The Startling Alternative Theory of How Humans Arrived in America

On an island off the east coast of Maryland, a stone spearpoint sticking out of a coastal cliff stuns archaeologists. It asks a big question: Could humans have arrived in America 5,000 years earlier than we thought?

[jameselliott]

I grew up on the Chesapeake bay and as kids after the storms we would hunt for arrowheads on the beach, all kinds of thing would wash up on the South river from the bay. We would find really large blades that were completely different then the normal arrowheads. As kids we could tell that different people made the those large blades.

[MrDrmillgram]

Some scientists have suggested that hugging the edge of the Northern ice sheet (which was much farther south during the ice ages) and traveling west using kayaks, and hunting and fishing along the way, it may have been possible for stone age cultures to cross the Atlantic. The eastern native Americans tribes belief systems.seemed to have a lot in common with the ancient Celts.

[IIVVBlues]

What is new about this? The first Clovis point was discovered in Mexico in 1929. The only other place they've been found is the Chesapeake Bay and the coasts of France and the Iberian peninsula, with more or less the same date.
It has long been suggested that there was a North Atlantic culture during the last ice age that encompassed the European and North American land mass following the ice sheet. No one has believed that the aboriginal inhabitants of the Americas came exclusively over the land bridge to present day Alaska for decades. Modern genome research has strengthened this hypothesis. The Asian American land bridge seems to account for a large part of human migration, but not all. South American genomes suggest Pacific seafarers from Southern Asia, not of Siberian stock landed there.

[vinrusso]

This is not a maybe, it's a fact. Artifacts found in Siberia across the bering straight where "Native Americans" came from are not even remotly similar. It's no coincedence that 99% of bi facial's found are on the east coast.

[NOLAMarathon]

My startling alternative theory of how humans arrived in America is "they took the bus from Philly".

[tclem]

Anyone who loves history knows we do not accurately know our past. Everything is up for debate(minus few exceptions) too easily is it possible for the geographical formation of the earth to simply erase the past. This happened to a great extent in the last 5/10k years in Northern Africa.

[khankrum]

I placed this theory thirty years ago at Sheffield University. In the periods we know as "the Ice Ages" the ice was at least two miles high. The water came from the sea which exposed the continental shelf. Land compression and tilt fro the sheer weight of the ice would have cause "uplift" of more land mass making it possible for a European to America route possible. Of cause orthodoxy poo pooed the idea.

[bumpty]

The person who wrote this script doesn't understand enough about science to interpret evidence.

"They were here in Chesapeake Bay around 5, 000 years earlier than humans were _supposed_ to have arrived in America."

No, they were there 5, 000 years earlier than humans were _known_ to have arrived in America. There was never any evidence (cite a paper if I'm mistaken) that humans hadn't been in North America earlier. The new evidence doesn't _contradict_ the old evidence. What it contradicts is the misunderstanding that lack of evidence of presence is equivalent to evidence of lack of presence. Read that last sentence as many times as it takes to absorb it. If you find the new evidence surprising, as the author of this script appears to do, then it's because you didn't understand the old evidence. If it "challenges everything you thought you knew..." then you shouldn't bother thinking you know things anymore; you don't.

It's absolutely pathetic that the official Smithsonian channel does such a shit job of interpreting science for the public. Lest you think this is an unimportant gripe, consider the fact that public (mis-)understanding of science is (partly) responsible for public policy on fracking, construction of new spill-prone oil pipelines, defense against asteroid impacts, water scarcity, sea level rise, and a thousand others.

Get it right, or shut the fuck up.

[tetekofa]

What happened to the recently discovered settlement in Chile, dated 33, 000 years old?

[artstrology]

You can go to Tikal and see structures 40, 000+ years old, and it is common knowledge. Humans have traveled the oceans for tens of thousands of years. Almost no tribes of North or South American people subscribe to the Bering Straight theory.

[nelsonx]

I found a Clovis style arrowhead near the Chesapeake Bay.

[TheGodSchema]

"If confirmed' by the keepers of today's dogma.

[m.s.l.]

Just imagine how much evidence has eroded away into the ocean... Unless it was planted there. Would love to hear more about this though...

[Supertomiman]

What? Tell me what the other route is damn it!

[chasemichealbrown]

The Smithsonian: on the cutting edge of 30 years ago's science, today.

[XX-gyue]

how stupid, why couldn't there have been multiple routes, or histories ! which of course there were and are !

[warthog]

Captions, captions, captions. There are deaf people out there who might just want to watch your videos, of whom I am one.

[briananderson]

We need to find some bones and show they are Caucasian from Europe. Shouldn’t be too hard to do if we just wanted to

[joeries]

This isn't new!  Twelve  years, ago pre-Clovis points were found on the east coast, mainly Maryland, that dated to more than 20 thousand years ago. European seafarers, skirting the edge of the then ice sheets that extended down the east coast of America, across the Atlantic to Europe, allowed them to colonize the "New World". Clovis stone point technology began in Europe, southern France and Spain, and was further refined in the Americas. Human exploration at the time contributed to the development of peoples we now call "Native Americans".

[faarsight]

"On a completely different route"

Ok.. What route?! What's being suggested? Across the pacific? Across the Atlantic? What?