Ancient beachcombers may have travelled slowly

Earliest known human settlement in the Americas raises new questions

The sandy shore of the Chilean coast was 50 miles west of Monte Verde 14,000 calendar years ago. Early migrants are thought to have travelled to and from the ocean... Click here for more information.

New evidence, more questions. That's the thumbnail of the first new data reported in 10 years from Monte Verde, the earliest known human settlement in the Americas.

Evidence from the archaeological site in southern Chile confirms Monte Verde is the Americas earliest known settlement and is consistent with the idea that early human migration occurred along the Pacific Coast more than 14,000 years ago, but questions remain about just how rapidly that migration occurred.

"If all the early American groups were following a similar pattern of moving back and forth between inland and coastal areas, then the peopling of the Americas may not have been the blitzkrieg movement to the south that people have presumed, but a much slower and more deliberate process," says Tom Dillehay, professor of anthropology at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn., who led the study.

The journal Science publishes a report on the findings by Dillehay and team of international scientists in its May 9 issue.

"Monte Verde is an iconic site in New World archaeology and Americanist archaeologists recognize its importance," says John Yellen, program manager at the National Science Foundation, which funded the research. "They also agree that Tom Dillehay has conducted an outstanding program of research there."

Most scholars now accept that people entered North America through the Bering Strait land bridge before 16,000 calendar years ago. It is not known whether people colonized the Americas by moving along the Pacific coast, through interior routes or both.