The First Americans, Part 2
TheClovis-First model says humans reached the Americas by trekking overland, butothers propose the earliest travelers arrived by sea, paddling small boatsalong the coast, from East Asia to southern Beringia and down the western coastof the Americas. Scientists first began thinking about this route in the late1970s, when they started examining geologic and pollen records to reconstructancient environments along Canada's western coast. Instead of the entirenorthwestern coast laying under thick ice, analyses of coastal bogs showed thata coniferous forest thrived on Washington's Olympic Peninsula 13,000 years ago,and that other green refuges dotted the coast. Early humans camping in thesespots would have found plenty of shellfish, salmon, waterfowl and caribou orother land animals grazing in the larger spots.
In fact,it is now known that much of the British Columbian coast was ice free at least16,000 years ago. Although they haven't found any preserved boats, they wereknown to humans at least 45,000 years ago when humans island-hopped from Asiato Australia. Still, finding campsites of these exploring mariners are hard tofind. This is because as the ice sheets melted, the sea level rose, drowningancient coastlines under meters of water. However, in March 2011, evidence ofearly seafarers was found on Santa Rosa Island, just off the southernCalifornia coast. Nearly 12,000 years ago, Paleo-American sailors crossed 10kilometers of open water to Santa Rosa, which would have required a boat. Birdbones and charcoal found at the site were dated to 11,800 years ago.
Thesetravelers had hunted Canada geese and cormorants as well as pinnipeds (sealsand sea lions). They also left behind distinctive technology, more than 50dainty stemmed points that may have been part of darts used for hunting. Theirdesign seemed very unlike the long, furrowed and sturdy-looking Clovisspearpoints. Very similar stemmed points were found scattered around thenorthern rim of the Pacific Ocean. The earliest came from the Korean peninsula,Japan and the Russian Far East, and were dated to around 15,000 years ago.Stemmed points found in Oregon were dated at 14,000 years old, and12,000-year-old points were found on the Channel Islands, in Baja Californiaand along coastal South America.
Even so,explorers of this rich coastal world were unlikely to have raced southward.They may have moved just a kilometer or so a year. They were moving intounpopulated lands, and had to maintain connections with people behind them inorder to have marriage partners available.
