The arrival and establishment of humans in the Americas was a key step in humanity's trek across the planet, but exactly when this milestone was achieved remains hotly contested. According to the evidence we have now, when did the first humans arrive in North America?
Based on stone artifacts dating to about 13,000 years ago, archaeologists for most of the 20th century suggested that the prehistoric Clovis culture was the first to migrate to the Americas. However, the site of Monte Verde in southern Chile, first discovered in 1975, was found to be about 14,200 years old. If people made it that far down in South America by that point — either after their ancestors crossed over the Bering Land Bridge that once connected Asia and North America, or traveling in watercraft along Pacific coasts — then earlier sites must exist in North America, Michael Waters, a geoarchaeologist at Texas A&M University, told Live Science.
