Circumpolar Boat People

[uniface]

Necessarily speculative, this reconstruction of the distant past will be of considerable interest to those trying to account for the distribution of people(s) and languages around the Arctic (and down the coast lines). What's new in it ? reconsidering the usual linguistically- and subsistance-based maps in light of the all-but-obvious : that boats would have been involved.

UI-RA-LA MAIN PAGE - THEORY OF EXPANSION OF PREHISTORIC BOAT PEOPLES

[drdave514]

I know this subject gets the heated debates going, especially if you start talking 12K BP, but I think the logic is highly reasonable and most likely probable but I don't really see any new information in there. It looks more like a convergence of a number of previously presented theories.

[uniface]

A lot depends on what you mean by "new."

For starters, the whole attraction of the Clovis from Siberia nonsense was the glacial land bridge.

We couldn't have them using boats -- too advanced too long ago

[comanche]

I really like the Collections of Boat drawings on rock,,,,Now that is substantial evidence in it's self.The Theory of water movement at 12BP.,,is I think,, where it becomes a Little specultative.
Interesting Read Uni,,,Thanks for posting////c

[joshuaream]

Thanks Uni, it's a neat read.

There is a lot out there on circumpolar animal research, specifically genetic spatial relationships between the different species found on the three northern continents, that opens some doors that I think have been ignored for a while. There are have several artic species (Caribou, Moose, Elk, Lynx, Wolves, Polar Bears, Walrus, Seals, Artic Fox, Wolverine, Lemmings, Hares, Owls, etc., etc.) that appear to have broken apart in to sub-species anywhere between 1M and 50K years ago across the three continents. The interesting twist is that as biologists have started looking at genomes, they've found that in many cases these populations managed to breed with stragglers from another population every 5K to 15K years. In the case of highly migratory animals, or predators that can swim and follow migrating animals, that contact was more frequent. The basic point is that if these animals could manage to float on an iceberg, walk, swim or fly across the Artic every couple of thousand years, then hunters following them certainly could have done so on occasion.

The use of a boat for moving between ice flows and island hoping would have helped, but the movement still could have happened without it.

[SouthernCalifornia]

I think its entirely possible for the americas to have been populated by boat people long long before Clovis. I feel that most people do not give the ancients enough credit when it comes to brainpower. They were just working with different technology.
They were undoubtedly extremely resourceful and the idea of wood floating on water was probably pretty easy for them to grasp...
There are islands here in southern california that have been inhabited for 12,000 years + and they certainly didn't swim across the channel. JMHO