The Fishing Link: A New Take on the Coastal Model of the Peopling of the Americas

[@akiranara9392]

Very informative, thank you. White Sands' Footprints in 23-21,000 BP has changed the time flame of the First Americans and ages in your chart should be adjusted to it in ice age. As for Japan side, it hadn't needed hopping to go up Kuril islands, because of floating ice covered in winter. 702 paleo lithic sites are found in northern island Hokkaido and Proto-Japanese had lived a life since around 35,000 BP.

[@vahnlewis9749]

0. I agree that a Pacific coastal migration route makes sense. As you point out there are bits of information for other routes, but these routes seemed to have less impact. Most of the evidence for the early coastal peoples is underwater. A search for underwater middens (of say: seas shells) might be interesting. 1. Sea currents in current Pacific. There are reports of unmanned Japanese fishing boats drifting onto the West coast of N America, similar to coconuts and hardwood drifting to the English coast. So a prehistoric Japanese fisherman could end up in N America by just drifting there on currents. Japanese coastal villages were inhabited about 30-35000 bp. 2. Seals as a sea area food source in addition to fish. While I agree that salmon could have been a food source, Dennis Stanford was impressed with how whole Alaskan Indigenous families move on ice flows to catch and prepare seals. 3. Mammoth hunting in pre-historic American East coast. Dennis Standford noted that offshore fisher men collect mammoth bones in dragnets, and in one case the mammoth bone had an embedded spear point made out of rhyolite in it. The history of prehistoric European travelers is likely under water. As far as I know, American Indian DNA contains both Asian and European DNA traces. The unanswered question is: how did it get there?

[@charleskelly1887]

Australia was colonized 40,000 years ago. That required seaworthy craft.

[@vahnlewis9749]

Or 65000, or 50000. Or rafts, as the water gaps were shorter (seas were lower). Australian natives were still using rafts in 1900's.

[@zipperpillow]

There's nothing here except grandpa's weekend armchair guesses. Why was this even posted? It's painful and fruitless. Also, this is not a "theory". It's an unfounded speculation.