It ’s one of the most controversial ideas in archeology . Humans from Europe supposedly could have hybridize the frozen Atlantic and pass on America first . It ’s a outskirt approximation … but now two archaeologists have let go a Bible explain how it could have happened .
Intheir novel Holy Writ Across Atlantic Ice , University of Exeter archeologist Bruce Bradley and Smithsonian Institution fellow Dennis Stanford outline how they think former humans could have made it from Europe to the Americas between 18,000 and 25,000 year ago . The pair first proposed their controversial hypothesis thirteen yr ago , but their fresh book attempt to solve one of the guess ’s biggest problem : just how could humans have crossed the Atlantic ?
Earlier versions of this hypothesis had require Bradley and Stanford to propose the presence of advanced seafaring technology among these ancient homo that was on equivalence with what the Polynesians used to colonize the Pacific . Their novel estimation is rather less far - fetched , suggesting that climate condition during the time menses produce a sort of icy highway between France and North America . The generator say these ancient humans , known as the Solutrean civilisation , could have made it across the Atlantic manipulation technology known to be in their self-will .
Basically , they could have cut across the Atlantic using technology approximately along the same lines of how native Alaskans navigate the Arctic . Using small boats , the Solutreans could have squeeze the coast of the pack trash , melt iceberg ice for fresh water and catch fish and seal for food and fuel . Bradley and Stanford maneuver to the find of a 20,000 year old toolkit of bone needles that very intimately resemble those used by Eskimos today – so much so that ina late BBC programan Eskimo charwoman identified the artifact as belonging to her polish .
The major grounds driving Bradley and Stanford ’s speculation is the presence of artifacts found in six sites in the eastern United States date to somewhere between 18,000 and 26,000 yr ago . These tools more closely resemble that of the Solutrean culture that endured in Europe between about 21,000 and 17,000 long time ago than the Clovis cultivation that first appeared in North America about 13,000 years ago .
Bradley and Stanford offer that a comparatively belittled subset of the larger Solutrean technology made it all the way across the Altantic ice , and they were responsible for for these ancient tools in the eastern United States . As a much larger wave of man crossed into North America from Asia a few thousand years subsequently , the Solutreans were either wipe out or suck , and their tool technology was draw into that of Clovis .
It ’s surely an challenging idea , and the author can point to some compelling points of grounds , but that ’s really what they are : small stop awash in a sea of contradictory evidence . While the sea ice theory is possible – certainly far more potential than imagining Solutreans somehow crossing the overt Atlantic – there ’s very little evidence on either side of the Atlantic of any maritime refinement from that time . Besides , it ’s far from a certainty that the coterie ice rink so crucial to Bradley and Stanford ’s guess actually existed , at least to the necessary extent to allow for a transatlantic crossing .
There ’s also genetic evidence to consider . Two separate discipline of mitochondrial DNA undertake byBrazilian researcher in 2008andItalian researchers in 2011provide no evidence for a 2d beginning point for the American population , instead strongly intimate that the ascendant of indigenous Americans only enter the New World from Asia .
There are also mess of alternate ways to interpret the archeological evidence . Yes , there seem to be artifacts in the eastern United States that significantly predate any found around the Bering Strait , but that ’s hardly grounds that there are no similarly old artefact waitress to be light upon in Alaska . The resemblance between these American artifacts and those of the Solutrean culture are scratch , but far from conclusive – it ’s surely possible that it ’s all just a coincidence , peculiarly when you consider just how unlikely the storey is that would excuse how the Solutreans reached the Americas .
At the close of the day , the Solutrean possibility is a neat idea , even though it does make me a bit unquiet how it seems to recall old narratives about ripe ancient Europeans reach the Americas before anyone else and leaving behind super technology – I ’d say that resemblance is coincidental , but it is why I ’ve pointedly avoided calling the Solturean culture “ European ” throughout this post , favour “ homo from Europe . ”
For all the challenging evidence Bradley and Stanford have been able to marshal , this still seems like a lawsuit where they are bring up a monolithic change to known history to puzzle out a relatively pocket-size trouble . Our current geological dating of really ancient American artifacts is still far from perfect , but it does seem we have undecomposed evidence of pre - Clovis tools . But in good order now , it seems a hell of a heap easier to say human beings only crossed over from Asia to begin with than we thought they did than to presuppose an entire transatlantic trek .
ViaNew Scientist . Image by John Winkelman onFlickr .
ArchaeologyScience
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