Pre-Columbian transoceanic contact theories

For the prevailing models which describe the geographic origins and early migrations of humans in the Americas, see Peopling of the Americas. For further information about Native American genetic heritage, see Genetic history of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. For evidenced pre-Columbian communication across the Bering Strait, see Pre-Columbian trans-Bering Strait contact.

Reenactment of a Viking landing in L'Anse aux Meadows

Pre-Columbian transoceanic contact theories are speculative theories which propose that visits to the Americas, interactions with the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, or both, were made by people from elsewhere prior to Christopher Columbus's first voyage to the Caribbean in 1492.[1] Studies between 2004 and 2009 suggest the possibility that the earliest human migrations to the Americas may have been made by boat from Beringia and travel down the Pacific coast, contemporary with and possibly predating land migrations over the Beringia land bridge,[2] which during the glacial period joined what today are Siberia and Alaska. Whether transoceanic travel occurred during the historic period, resulting in pre-Columbian contact between the settled American peoples and voyagers from other continents, is vigorously debated.

Only a few cases of pre-Columbian contact are widely accepted by mainstream scientists and scholars. Yup'ik and Aleut peoples residing on both sides of the Bering Strait had frequent contact with each other, and European trade goods have been discovered in pre-Columbian archaeological sites in Alaska.[3] Maritime explorations by Norse peoples from Scandinavia during the late 10th century led to the Norse colonization of Greenland and a base camp L'Anse aux Meadows[4] in Newfoundland,[5] which preceded Columbus's arrival in the Americas by some 500 years. Recent genetic studies have also suggested that some eastern Polynesian populations have admixture from coastal western South American peoples, with an estimated date of contact around 1200 CE.[6]

Scientific and scholarly responses to other claims of post-prehistory, pre-Columbian transoceanic contact have varied. Some of these claims are examined in reputable peer-reviewed sources. Many others are based only on circumstantial or ambiguous interpretations of archaeological evidence, the discovery of alleged out-of-place artifacts, superficial cultural comparisons, comments in historical documents, or narrative accounts. These have been dismissed as fringe science, pseudoarchaeology, or pseudohistory.[7]

  1. ^ Riley, Carroll L.; Kelley, John Charles; Pennington, Campbell W.; Rands, Robert L. (2014). Man Across the Sea: Problems of Pre-Columbian Contacts. University of Texas Press. p. 9. doi:10.7560/701175. ISBN 9781477304778. JSTOR 10.7560/701175. OCLC 1301929527.
  2. ^ Wade, Lizzie (August 10, 2017). "Most archaeologists think the first Americans arrived by boat. Now, they're beginning to prove it". Science.
  3. ^ Kunz, Michael L.; Mills, Robin O. (April 2021). "A Precolumbian Presence of Venetian Glass Trade Beads in Arctic Alaska". American Antiquity. 86 (2): 395–412. doi:10.1017/aaq.2020.100. ISSN 0002-7316. OCLC 9008993516. S2CID 233337921.
  4. ^ Kuitems, Margot; Wallace, Birgitta Linderoth; Lindsay, Charles; Scifo, Andrea; Doeve, Petra; Jenkins, Kevin; Lindauer, Susanne; Erdil, Pınar; Ledger, Paul M.; Forbes, Véronique; Vermeeren, Caroline; Friedrich, Ronny; Dee, Michael W. (January 2022). "Evidence for European presence in the Americas in ad 1021". Nature. 601 (7893): 388–391. Bibcode:2022Natur.601..388K. doi:10.1038/s41586-021-03972-8. ISSN 0028-0836. OCLC 9389057830. PMC 8770119. PMID 34671168.
  5. ^ Linda S. Cordell; Kent Lightfoot; Francis McManamon; George Milner (2008). Archaeology in America: An Encyclopedia [4 volumes]: An Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. pp. 82–83. ISBN 978-0-313-02189-3.
  6. ^ Ioannidis, Alexander G.; Blanco-Portillo, Javier; Sandoval, Karla; Hagelberg, Erika; Miquel-Poblete, Juan Francisco; Moreno-Mayar, J. Víctor; Rodríguez-Rodríguez, Juan Esteban; Quinto-Cortés, Consuelo D.; Auckland, Kathryn; Parks, Tom; Robson, Kathryn (July 8, 2020). "Native American gene flow into Polynesia predating Easter Island settlement". Nature. 583 (7817): 572–577. Bibcode:2020Natur.583..572I. doi:10.1038/s41586-020-2487-2. ISSN 0028-0836. PMC 8939867. PMID 32641827. S2CID 220420232.
  7. ^ Fagan, Garrett G. (2006). "Diagnosing pseudoarchaeology". In Fagan, Garrett G. (ed.). Archaeological Fantasies: How Pseudoarchaeology Misrepresents the Past and Misleads the Public. Psychology Press. p. 405. ISBN 978-0-415-30592-1.