Was Columbus the First European to Discover the Americas?

The question of whether Europeans migrated to andfauna recovered in the deepest culture-bearing
inhabited the Americas prior to the modern discoverystratum of several sites across the United States.
by Columbus has been of longstanding interest andHibben noted that the flaking technology of the
controversy. In fact, for over 200 years scholarsartifacts recovered from one of these sites - Sandia
have asked whether late Pleistocene (18,000-13,000Cave in New Mexico - more closely resembled the
years ago) or early to middle Holocene (12,000-5,000Solutrean technology of Paleolithic era France than
years ago) Europeans also might have migrated toClovis era fluted points from North America. The
the Americas prior to Columbus' 1492 discovery. TheSolutrean hypothesis, as a result of this cursory
question had been posed so often that by 1891 aevidence and the fact that the Clovis-first model is
volume entitled "America Not Discovered byno longer feasible, postulates that Upper Palaeolithic
Columbus," by Rasmus B. Anderson, contained apeoples from Europe utilizing Solutrean lithic
bibliography with over 350 entries on the topic. Ittechnology migrated into the Americas during the late
listed claims of America's discovery not only byPleistocene (18,000-13,000 years ago), most likely
Europeans, but also by Chinese, Arabs, Welsh,along the partially frozen North Atlantic. Evidence
Venetians, Portuguese, and Poles. However, thesupporting such an argument, however, has remained
majority of the references supported the notion ofelusive and highly controversial. One of the most
Vikings as the first Old World cultural group to reachnoteworthy limitations of the Solutrean hypothesis is
the Americas.the fact that primarily because the Solutrean ended in
This hypothesis was confirmed in 1960 when NorseEurope at least 5,000 years before the first
ruins at L'Anse aux Meadows on the northern tip ofrecognized lithic technology has been conclusively
Newfoundland were found by Helge Ingstad.dated for the Americas.
Evidence from L'Anse aux Meadows and a few otherLikewise, archaeological, craniomorphological, and
sites found on the north Atlantic coast indicates thatgenetic evidence argues against any pre-Columbus
Norse-related peoples settled a few outposts of aEuropean contact or settlement of the Americas. In
couple dozen individuals in North America aroundfact, there is a growing body of evidence and a
1,000 years ago. These outposts did not, however,number of sites that demonstrate long-term
lead to a viable, unique population in the Americas.indigenous growth and cultural development in the
Instead, they most likely only lasted a season orAmericas. Sites such as Gault and Cueva Quebrada in
two, based on radiocarbon dates obtained from theTexas, Monte Verde in Chile, Meadowcroft in
sites. Thus, if there was any contact with AmericanPennsylvania, and Cactus Hill in Virginia all point to a
Indians or First Nation peoples by Old World culturalpre-Clovis initial settling of the Western Hemisphere.
groups, it would have been scant and short-term.So did Europeans discover the Americas before
More recently, several sites and lines of evidenceColumbus? The evidence says yes. Did they migrate
have been cited as supporting an even earlier possibleto, or settle, the Americas prior to Columbus'
migration of Europeans into the Americas. Originallymodern-day colonial discovery? The evidence says
proposed by Nels C. Nelson in 1936 and laterno. The only people who migrated to, and settled,
supported by Frank Hibben, the Solutrean hypothesisthe Americas before the modern European colonial
has gained popularity in years as the Clovis-firstperiod, based on the latest empirical evidence, were
model of the peopling of the Americas has beenthe ancestors of today's American Indian, Alaskan
slowly debunked. The Solutrean hypothesis is basedNative, and First Nation peoples.
on leaf-shaped bifaces and the remains of extinct