# Seafaring clue to first Americans



## Brian G Turner (Feb 29, 2004)

*Seafaring clue to first Americans*

*People in North America were voyaging by sea some 8,000 years ago, boosting a theory that some of the continent's first settlers arrived there by boat. *

That is the claim of archaeologists who have found evidence of ancient seafaring along the Californian coast. 

The traditional view holds that the first Americans were trekkers from Siberia who crossed a land bridge into Alaska during the last Ice Age. 

The report in American Antiquity makes arrival by boat seem more plausible. 

Researchers conducted an archaeological analysis of 9,000-8,000-year-old tools unearthed at Eel Point on San Clemente, one of the eight Channel Islands that lie off the Californian coast. They propose that some tools used by the prehistoric people of Eel Point may have had the same functions as implements employed for boat-building by Chumash Indians in the early 20th Century. 


For example, a triangular "reamer" tool from Eel Point closely resembles a Chumash "canoe drill" used to expand an existing hole in a wood plank. On this basis, archaeologists Mark Raab, Jim Cassidy and Nina Kononenko argue that the inhabitants of Eel Point were accomplished seafarers.



More: http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3517229.stm


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## littlemissattitude (Feb 29, 2004)

Cool stuff.  I wouldn't be a bit surprised at very early boat travel.  One has to remember, too, that there may be quite a bit of evidence of early Americans now drowned along the continental shelf.

Also, always nice to see the Chumash brought to the table in any archaeological discussion - they are the inhabitants native to the area of California where I grew up.  The Chumash had an incredibly complex culture and were a trading and seafaring people.


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## Brian G Turner (Feb 29, 2004)

What is a great shame is how so often ancient peoples are presumed to be incapable of making significant feats without the aid of modern engineering tools. 

The seafaring issue is really just one of many. It's always good to see some form of considered evidence being put forward for a wider interpretation of the ingenuity of the human mind in landscapes past.


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