
The first humans arrived in North America a lot earlier than believed - baalcat
http://nouvelles.umontreal.ca/en/article/2017/01/13/the-first-humans-arrived-in-north-america-much-earlier-than-thought/
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dboreham
Always wondered why this is such a surprise. Getting around the planet,
especially over very long time periods, is just not that hard. We're stuck in
a mentality that says long distance travel was impossible prior to Columbus.
But realize he was just the guy who traveled and came BACK. To migrate over
long distances you don't by definition need to return, so the people you left
have no idea where you went. Also you have to have a motivation to tell people
where you went. Supposedly there had been fishing expeditions to the new world
coast for a long time prior to Columbus. The fishermen didn't want anyone to
know where they were finding such good fishing grounds so never told where
they had traveled.

In addition, the evidence points to a major impact around 12.5kybp centered
around the northern plains. This would have destroyed most of the evidence of
any human presence.

~~~
jcranmer
Madagascar is a large island about ~400km off the coast of Africa. It was
settled by Austronesians who embarked about 2000 years ago launching from the
island of Borneo (of Malaysia), not by Africans, although Bantu speakers do
appear to have colonized the somewhat closer Comoros Islands.

Cape Verde, the Azores, the Falkland Islands--the world is not lacking for
places that were never colonized until the Age of Exploration despite being
remarkably close to continents. Actually colonizing a place is more difficult
than getting a few people together on a boat and hoping you hit land (read up
on how the Austronesians actually colonized the remote islands that they
found). When crossing such massive bodies of water as the Atlantic or Pacific
Ocean, you need stores of rations if you want to live to make it to the other
side, and it's not clear that a Paleolithic society could have produced a
sufficient food surplus to provision the voyage.

Also, the possible discovery of Newfoundland based on the Grand Banks doesn't
predate Columbus by all that much. The clearest indications of its existence
postdate Cabot's exploration in 1497. Claimants of precedence generally still
date to the 1400s--usually making reference to around 1470. Archaeological
evidence of any pre-Columbian, post-Viking contact with Newfoundland has not
been forthcoming.

~~~
moo
The parent is talking about visiting and you warp it into colonizing.
Aboriginals probably knew about these places but had better places to live
than a craggy, barren island with salt spray in their faces. If the
aboriginals had the foresight to predict the land grabbing empire builders
they may of dug themselves in but then some other fanciful justification tale
like religious freedom would have been created to justify aboriginal
displacement and land robbery.

~~~
jcranmer
> To migrate over long distances you don't by definition need to return, so
> the people you left have no idea where you went.

That sure sounds like discussing one-way colonization to me.

Also, the islands I discussed (save Madagascar, which is a full-on continental
crust fragment and is the fourth-largest island in the world) are all volcanic
islands, not atolls--the Azores are actually the highest point in Portugal.

The Caribs did expand into the Caribbean Islands, many of which are smaller
than, say, the Falklands. It's highly unlikely that large islands would have
remained unsettled by neighboring tribes if they could have reached them--
especially since we know that the distances involved do seem to preclude them
having been reached. Oceanic transport is not a trivial invention.

~~~
moo
I didn't say atoll. Migrate doesn't mean you have to colonize every way
point.The op also said "fishing expedition" which doesn't mean colonization.
You don't have to marry the first person you have sex with either. Tule reeds
are common in North America. Totora reeds grow in South America. Chumash
regularly traveled 22 miles between what is now Catalina Islands and LA. The
Chumash are best known for their sewn-plank canoe called a tomol that ranged
up to 30 feet long. Cuba is 93 miles from Florida. Pre-Columbian South
Americans built reed boats. Heyerdahl went 5,000 miles across the Pacific in a
reed boat. Falkland Islands are 300 miles east of South American southern
Patagonia coast. Pre-Incan pottery shards found in the Galapagos by Heyerdahl
and Arne SkjolsvoId during an expedition to the archipelago in January 1953.
Galapagos are 563 miles west of Ecuador. Regarding the Galapagos, Incan oral
history tells of king Tupac Yupanqui voyage to the west and discovery of two
"Islands of Fire." The Galapagos were not colonized either. Not everything in
Caribbean Islands is tropical paradise. From worldwildlife.org: "Caribbean
islands are often portrayed as lush tropical paradises, but Aruba, Bonaire and
Curaçao are better described as desert scrub. The three islands, known locally
as the ABC’s, are located 40-80 km off the coast of Venezuela just 12 N of the
equator. Due to their leeward location, the islands receive only 350-550 mm of
rain per year."

~~~
dboreham
The Falklands are a pretty poor example imho. The fact that people were not
there does not imply they couldn't get there. If they had no sheep, there
would be no point staying.

~~~
moo
I was responding to the assertion that European colonizers were discovering
and claiming islands, specifically the Malvinas, from the backyard of
indigenous peoples, of which they were totally ignorant.

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curtis
One of the challenges of North American archaeology is that it's likely that
many potential archaeological sites are now underwater, since sea level was
about 400 feet lower at the peak of the last ice age.

~~~
eagsalazar2
I've always felt like if there were other earlier migrations, since they
necessarily would need to be coast and seafaring migrations (potentially no
bridge or path through the glaciers to southern North America), then by
definition all trace of those migrations and settlements would be almost
entirely be lost because they are coastal cultures, at least initially. 400
feet is a _lot_ of lost coastal area. So I've always felt very skeptical that
the absence of earlier archeological sites proved anything.

~~~
hinkley
Something just seems wrong about the timeline. Not the NA timeline, I mean the
European timeline.

We have seafarers reaching Australia 40,000 years ago. I don't think it should
come as a shock that seafarers reach North America 24,000 years ago. Except
that maybe we should keep digging because why did it take 16,000 more years?

I think we may be labeling the Dawn of Civilization pretty badly when we have
agriculture and intercontinental tribes debuting thousands or tens of
thousands of years prior.

Maybe the first inland civilization, sure.

~~~
Arnt
The something you're looking for may be the ice age.

Personally I wouldn't be terribly surprised to hear that humans reached Alaska
either before or after the last ice age. But right in the middle? Strange
timing.

~~~
patall
I heard the story [1] that when people where able to cross the bering street
due to the lower sea level, they could not proceed from Alaska due to the
massive ice shield and when the shield was gone, the bering street was closed
again, a mechanism described to be similar to a revolving door.

[1] Tim Flannery (2001), The Eternal Frontier: An Ecological History of North
America and its Peoples

~~~
Arnt
Yeah, I've read it too, but it's odd.

It's more difficult to move on ice or water than on grass. Moving on grass is
convenient. But ice and water aren't impossible, we know that people reached
Greenland from the northwest and stayed there, and we know that people reached
Australia and even Easter Island.

Well-regarded books say strange things sometimes. Have you read Jared
Diamond's Catastrophe? Its argument about why the Norwegians who moved to
Greenland died presupposes that the technology that led to viking ships had
nothing to do with fishing and, and states that Norwegians would rather hunger
to death than eat fish.

~~~
InitialLastName
I think you mean Collapse
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse:_How_Societies_Choose...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse:_How_Societies_Choose_to_Fail_or_Succeed))?
Do you have more rebuttal to that? I'm reading it at the moment, and I'm
always looking for issues with JD's usually compelling arguments.

~~~
Arnt
Yes, Collapse, sorry.

No, I don't, really. Except that dried cod was a well-known foodstuff in
Norway at the time, that's a recorded fact. Any argument that rests on
Norwegians not eating cod is a poorly founded argument, no matter how well
phrased.

([http://nrksuper.no/super/files/2013/10/t%C3%B8rrfisk2-e13823...](http://nrksuper.no/super/files/2013/10/t%C3%B8rrfisk2-e1382344196288.jpg)
is it. Tastes good, is light and doesn't require refrigeration. Smells
though.)

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beloch
"Bourgeon examined the approximately 36,000 bone fragments culled from the
site and preserved at the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau — an enormous
undertaking that took her two years to complete. Comprehensive analysis of
certain pieces at UdeM's Ecomorphology and Paleoanthropology Laboratory
revealed undeniable traces of human activity in 15 bones. Around 20 other
fragments also showed probable traces of the same type of activity. "

15 out of 36,000 is not very strong evidence. In a collection of bone
fragments this large, nature and random chance are bound to produce a few
fragments that strongly resemble those processed by humans. If humans were in
the region 24000 years ago, other sites of similar age will eventually be
found. If not, this site probably doesn't provide strong enough evidence to
stand on its own.

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phaemon
If you're wondering about the term "before present", the present is defined as
1950 for geological purposes. I'm afraid it's probably too late to correct it
to 1985.

~~~
Drdrdrq
You probably meant 1970? :)

~~~
sknuds
They might be thinking "Back to the Future" rather than unix?

~~~
HillaryBriss
you're right. they probably _were_ thinking of Back to the Future, which was,
in some ways, a far better film than Unix.

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baddox
This is pretty cool. I'll admit that, until a few years ago, my knowledge of
human migration to the Americas was very poor. Based on my American public
school education (and personal naïveté and lack of curiosity), I just thought
everyone came over on the Bering land bridge in one go, then gradually split
into the various cultures that Europeans eventually encountered. Of course,
things are more complicated than that, and there appears to be a lot of
uncertainty in the scientific community regarding the precise chronology and
source populations of migrations.

~~~
cc439
The era of humanity's initial diaspora is truly fascinating. I'm particularly
awed by just how quickly humans managed to colonize the Americas. By any
account, humanity progressed from the just a few thousand people gaining their
first footholds in the Americas to conquering the entirety of both continents
with an established population numbering in the tens of millions in just
~10,000 or so years. The pace of expansion and growth is truly amazing
considering how challenges posed by geography and nature.

It's not that it's impossible for humans to branch off and establish new
groups in previously unexplored regions, it's that establishing sustainable
communities on virgin territory isn't a one-time affair. Think about how many
failed attempts were made by the groups who conquered the vast deserts,
mountain ranges, and rivers between their place of origin and their new homes.
To successfully conquer two continents in such a short span of time is just
insane in my mind whenever I stop and think about it.

It's also funny to see how confused the efforts of archaeologists can be on
this topic. This article cites the previous date of "earliest human presence"
in North America as 14,000 BP while there has been well known evidence*
available for years that humanity had spread as far south as Chile by that
time. Obviously this discovery now makes the Monte Verde evidence far less
controversial but the disconnect between the Canadian and Chilean researchers
shows just how regional and siloed the study of the early America's can be.

*Source: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_Verde](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_Verde)

~~~
jcranmer
> It's also funny to see how confused the efforts of archaeologists can be on
> this topic. This article cites the previous date of "earliest human
> presence" in North America as 14,000 BP while there has been well known
> evidence* available for years that humanity had spread as far south as Chile
> by that time. Obviously this discovery now makes the Monte Verde evidence
> far less controversial but the disconnect between the Canadian and Chilean
> researchers shows just how regional and siloed the study of the early
> America's can be.

The date of 14000 BP would assume that the earliest migrations were
essentially the Clovis culture, which is a theory that is generally considered
thoroughly discredited by the archeological community and has been for several
years. However, to the public, the Clovis-First, single-wave migration
hypothesis is probably what they learned in school, and so every press release
of a scientific find that further discredits this theory gets touted as
"Earth-shattering evidence that everything we knew was wrong!"\--despite the
fact that this is far from the first evidence of the fact and even that the
scientific community is largely unsurprised at this point.

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rubidium
Simplified map from national geographic helps show migration patterns of the
world: [https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/human-
journey/](https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/human-journey/)

Actual article is open-access:
[http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....](http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0169486)

Simply amazing that a human community existed for 8,000 years in total
isolation from the world.

~~~
speeder
One thing that bothers me, is that most first world archeologist keep ignoring
evidence of humans in Brazil at least 40.000 years ago.

Even more interesting, there are evidence of "negroids" in Brazil at that
time, while the "mongoloids" people (the current native americans, that have
features shared with asians) timeline seemly match the straight theory, some
Brazillian historians believe that what happened is that the first attempt of
colonizing South America failed somehow, and when the current natives arrived,
they early settlers were already long gone.

As for a controversial archeological dig, one with 40.000 years ago humans in
it, see
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedra_Furada_sites](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedra_Furada_sites)

~~~
SnakePlissken
Can you expand on the evidence of "Negroids" in Brazil 40,000 years ago? I'm
familiar with the idea of pre-Clovis settlements and the controversy around
that, but I was under the impression these were thought to be earlier settlers
from East Asia, like the Clovis people.

The only indication of Africans in South America I can think of are the much
later statues and idols of faces from Olmec Mexico, circa 1000 BC, which some
claim have "Negroid" features (a supposition that has to be debunked with an
unfortunate degree of frequency).

~~~
speeder
The Negroid thing is more speculative, due to the lack of decent human remains
with that age, but we DO have some old remains (older than 10.000) that are
seemly negroid, for example the skull nicknamed "Luzia" that was found in
Brazil. (there are some others too, but Luzia made international news when it
was found).

Some people are trying to find more remains, and others are trying to do
genetic research on those remains, one theory is that there was two (or more)
waves of migration.

Another theory, is that the people that crossed the strait 22000 years ago
were negroids, and "co-evolved" to have Asian features like modern Asians
because of converging evolution or coincidence.

A third theory that was more popular when there was fewer evidence (when Luzia
was first found) was that Luzia features were just normal genetic variation,
and that she was a mongoloid that looked negroid because of randomness.

~~~
SnakePlissken
I'd never heard of Luzia, but I just read into it a bit and it's definitely
intriguing. Thanks for the response and the new rabbit hole to dive into!

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contingencies
Very interesting related Wikipedia page [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-
Columbian_trans-oceanic_co...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-
Columbian_trans-oceanic_contact)

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randyrand
So is it safe to say even native americans are actually immigrants?

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yellowapple
Well yeah. We've known that for years.

Hell, if you live anywhere that isn't a specific part of Africa, you're pretty
much guaranteed to be an immigrant or a descendant thereof.

~~~
cygx
If only the Neanderthals had thought of building a wall (and made homo sapiens
pay for it, of course).

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prestonpesek
I'm not sure that evidence of stone tools means that these were human animals.
Many other species can conceivably use stone tools.

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peter303
The oldest direct evidence are dated feces from a island cave 14K BP. Then
there is a lot of bones 13K.

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aaron695
> This has been demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt by xxxxxx, a professor
> in yyyyyy's Department of Anthropology

Anthropology and "shadow of a doubt" never fit well with me in a sentence.

I'd like to hear an independent view on the data.

A lot of bone and not many 'human made' scratches with clear evidence of
carnivore activity in the cave.

