# Earliest Americans?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-americans/726746>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [August 1, 2015, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-americans/726746 "2015-08-01T19:51:43Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\
**Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-americans/726746/21 "2015-08-04T18:49:46Z")

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> [@Lemur866](#):
>
> The Polynesian pacific settlement happened very recently, just in the past few thousand years. People have been living in the Americas for much longer than that, at least 20,000 and probably more like 30,000 years.

20,000 yes. 30,000… probably not. Where are you getting your source for "probably more like 30,000 years?

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**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\
**Post date:** [August 5, 2015, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-americans/726746/22 "2015-08-05T06:12:53Z")

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> [@Hari\_Seldon](#):
>
> The Australasians explored and settled the entire Pacific island region at least as far east as Easter Island (which is much farther from NZ as from Peru) so why would they not have gone on and found the Americas? It seems entirely plausible to me.

Easter Island wasn’t settled from New Zealand, though, but from closer islands. And nowadays, it looks like it was settled only in the last millennium, so wouldn’t be the source for South American prehistoric settlers. While there _are_ some signs of pre-Columbian contact between South America and Polynesia (Sweet potatoes, for instance), Polynesia itself wasn’t settled early enough to be contributive to the prehistoric South American population.

I see nothing too wild about the idea that the same root population that founded the [Taiwanese aborigines](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwanese_aborigines#/media/File:Tsou_youth_of_Taiwan_%28pre-1945%29.jpg) also contributed to the first pulses of human settlement through Beringia.

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