The two leading proponents of the Europe theory admit that many
scientists reject their contention, instead holding fast to the long-established
belief that the first Americans arrived from Siberia via a now-submerged land
bridge across the Bering Sea to Alaska.
The first of the Europe-to-North America treks probably took place at
the height of the last Ice Age more than 18,000 years ago, said Dennis
Stanford, curator of archaeology at the Smithsonian Institution's
National Museum of Natural History, and Milwaukee native Bruce Bradley,
an independent archaeological consultant and research associate of the
Carnegie Museum.
Stanford and Bradley contend that if the original migration came from
Europe, it would be logical to find more older sites in the eastern
United States, as has been the case in recent years.
The Kenosha County digs show that woolly mammoths were butchered by
humans here more than 13,000 years ago - at least 2,000 years older
than what was once thought to be the oldest site in the U.S.
Stanford and Bradley also point to recent DNA analysis involving a
particular genetic marker known as haplogroup X. The marker is found
in a minority of American Indians, including some in the Great Lakes
region, and Europeans, but is not found in Asians, suggesting an
ancestral link between Europe and North America.
The two plan to publish a book laying out their findings in about a
year, they said. They believe evidence in the book will win converts
to their theory.
"There are several competing theories," said Milwaukee archaeologist
David Overstreet. "All I know is people were here (in southeastern
Wisconsin) several thousands of years earlier than previously thought."
Overstreet, director of the Marquette University-affiliated Center for
Archaeological Research, has analyzed several southeastern Wisconsin
sites where piles of bones of mammoths that had been butchered by people
date back as far as 13,500 years ago.
The Kenosha County sites are among several eastern U.S. Ice Age sites
that have fueled the growing controversy over whether North America's
first people came from the Iberian Peninsula of Europe or from Asia.
"Whatever their source, Paleoindians appear to have reached the mid-
continent by 13,500 (years ago) and successfully exploited the
Pleistocene biomass (animals and plants) there for at least a millennium,"
Overstreet writes in a paper soon to be published in the international
journal Geoarchaeology.
It was a time when the inhabitants of the Northern Hemisphere lived in an
icy environment of vast glaciers, boreal forests, mastodons, saber-toothed
tigers and 1,000-pound cave bears.
In the more-accepted Asia theory, people migrated across a land bridge
over the Bering Sea and down an ice-free corridor to the American
Southwest, where they established a culture known as Clovis.
However, while artifacts unearthed near Clovis, N.M., date to more than
11,000 years ago, several sites in the eastern U.S., including the
Kenosha County sites, date to between 13,000 and 19,000 years, long
before Clovis.
"In the last half-dozen years, all this stuff is popping up in the eastern
U.S.," Overstreet said. "There is no question that somebody was in this
area (southeastern Wisconsin) mucking around with mammoths 12,000 to
13,000 years ago. The question is, where did they come from?"
Prehistoric travelers
In separate interviews, Stanford and Bradley offered some of the strongest
arguments:
With much of the world's water having been evaporated and converted to
ice, sea levels during the last Ice Age were as much as 400 feet below
today's levels.
An expanded coastal region probably extended from the Iberian Peninsula
in southwestern France and northern Spain to the southern tip of Ireland.
In addition, the Grand Banks, a series of submerged plateaus extending
several hundred miles off the coast of Newfoundland, probably were
above water.
The geological conditions meant the prehistoric travelers would have
needed to pull off only a 1,500-mile Atlantic Ocean crossing along
sheltered ice sheets teeming with easily hunted marine mammals and fish,
Bradley and Stanford said.
Stanford noted that 50,000 years ago or more, humans had become skilled
enough at open sea travel that they were able to arrive on the continent
of Australia. They most likely used small, animal-skin boats, taking
advantage of favorable sea currents.
"There would have been huge reserves of food," Bradley said.
The food, which probably included fish, seals, walruses and the now-
extinct great auk, actually may have been the motivation for their
wanderlust.
Overstreet added that the European glacier may have been cutting off
hunting areas, forcing those inhabitants to find new food sources.
"They certainly were on the move," he said. "These people were capable
of making that trip if they needed to."
'Completely crazy'
While Overstreet said he still has not completely accepted the new
theory, others flatly reject it.
"It is a highly improbable theory," said James Stoltman, a professor
emeritus of North American archaeology at the University of Wisconsin-
Madison. Stoltman said he did not think Stanford and Bradley presented
credible evidence to support their hypothesis.
Stanford and Bradley also point to the similarity between the bifaced
stone spear points found in the U.S. and the Solutrean area off the
north coast of Spain and dating to between 16,500 and 22,000 years ago.
However, while Solutrean and Clovis points are both bifaced, there are
major differences, said Thomas Pleger, who teaches Great Lakes archaeo-
logy at UW-Fox Valley.
Pleger said there just is no credible evidence to support a theory of
an Ice Age migration from Europe.
"It is a completely crazy and unsupported hypothesis," said Lawrence Guy
Straus, a professor in the anthropology department at the University
of New Mexico and an expert on the Upper Paleolithic period in Western
Europe. He also serves as editor of the Journal of Anthropological
Research.
Straus said there are major differences between bone and stone technology
used by Solutrean people and the Clovis culture of North America.
In addition, he said most of the British Isles, the supposed jumping-off
point for the migration, was covered with ice between 13,000 and 27,000
years ago.
There also is no evidence that the Solutrean people had acquired skills,
such as navigation, deep-sea fishing and marine mammal hunting, that
would have been needed to pull off such a migration, he said.
Ancestry in question
Straus also said the Stanford/Bradley theory has angered some American
Indian groups whose ancestry has been tied to Asia, not Europe.
"It is basically saying they weren't here first," Straus said.
However, at the same time traditional religious beliefs of many American
Indians fail to acknowledge any migration from another part of the world,
said John Norder, an assistant professor of anthropology who specializes
in American Indian matters.
Norder, who also is a member of the Dakota Sioux, said a common religious
belief among many American Indians is that their ancestors' land was
either created for them or that they came to it from an underworld.
Recently, some American Indians have incorporated the idea of their
ancestors crossing a Bering Sea land bridge, he said.
In the meantime, the theory of Stone Age Europeans discovering America
dominates the debate.
"People discuss it as being crazy and wish it would go away," said Straus.
"I'm amazed at the amount of attention."
Published in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on March 4, 2002. Journal
Sentinel Inc. is a subsidiary of Journal Communications, an employee-owned
company.