For over 70-years the commonly held, scientific belief among anthropologists and archaeologists is that the earliest known settlers to the continent of North America date not much further than 12-14,000 years ago.
The proposed people were of Asian descent who migrated across the Bering Straight land bridge in the last ice age. These people today are directly related to Inuit and Eskimo tribes, as well as the Native American tribes.
This theory has stood up to scientific scrutiny making the land bridge migration one of the more well-attested facts in archaeology and anthropology. To the scientists, these paleo-indian people are commonly referred to as the
Clovis People. Their name derives from one the first and oldest sites found in Clovis, New Mexico, that helped spark interest in American anthropology.
From the first initial discoveries of bone, pottery, and weaponry, it was commonly accepted to cap the migration at around 12-14,000 years ago, and that no human (or Pre-human) population existed in the Americas before this time.
Over the last 15 or so years, mounting evidence to the contrary has been surfacing pointing to a much earlier migration -- as early as 25,000 years in pre-history. Physical evidence in the form of arrowheads, bone structure, and DNA point to something even more bizarre. The theory, known as the
Solutrean Hypothesis, alleges that early Europeans in the South of France, known as the Solutrean people, migrated thousands of years before the Clovis people. They are also referred to as "Pre-Clovis."
This theory has met considerable resistance over the years for challenging long accepted anthropological history about the America's. Some reject the theory out of hand and others have grown more accepting of the theory as new evidence emerges.
I would like to discuss any and all things relating to this topic to hear points on both sides of the argument, because quite honestly I don't know much about it but am intrigued by it.
What I do NOT want is this thread being hijacked by Young-earth creationists postulating that the earth is only 6-7,500 years old and that the whole anthropolgical history is bunk.
With that, were there people in America before 12,000 years ago, and if so, were they European, and if so, how did they get here and what was their fate? Did they copulate with other indigenous populations and become assimilated? Were they massacred? What happened to them, or did they not exist at all?
Is the
Solutrean Hypothesis valid?
"Political correctness is tyranny with manners." -- Charlton Heston
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