How early humans reached North America, explained

Published August 15, 2018 This content is archived.

An article on Gizmodo UK about new research on how the first settlers of North America reached the continent that suggests that multiple pathways existed by the end of the last Ice Age interviews Alia Lesnek, a doctoral candidate in geology, who said the new paper provides a balanced analysis of the current ideas about how humans first colonized the Americas. “I agree with the authors that the jury is still out on how the Americas were colonized,” she said. “We have evidence from the coastal route that suggests it may have been traversable by humans as early as 17,000 years ago, but we haven’t found Pacific coastal archaeological sites that predate 13,000 years ago. On the other hand, a number of inland archaeological sites have been discovered, but there is still some disagreement among geologists about when the ice-free corridor could have supported a migrating human population.”