3 times.
I count us because it was no different than any of the other times.
Maybe 5 times.
The simple answer is that people had boats, they could travel great distances and were used to doing that, and when you come to America it is exceptionally difficult to GO BACK the other way.
When you are here you are here!
We have many beaucoup Salvadorans around here. They can pass for Yakut/Sakha or Japanese ~ with absolutely no problem. However, they're probably not descended from Japanese because they don't have the molars with the 5 roots (from the Emeshi/Jomon/Ainu in Japan) ~ 40% of modern Japanese have such teeth.)
However, to pass for a group you probably share a substantial ancestry with them ~ in this case that would be the Yakut/Sakha prior to their contact with the Emeshi/Jomon/Ainu and the peoples of the Yayoi culture in Japan (circa 560 AD).
Which raises a good question about the Yakut/Sakha. Did the same group that was able to conquer Korea and Japan (with a technology equal to that of the Chinese) in the 6th Century AD also able to navigate the Pacific to get to Central America?
Odds are good they could, and did, and are still around here.
The way I see it, the only remaining question about American settlement before Columbus is what kind of boats did they use?
“3 times.
I count us because it was no different than any of the other times.”
Well, I’m not entirely on the same page with you. Having both an Indian and Anglo side to my acestry, I’ll submit that my Anglo ancestors did a lot better job of it.
Western civilization, and Christian religion have it all over aboriginal lifestyles, and animist religions. Just my opinion, but I would have been dead within a year if I’d been born into the Cherokee tribe 300 years back.
Not terribly interested in starting a casino, but I never viewed such an operation as an icon of a society. ;-)