[blam]

...that eliminates the direct Africa route."

Luzia - 2nd oldest human skeleton ever discovered in the Americas. (Arlington Springs Woman is the oldest)

[Varda]

I happen to agree that individual early Americans may have come from many parts of the globe but basically we're talking the founding population here. The genetic diversity of native Americans in general is deep enough to suggest many thousands of years of separation.

I haven't seen any reports that the population has a close genetic link to Africa. The genetic evidence is that they're related to Asians and differentiated themselves from Asia starting at most 30,000 years ago. I've also seen claims that the genetic diversity can be accounted for with only 10,000 years of separation.