The Study That Sheds Doubt On The Clovis First Theory

As the story goes, the first people in the New World arrived approximately 13,000-11,000 years ago. These brave nomads are said to have pursued their prey through the icy corridor that broke within the glaciers that covered much of North America (via Big Think). From there, the fur-clad people migrated throughout the Western Hemisphere, leaving behind traces of their path in the form of stone tools known to archaeologists as Clovis points. They first emerged from the soil of Clovis, New Mexico in 1929. From then on, remarkably similar arrowheads — leaf-shaped with concave bases and a short flute for hafting — appeared across North America, per Britannica.

Over the years, dates older than 13,000 years have cropped up on archaeological sites in North and South America, causing some earnest skepticism of the single migration theory. Yet most archaeologists have received these pre-Clovis dates with an equal amount of skepticism, claiming the dates may have been flawed. But the evidence against the Bering Strait migration has mounted, with cutting-edge science revealing that humans inhabited the Americas long before the glacial corridor was exposed.

The migration pattern of the first Americans is anthropologically important and makes us ask how cultures travel and diversify. Whether it happens gradually or rapidly is an intriguing problem, as well as understanding how a single population can lead to the immense diversity in Native American cultures. Some archaeologists propose that a pre-Clovis migration occurred up to 30,000 years ago, thus allowing for more time to cover environmentally diverse regions both north and south. A site in Meadowcroft Rockshelter in Pennsylvania came up with a date of 19,400 years, with another site in Virginia showing a similar date. Other old sites include Buttermilk Creek, Texas, and Page-Ladson, Florida, as per Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission.

Older dates at the southernmost tip of South America also shed doubt on the Clovis First theory and support the likelihood of multiple migrations. National Geographic reported that new radiocarbon dates indicate that — if the Clovis First model is accurate — they would have had only 200 years to make it to the tip of South America; an unlikely event. John Johnson, an archaeologist at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History called early migrations "a process with people probably arriving at different times and taking different routes and potentially coming from different places." Although this was primarily speculative, later data would mount to support his statement.

In 2016, a study published by Cambridge showed the results of a radiocarbon test that indicated the ice-free path was not available to cross until 11,000 years ago. Furthermore, a March 2022 study used cosmogenic nuclide exposure dating to figure out how long the rocks in that region had spent exposed after the glaciers retreated. The study determined that the corridor opened around 13,800 years ago, "give or take 500 years," according to Jorie Clark of Oregon State University, who led the research team. Although areas of the corridor were exposed early on, researchers say it opened gradually and had not cut a full path until after humans populated the Americas (via Big Think).

Clark and his team favor the "Pacific Coast Migration Model," which claims humans traveled down the Pacific coast rather than through Canada, per Big Think. As far-fetched as this idea may seem, maritime travel in Southeast Asia was likely well underway by the time of New World habitation. In fact, there's strong evidence that humans covered the seas to make it to Australia up to 50,000 years ago or more. According to a 2019 study in Scientific Reports, the people of New Guinea, the Aru Islands, and Australia made sea voyages of up to 100 kilometers in prehistoric times.