Solutrean hypothesis

Examples of Clovis and other Paleoindian point forms, markers of archaeological cultures in North America.

The Solutrean hypothesis on the peopling of the Americas is the claim that the earliest human migration to the Americas began from Europe during the Solutrean Period, with Europeans traveling along pack ice in the Atlantic Ocean.[1][2][3] This hypothesis contrasts with the mainstream academic narrative that the Americas were populated first by people crossing the Bering Strait to Alaska by foot on what was land during the Last Glacial Period[4] or by following the Pacific coastline from Asia to America by boat.[5]

The Solutrean hypothesis posits that about 21,000 years ago a group of people from the Solutré region of France, who are characterized historically by their unique lithic technique, migrated to North America along pack ice in the Atlantic Ocean.[6] Once they made it to North America, their lithic technique dispersed around the continent (c. 13,000 years ago) to provide the basis for the later popularization of Clovis lithic technology. The premise of the Solutrean Hypothesis is that the similarities between Clovis and Solutrean lithic technologies are evidence that the Solutreans were the first people to migrate to the Americas, dating long before mainstream scientific theories of the peopling of the Americas.

Proposed originally during the 1970s, the theory has received some support during the 2010s, notably by Dennis Stanford of the Smithsonian Institution and Bruce Bradley of the University of Exeter.[7] However, according to David Meltzer, "[f]ew if any archaeologists—or, for that matter, geneticists, linguists, or physical anthropologists—take seriously the idea of a Solutrean colonization of America."[8] The evidence for the hypothesis is considered more consistent with other scenarios. In addition to an interval of thousands of years between the Clovis and Solutrean eras, the two technologies show only incidental similarities. There is no evidence for any Solutrean seafaring, much less for any technology that could take humans across the Atlantic during an ice age. Genetic evidence supports the theory of Asian, not European, origins for the peopling of the Americas.[9][10][11]

  1. ^ Bradley, Bruce; Stanford, Dennis (December 2004). "The North Atlantic ice-edge corridor: A possible Palaeolithic route to the New World" (PDF). World Archaeology. 36 (4): 459–478. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.694.6801. doi:10.1080/0043824042000303656. S2CID 161534521. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2021-04-22. Retrieved 2012-03-01.
  2. ^ Carey, Bjorn (19 February 2006). "First Americans may have been European". Live Science. Retrieved 2012-03-01.
  3. ^ "New evidence suggests Stone Age hunters from Europe discovered America". Independent.co.uk. 2012-02-28.
  4. ^ Mann, Charles C. (November 2013). "The Clovis Point and the Discovery of America's First Culture". Smithsonian Magazine.
  5. ^ James Dixon, E. (2001-01-01). "Human colonization of the Americas: timing, technology and process". Quaternary Science Reviews. Beringian Paleoenvironments - Festschrift in Honour of D.M. Hopkins. 20 (1): 277–299. Bibcode:2001QSRv...20..277J. doi:10.1016/S0277-3791(00)00116-5. ISSN 0277-3791.
  6. ^ Jochim, Michael (2012). "Chapter 4: The Upper Paleolithic". In Milesaukas, Suranas (ed.). European Prehistory: A Survey. Berlin: Springer. p. 84.
  7. ^ Vastag, Brian (1 March 2012). "Theory jolts familiar view of first Americans". The Washington Post. pp. A1, A9. Retrieved 2012-03-01.
  8. ^ Meltzer, David J. (2009). First Peoples in the New World. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 188.
  9. ^ Raff, Jennifer A.; Bolnick, Deborah A. (October 2015). "Does Mitochondrial Haplogroup X Indicate Ancient Trans-Atlantic Migration to the Americas? A Critical Re-Evaluation". PaleoAmerica. 1 (4): 297–304. doi:10.1179/2055556315Z.00000000040. ISSN 2055-5563. S2CID 85626735.
  10. ^ O'Brien, Michael J.; Boulanger, Matthew T.; Collard, Mark; Buchanan, Briggs; Tarle, Lia; Straus, Lawrence G.; Eren, Metin I. (2014-06-01). "On thin ice: problems with Stanford and Bradley's proposed Solutrean colonisation of North America". Antiquity. 88 (340): 606–613. doi:10.1017/S0003598X0010122X. ISSN 0003-598X. S2CID 131083970.
  11. ^ Straus, Lawrence Guy (April 2000). "Solutrean Settlement of North America? A Review of Reality". American Antiquity. 65 (2): 219–226. doi:10.2307/2694056. ISSN 0002-7316. JSTOR 2694056. S2CID 162349551.