# The first inhabitants of the Americas came from the Bering Strait?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-first-inhabitants-of-the-americas-came-from-the-bering-strait/640936>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [November 14, 2012, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-first-inhabitants-of-the-americas-came-from-the-bering-strait/640936 "2012-11-14T00:58:04Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 4

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**Author:** ![Grim\_Render](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a87d85/32.png) [@Grim\_Render](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grim_Render)\
**Post date:** [November 21, 2012, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-first-inhabitants-of-the-americas-came-from-the-bering-strait/640936/61 "2012-11-21T12:59:26Z")

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> [@Colibri](#):
>
> I’m not sure we’re on different sides of the argument. My point is that, with so many islands in the intervening area in the western and central Pacific, one would expect some traces of an earlier colonization event in the islands if Australoids were in the habit of making long sea voyages and had reached the Americas via an oceanic route. They evidently didn’t colonize any of the islands of Polynesia, so the gap between Polynesia and the Americas would be even less likely to be crossed.

That relies on the assuption that they’d use the long route across the central Pacific. The further south you go, the shorter the trip gets. And if you go south off the coast of Tasmania, you go straight into a strong. stable current that goes straight to South America without hitting New Zealand or much chance of any islands on the way.

Its still an excpetionally long trip, and even in the faster areas of the current you’d take a long time (200 + days) in a very dangerous ocean.

I’d call such a crossing very unlikly, but with a number of people swept off to sea over tens of thousands of years, I couldn’t call it impossible that a single couple/group survived it.

> [@Esox\_Lucius](#):
>
> Finally found something on a [Pericu DNA study](http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001432.html)…  
> Besides the Pericus’ physical difference that was noted by the early Spaniards, their language was also unlike any other in the area.

If such a group survived up to the time where contact with the Spanish occurred, that doe smake me wonder about the Olmec stone heads, which seems to have no connection with Africa.

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**Author:** ![Esox\_Lucius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/848f3c/32.png) [@Esox\_Lucius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esox_Lucius)\
**Post date:** [November 22, 2012, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-first-inhabitants-of-the-americas-came-from-the-bering-strait/640936/62 "2012-11-22T04:51:51Z")

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> [@Grim\_Render](#):
>
> If such a group survived up to the time where contact with the Spanish occurred, that doe smake me wonder about the Olmec stone heads, which seems to have no connection with Africa.

[This Wikipedia page](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olmec_colossal_heads) says: _“The general physical characteristics of the heads are of a type that is still common among people in the Olmec region in modern times.”_

And someone on another forum posted [comparative photographs of the Olmec heads and modern day Amerindians](http://www.forumbiodiversity.com/showthread.php/37400-Ancient-Olmec-would-have-looked-like-this-%28Proto-Mongoloid%29). There’s a lot of similarity between them. While some skeletons seem to be evidence of a south Asian migration to the Americas, I don’t think the Olmec heads are.

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