Proposed dates for the first people in the Americas span more than 100,000 years. The oldest claim rests on Cerutti in California, published in 2017 as a 130,000-year-old site. The youngest widely accepted site is Swan Point in Alaska, at about 14,200 years. A new review from the University of Kansas tests each position against the genomes of ancient Native Americans.
The review, by Bethany Potter, Savannah Hay, Archana Singh and Jennifer Raff of the university's anthropology department, appears in Current Opinion in Genetics & Development volume 101. Potter and Hay contributed equally.
The Clovis First model gave way to older sites
For much of the 20th century, the leading model linked North America’s first inhabitants to the Clovis culture, about 13,500 years old. In this view, people from northeast Asia crossed Beringia and entered the continent through an ice-free corridor near the end of the Last Glacial Maximum. Older sites found later suggested people may have arrived before that corridor opened.
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