Barely thirty years ago experts in the field of American Archeology would not admit to the presence of man anywhere on the continents of North and South America earlier than 12,000 years ago. American Upper Paleolithic archeology was not a part of the cirriculum in the universities of America. During a class in European Prehistoric Archeology at the University of Oklahoma under Dr. Robert Bell, we were informed of his participation in an important dig at Sandia Cave near Albuquerque, N.M. Although the lower level of occupation was clearly dated at 23,000 B.C. (Hibben, 1941), the experts refused to recognize it (Haynes & Agonino, 1986; Preston, 1995). Thirty years later things have changed somewhat. Site after site has been discovered in the Americas accumulating reliable dates back to at least 40,000 years ago.
Archeologists are slowly beginning to realize that to understand European prehistory, American prehistory must also be considered. The Solutreans of Spain, and possibly the Magdalenians, are now believed to have crossed the Atlantic using the southern Equatorial current and entered the Caribbean arena 18,000-12,000 years ago. From there they continued onto the American continents, eventually spreading both north and south.
Dr. Dennis Stanford of the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington, states: "We now know that human beings learned to sail 50,000 years before the present. Mankind settled in Australia then and it was not linked by any land bridge to Asia. It could only have been reached by boat. Clearly, we had mastered sailing tens of thousands of years before America was colonized, so we should not be surprised by the idea that people took boat trips across the Atlantic 18,000 years ago" (Stanford & Bradley, 2004)
Dr. Tom D. Dillehay (1999) of the University of Kentucky, writing from the perspective of accepting human occupation in South America before 12,000 B.P., states: "The most plausible scenario to explain the current archaeological evidence, regardless of an early or late entry date, is a founding migration of people moving rapidly from North America to South America along the Pacific coastline . . . It is likely that people arrived in the Southern Hemisphere no later than 15,000 to 14,000 years ago" (italics mine).
One such controversial site has been excavated, by Dillehay and others, at Monte Verde, Chile. Evidence was gathered and carefully analyzed (almost to the point of overkill) over the last two decades by a team of American and Chilean archeologists led by Dillehay. Early in 2006 a group of archeologists, including several of Monte Verde's most rigorous critics, visited the site and inspected the artifacts, coming away thoroughly convinced.
In his report of the site visit, Dr. Alex W. Barker, chief curator of the Dallas Museum of Natural History, said: "While there were very strongly voiced disagreements about different points, it rapidly became clear that everyone was in fundamental agreement about the most important question of all. Monte Verde is real. It's old. And it's a whole new ball game."
The once prevalent idea that Clovis spread throughout North America from a point of origin in the Arctic North, moving southward along an "ice-free corridor" between the continental glaciers, is no longer supported by the known distribution of sites. Clovis most probably entered the western hemisphere from the direction of the Caribbean, before dispersing into North and South America. Since much of the land area exposed during the Ice Age is now submerged, much archeological material is underwater making the exact time of entry into the Americas difficult to ascertain. (Stanford & Bradley, 2004)
The above admission opens up several other problems. Archeology is beginning to demonstrate clearly that Ice Age mankind was getting to the shores of the Americas. But to cross a 3,000 mile-wide ocean requires some technology and logistics that are not being faced. It take several weeks to cross a body of water as large as the Atlantic, which necessitates food, water and other supplies, which in turn require a sufficient amount of storage space. Therefore, we are not talking about small flimsy boats made of animal skins, and a crew of two. A crew of at least a dozen is far more likely.
The skull of the 15 year-old girl known as Minnesota Woman. Her remains were found beneath the layers laid down much later in the area by glacial Lake Pelican in Minnesota which had formed near the end of the Ice Age. (Blegen, 1975) Notice the "European-like" features of this specimen.
We are, therefore, postulating a ship at least as large as the average Viking vessel, or possibly as large as ancient Phoenician warships. Such would need to be propelled by sails or other means, which would necessitate a sizeable crew. Navigational knowledge and techniques (with the necessary instrumentation) must be assumed. The alternative to this is to admit the presence of a reasonably large land mass (and maybe some islands) in the mid-Atlantic during the Ice Age to shorten the trip.
And we shouldn't forget the archeological and anthropological evidence that several Ice Age "invasions" of Western Europe and Northwest Africa were originating from some unknown location to the west of those land masses during this same time-frame. It seems more reasonable to postulate the presence of a mid-Atlantic land mass with shorter ocean voyages to the east and the west than to theorize about long ocean voyages from starting points on the opposite side of the globe, when the home of the originating culture itself remains a total mystery.
Archeological sites have been discovered in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and South Carolina, dating back 15,000-18,000 years which demonstrate that ocean-going Solutreans may have first entered America from the direction of the Atlantic. Discussion of these and other Solutrean-Clovis connections took place during a recent convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Sometime earlier Dennis Stanford and Bruce Bradley had realized it was necessary to find artifacts in the Americas to bridge the gap in chronology between the Solutrean and Clovis cultures. So they scoured Clovis sites across the continent, places where other archeologists had been digging for years. Their first success came from a site called Cactus Hill, in Virginia, a point that resembled the Solutrean style--and it dated far earlier than the Clovis points. (Stanford & Bradley, 2004)
During the PBS interview, Dr. Stanford stated: "Here we have a projectile point from a feature that dates right at 15,900 years or 16,000 years ago, which is clearly right in the middle between Clovis and Solutrean. And what's really exciting about it is that the technology here is very similar to Solutrean. In fact it's closer to Solutrean than Clovis where you can see that it's in a progression between Solutrean and Clovis, so you have Solutrean, Cactus Hill and Clovis."
According to an interview by A. J. Hostetler, Newpaper Journalist (published in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, May 11, 2006), Stanford stated that his "testable model" rests at least in part on recent findings of early human settlements along the East Coast, including one possibly 17,000 years old along Virginia's Nottoway River called Cactus Hill.
Sandia Cave (Hibben, 1941), The Lewisville site (Krieger, 1957), Meadowcroft Rockshelter (Adovasio, et al., 1990), Cactus Hill (Dillehay, 1989), Monte Verde (Adovasio & Pedler, 1997), and numerous other more recent archeological discoveries, are beginning to fill in the chronological "void" between the time of the Solutreans in Europe and Clovis in America, leaving little doubt that human populations have been living in the Americas for at least 40,000 years. (Dillehay, 1999, et al.)
During the PBS interview, Stanford also noted that during the Ice Age a northern route to the Americas was also possible. He said that Ice Age fishermen and hunters "sailed the Atlantic in tiny boats made of animal skins 18,000 years ago and colonized the eastern United States." (Stanford & Bradley, 2004)
"The gap between Europe and America was greatly reduced," Stanford said. "It could have been quite feasible for fishermen and whale and seal hunters to sail around the southern rim of the packs of sea-ice that covered the North Atlantic and reach land around the Banks of Newfoundland."
Such a theory (allowing only "tiny boats") at least allows numerous stop-offs for shooting game and collecting ice to provide fresh drinking water. Since at present the possible existence of a relatively large Mid-Atlantic land mass is denied, such a possibility (however bleak) seems to be born more of necessity than of reason.
At that time the planet was in the grip of the Ice Age, and much of its high northern and southern latitudes were desolate. According to Stanford, "Such a journey would represent one of the most astonishing migrations ever undertaken--the Earth wastelands blasted by storms and blizzards." On the other hand, much of the planet's water was locked away in icecaps and glaciers, causing sea levels to be much lower than today's. This exposure of continental shelf would trim the open-ocean gaps to a minimum.
Stanford's theory--outlined at a recent archeology conference in Santa Fe, N.M.--is based on discoveries indicating ancient American people were culturally far more like the Stone Age tribes of France, Spain and Ireland than the Asian people whom scientists had previously thought to be the sole prehistoric settlers of North America. But what about their physical characteristics?
Dr. James C. Chatters, a University of Washington specialist in human osteology, while investigating what originally was taken to be a modern homicide, found himself analyzing the bones of a 9,000 year old skeleton. Upon examination, the 5 feet 9 inches tall specimen had "characteristics that are similar to those of Europeans"; also the skull had "fairly prominent brow ridges." (Chatters, 2000) Now known as Kennewick Man, this skeleton possesses many of the characteristics of our Atlantean Cro-Magnons.
The 9,000 year-old skull of Kennewick Man, found near the Columbia River in Washington.
Skulls found in North America dating back to the Ice Age are few in number. Dr. Douglas W. Owsley, Division Head for Physical Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Institution, has recently described the Kennewick skull, as well as certain other Ice Age American skulls, as being "long-headed and having a short face." ( Online)
In this regard, it should be noticed that several skulls found in the Americas dating older than 12,000 B.P. are long-headed (dolichocephalic) and short-faced. This odd combination is known among physical anthropologists as "disharmonism" and is a diagnostic trait of Cro-Magnon Man. Broad-faced, round-headed (brachycephalic) skulls most likely are remains of those who entered the Americas from Asia via the Bering land bridge.
It's rapidly becoming obvious that there was no "First American". The Americas were being populated as far back as 30,000-40,000 years ago by diverse people from all over the world. Today's anthropologists are finally admitting to "a surprising degree of diversity" among ancient skeletons scattered over the two continents. "In addition, signs of violence seen in the bones would seem to indicate the presence of different and competing peoples." (Morell, 1998; Owsley & Jantz, 1997, et al.)
The proximity of the western shores of Atlantis (not to mention possible islands) to the American continent does not appear to enter the equation among most academics. But anthropological remains (bones, skulls, or nearly complete skeletons) tell us much about the kinds of people who were coming here during the Ice Age. On my Anthropology page I mentioned that Cro-Magnoid skulls had been found deep in South America--even as far south as Chile. And throughout this web site I have presented clear evidence that the particular type of man known as Cro-Magnon originated in Atlantis.
On 9 September 2004 during the international "Early Man in America Seminar" in Mexico City, an archeological team from Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History reported one of the most significant finds in recent American archeological history. Three well-preserved skeletons were discovered in underwater caves off the coast of the Yucatan peninsula. Archeologist Arturo Gonzalez led the dive team. The skeletons were found in 65-foot-deep water. Charcoal samples were recovered and sent to the University of California in Riverside, where they were carbon-dated at over 13,000 B.P. Such a find as this is strongly indicative of an "Atlantic" connection.
Drs. Stanford and Bradley point out important discoveries in genetics which have been made by researchers at Emory University and the Universities of Rome and Hamburg. Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), which is inherited exclusively from the mother, normally contains four markers called haplogroups, labeled A, B, C, and D. These four are shared by 95 percent of Native Americans.
Recently, however, the genetics team identified a fifth haplogroup, called X, which is present in about 20,000 modern Native Americans, and has also been found in several pre-Columbian populations. A most interesting fact is that haplogroup X is also present in European populations but absent from Asians. The geneticists' research suggests the marker appears to have arrived in the Americas 12,000 to 34,000 years ago, not from Asia, but from Europe. (Greenberg, 1986)
In addition to the European Marker X in North America, the Araucanians natives of Chile also have significant Paleolithic Caucasian genes in them, most likely arriving from Spain 18,000-12,000 years ago. It is common for Araucanians to have curly reddish brown hair and green eyes. (Bonnichsen, Lepper, Stanford & Waters)
I have long suspected that the Araucanians of Chile might be of Cro-Magnon descent, since several Cro-Magnoid skulls have been found in that area; and I have also wondered if the language of the Araucanians is in any way related to the Berber-Ibero-Basque Language Complex. It is my hope that some linguist familiar with the native languages of South America will do a study on those languages from that point of view. We could have descendants of Ice Age Atlanteans scattered throughout the massive continent of South America.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Bonnichsen, Robson, Lepper, Bradley T., Stanford, Dennis, Walters, Michael R., (editors) "Paleoamerican Origins: Beyond Clovis." (Peopling of the Americas Publication).
Blegen, Theodore C., "Minnesota: A History of the State," University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1975.
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Hostetler, A.J., Richmond Times-Dispatch, 11 May 2006.
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