About This Project

My research into ancient stone architectural ruins and construction methods is revealing that the first humans may have arrived in Chile by sea, and then migrated northward along the spine of the Americas.

I wrote about this recently in an article titled, “First Americans probably did not come from Siberia.” This path could add as much as 6,500-12,000 years to the known record of humans in the Americas. This research project funds the first phase of fieldwork to support my theory.

Ask the Scientists

What is the context of this research?

Since 1937, The Clovis Paradigm has been the basis of a general theory that the first humans to arrive in the Americas walked across the Bering Straits land bridge from Siberia, approximately 12,000 years ago. However, Mitochondrial DNA studies and the discovery of sites verified to be older than 12,000 years suggest humans arrived in South America much earlier. Clovis theory is based on stone tools. My methodology is based on extant ruins - engineered structures which suggest that those early arrivals to the Americas were far more advanced that the nomadic hunter-gatherers that Clovis would suggest. My research focuses on three sites of similarly constructed ruins beginning in Chile and terminating in New Mexico.

What is the significance of this project?

It is my contention that the humans that first arrived in the Americas were considerably more advanced than the primitive nomads suggested by Clovis. If they arrived in Chile they arrived by sea, which indicates they had an understanding of astronomical navigation and mathematics, which explains the complex engineering in the ancient sites in South America. By comparing the Chilean construction traditions to those found in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, we should be able to extend the timeline for the arrival of humans in the Americas by as much as 12,500 years, and prove these ancient immigrants were an advanced civilization, not wandering nomads, and help fill another gap in our understanding of the timeline of human civilization.

What are the goals of the project?

This project is a small piece of a much larger paradigm. The goal of this project is to establish a timeline for the arrival of humans in South America by sea, and then to connect the Chilean site to Chaco Canyon through migration along the spine of the Americas. The significance of the submerged Cuban site is that it helps establish the arrival date sometime before the sea level rise at the end of the last glacial maximum, and helps us establish a potential depth at which to then locate a now submerged point of arrival for these first Americans off the Chilean coast. Once that Chilean point of origin has been established, we can chart ocean currents back to the point of origin, and corroborate the findings of the Mitochondrial DNA studies to this southerly path.