[blam]

"Funny. I have some Chumash artifacts in my collection that date back to almost 8000 years. Perhaps you are incorrect."

Nah.

Maybe we can get FReeper Coyoteman to check-in on the subject. I believe he has done studies in this area.

[Coyoteman]

We have archaeological evidence from the Chumash area of habitation dated to 13,400 years ago. This was on Santa Rosa Island, off the Santa Barbara coast.

The current theory is that the earliest peoples were from an "early coastal migration" which probably came around the glaciers using watercraft, and settled the coast from at least Vancouver Island to southern California. The land bridge migration came a bit later, and inland. Over thousands of years, the two groups merged, but there are still some DNA markers that can be found.

Perhaps Kennewick Man's ancestors came during the "early coastal migration" which may have originated closer to Japan than Siberia. That would explain the different features which some have (incorrectly) identified as "European."

Either way, we have a lot of sites identified as Native American which predate 6,000 years.