Over the past twenty years....there’s been dozens of bits and pieces to suggest humans in the Americas way past 13,000 years ago. The establishment has fought them tooth and nail. This group here? They’ve spent twenty years going over one single site and the evidence at that site. It’s air-tight.
Not that surprising. Assuming humans traveling less than 1 mile per day, it would only take about 10,000 years to go half way around the planet.
Why would this be such a heated question? I know Native American groups like to think of themselves as the original Americans, but that surely shouldn't cow serious researchers. Then there is the ever-intriguing question of why civilization arose where it did, and why, with the Americas and sub-Saharan Africa noticeably lagging. I had the notion that relatively short habitation of the Americas functioned as something of a mitigating factor. Jared Diamond made a splash awhile back with Guns, Germs, and Steel (which I never found very persuasive), but I've not read enough of the literature to comment with any confidence. So: why is an earlier human presence in the Americas a touchy subject?
1491.
You mean that what is today North America wasn’t a pristine land mass devoid of humans before the migration across the Bering land bridge?! Who woulda thunk...? /s
Fascinating subject and yet another shining example of the idiocy of the very concept of “settled science”. I’ve been doing independent research on this subject for years and what we call “Native Americans” today - and I are one, at least partially - were certainly not the first and only “original” inhabitants of North America.
Many American tribes, including the Paiute, Nez Perce, Navajo, Choctaw and many others, have legends of “white giants” that occupied North America long before their own people. Somehow, like any accounts of the “discovery” of America prior to 1492 (scientists finally - and reluctantly - agree that the Norse actually did come to America around 1,000 AD), such accounts are summarily discounted and all evidence that contradicts “settled science” seems to disappear from the public record.
Like our exploration and understanding of the oceans, our knowledge of the ancient history of the Americas is very, very limited.