Posted by . on February 26, 2004 at 17:01:32:
SAN CLEMENTE ISLAND, Calif., Feb. 26 (UPI) -- Archaeologists in California have found 8,000-year-old evidence that North America's first people arrived by boat, the BBC reported Thursday.
Researchers conducted an archaeological analysis of 9,000 tools unearthed at Eel Point on San Clemente, one of the eight Channel Islands that lie off the Californian coast.
Archaeologists Mark Raab, Jim Cassidy and Nina Kononenko suggest in a report published in American Antiquity some of the tools, such as a triangular reamer used to enlarge an existing hole in wood closely resembles a device used by the Chumash Indians in the last century.
Animal remains uncovered at the site show the inhabitants hunted dolphins, sea lions and seals and collected mussels.
Despite the findings, the prevailing theory remains that the first North Americans were the Clovis, who crossed into the New World from Asia when a fall in sea levels at the height of the last Ice Age created a land bridge, known as Beringia, between the two continents.