SANTA FE, N.M. — In a radical view of prehistory, two prominent archaeologists say North America's first inhabitants may have crossed the icy Atlantic Ocean about 18,000 years ago from Europe's Iberian Peninsula.
The theory, presented at a weekend conference, is at odds with the long-held notion that the continent's first settlers came from Asia.
The conventional view is the stuff of college entrance exams and "Far Side" cartoons — wandering cavemen wrapped in animal hides and lugging enormous spears, crossing the land bridge from Asia to hunt woolly mammoths.
Archaeologists say some nomads almost certainly made their way into Alaska and found an ice-free highway down into the continent about 13,500 years ago. Their culture has been named Clovis for their distinctive weapons that have been found in digs nationwide.
But according to the new theory, the continent's first inhabitants may have crossed the Atlantic more than 18,000 years ago from Europe's Iberian Peninsula — the area that is now Spain, Portugal and southwestern France.
Belonging to a group known as the Solutreans, these premodern explorers are believed to have originally settled the Eastern seaboard, according to the researchers. Over the next six millennia, their hunting and gathering culture may have spread as far as the American deserts and Canadian tundra, and perhaps into South America.
The researchers, Dennis Stanford and Bruce Bradley, concede that the Solutreans may not have been the only paleo-explorers to reach the Western Hemisphere. But judging by their distinctive style of projectile points and other clues in the archaeological record, they may have been the first settlers who brought to North America what, until now, has been considered the Clovis culture.
"There is very little in Clovis — in fact, nothing — that is not found in Solutrea," said Stanford, who is anthropology curator at the Smithsonian Institution. "Their blades are virtually indistinguishable."
Stanford and Bradley, an independent researcher from Cortez, Colo., offered their stunning reinterpretation of the standard settlement theory at an archaeological conference in Santa Fe.
The meeting was devoted to re-examining Clovis research seven decades after it was accepted as historical bedrock.
Other scientists say the Solutrean alternative is such a radical departure that it might take years to adequately evaluate. Stanford and Bradley's new explanation, they noted, is based primarily on comparisons of projectile points and other artifacts already discovered on both sides of the Atlantic.
No unequivocal Solutrean settlement remains have been found in North America, they said.
How seafaring Solutreans could have arrived in North America is unknown.
Based on his knowledge of modern native cultures above the Arctic Circle, Stanford said it is not farfetched to imagine Solutreans sailing to the New World in skin boats.
