The question of whether Europeans migrated to the Americas sometime in prehistory has been a longstanding controversy. In fact, for over 200 years scholars have asked whether prehistoric Europeans possibly migrated to the Americas prior to Columbus’ discovery. For example, by 1891 a volume entitled America Not Discovered by Columbus, by Rasmus B. Anderson, contained a bibliography with some 350 sources on the topic. It listed claims of America’s discovery by Chinese, Arabs, Welsh, Venetians, Portuguese, and Poles. However, the majority of the references supported the notion of Vikings as the first Old World cultural group to reach the Americas.
This hypothesis was confirmed in 1960 when Norse ruins at L’Anse aux Meadows on the northern tip of Newfoundland were found by Helge Ingstad. More recently several sites and lines of evidence have been cited as supporting an even earlier migration of Europeans into the Americas. This hypothesis, called the Solutrean hypothesis, postulates that Upper Palaeolithic peoples from Europe utilizing Solutrean lithic technology migrated into the Americas during the late Pleistocene. Evidence supporting such an argument, however, remains elusive and highly controversial, primarily because the Solutrean ended in Europe at least 5,000 years before the first lithic technology appeared in the Americas. Likewise, archaeological, craniomorphological, and genetic evidence argues against any pre-Columbus European settlements in the Americas that lasted more than a few seasons. For a more indepth discussion of the prehistory of the Americas and the cultural affiliation of American Indians to other groups, I suggest you consult my book “Respect for the Ancestors: American Indian Cultural Affiliation in the American West” (Bauu Press, 2005).
My name is Peter N. Jones, Ph.D. I am a social scientists with the Bauu Institute in Boulder, Colorado where I work on environmental, psychological, and social science issues. Check out my books here: "Respect for the Ancestors: American Indian Cultural Affiliation in the American West" http://www.bauuinstitute.com/Publishing/RespectAncestors.htmland "American Indian mtDNA, Y Chromosome Genetic Data, and the Peopling of North America" http://www.bauuinstitute.com/Publishing/DNAbook.html.
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