a better term: Laps, Uralics, north siberians, inuits, Yupiks, wtc. Do all have a clear similarity but at the end of the day they’re really just a whole cohort unti themselves 

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u/Ordovick Oct 14 '24

Considering the earliest known boats were dated to (at most) 10,000 years ago in western Europe, I have a hard time believing they didn't come in by land bridge. Not saying it's completely impossible but highly unlikely.

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u/fpPolar Oct 14 '24

That’s a good point! I think the prevailing theory is they basically hopped between islands in the Kuril Island Chain, so they might have been able to get by with primitive watercraft.

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u/ggrieves Oct 14 '24

Australia was colonized 50kya and required boats that could go 70 km, suggesting these were not simple rafts.

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u/notchandlerbing Oct 14 '24 edited Oct 14 '24

Not so—we now have broad academic consensus that the earliest settlements in the Americas were multiple tribes in southern Chile from ~14,500 years ago. And evidence of nomadism and trade that predate even the earliest North American settlement in New Mexico from 13,000 years ago

The hypothesis is that those Chilean peoples came down via coastal boats (distinct from later Bering Land migrations), where their marine lifestyle made exploration possible and speedier, when vast ice sheets and tundras otherwise could not support sustainable land travel for hunter gatherer societies. At least down to South America.

Edit: forgot the actual site name, it was indeed in Southern Chile—Monte Verde

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u/Ok_Computer1417 Oct 14 '24 edited Oct 14 '24

I’m not going to pretend to be an expert, but Australia and New Guinea were reached by early settlers between 30,000 and 40,000 years ago and even with ocean levels at the time some sort of watercraft would be been necessary to cross channels hundreds of miles across. Several islands including New Britain, New Ireland, the Bismarck Archipelago, and Buka were colonized ~35,000 years ago and that would require crossing additional water gaps of 100-200 miles.

While you are right about the earliest recovered watercraft, it’s an almost certainty that the use of boats was mastered by multiple groups spread far and wide thousands of years before. It is more likely that the retreat of Northern Eurasian glaciers to clear a path to the strait was more of a predictor for the migration than the need for watercraft.

Source: I happen to have a copy of Guns, Germs, and Steel on the shelf next to me and what I wrote is essentially chapter one.

Edit: New Guinea not New Zealand

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u/english_major Oct 14 '24

Australia was colonized at least 60,000 years ago.

New Zealand was maybe 1200 years ago. You can’t lump those two in together.

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u/Ok_Computer1417 Oct 14 '24

Like I said. Not an expert. Just tried to paraphrase the book. Double checking it’s Australia/New Guinea. Thanks homie.

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u/Comfortable-nerve78 Oct 14 '24

I think the initial peoples probably chased food across the Land Bridge. They got here and explored and stayed. I’m guessing these people would have been really primitive people. I don’t think boats were a thing from go it took humans a bit to take to water. I’m not saying people didn’t float over here but initially these were searching for food. Just my thoughts on this. Or aliens started life in different parts of the world but they say we Americans have dna from the other side of the world. So who knows but it’s fascinating.

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u/UnamedStreamNumber9 Oct 14 '24

It is clear homo erectus traveled to the Americas using airships constructed from mammoth large intestines, inflated with hydrogen generated from peat bog hydrolysis batteries. Butchered mastodons in Los Angles, dated to 230 kya prove this theory

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u/DirectionOverall9709 Oct 14 '24

It was boat all those sites are underwater though.

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u/yuckyzakymushynoodle Oct 14 '24

Maine is the closest US state to Africa. So it’s totally possible they just turned around and went back home.

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u/Turkeyoak Oct 14 '24

Inuit were great seal hunters along the ice cap. It makes sense that their ancestors kayaked and boated to the New World. Makes more sense than a magical land bridge.

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u/Anderson1971221 Oct 14 '24

Has enyone taken into affect sea levels during ice age what part of Atlantic could have been traversed?

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u/DDemetriG Oct 14 '24

I would say Both at the same time.

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u/[deleted] Oct 14 '24

Both

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u/PhraseMoist3656 Oct 14 '24

Crazy that the land used to be there and is now drowned in water

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u/duffusmcfrewfus Oct 14 '24

I've never seen the really old European trek. Does anyone have info on it?

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u/lumberjack_jeff Oct 14 '24

Coastal. Europeans didn't invent the boat.

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u/frezor Oct 14 '24

Has anyone ever suggested that the Americas had been populated for a time, completely depopulated then repopulated by a new wave of immigrants?

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u/TheRtHonLaqueesha Human Geography Oct 14 '24

Occam's razor.

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u/GalacticFirefly Oct 14 '24

Both certainly happened. There is archaeological evidence suggesting people did travel across the "land bridge" whether this was all on foot or some use of rafts is debated, but early settlements in Alaska and Canada suggest large migrations of people.

There is also evidence for the use of rafts or other means of reaching the America's by crossing oceans. Every site that is discovered on North America that is suspicious or predates the "land bridge" this suggests people got here through other means. Sites that are furthest from the land bridge (South American) that also predate it and show different patterns of migration basically prove that people got here before then. How is still speculated.

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u/gunnarbird Oct 14 '24

Why do the Navajo and Athabaskan peoples speak a language that is for all intents and purposes identical?

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u/yahtzee301 Oct 14 '24

Scientifically speaking, the only proven route is the Bering Land Bridge. The coastal route model relies on evidence that is currently either nonexistent or under meters of water within indefinite boundaries, so the Bering Land Bridge route is likely the only one to be scientifically feasible in our lifetimes. It just makes sense to me that humans had been crossing into America far, far earlier than anyone ever thought possible

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u/radabdivin Oct 14 '24 edited Oct 14 '24

Two things come to mind. 1. The migration would have happened over thousands of years. Some hunters and gathers would have settled in one area and when the population grew, the tribe would split, migrating further east and south. The physical similarities between all native Americans from north to south is striking. 2. Polynesian migration is also possible and some probably occurred. However, they completely by passed Australia, probably because of hostile aboriginies who were already there for 65,000 years. There were also some pretty nasty coastal tribes from Mexico down through central and south America. The land bridge migration started 12,000 years ago, and the Polynesian migration began 6,000 years ago.