Human remains discovery 'rewrites' history of how the Americas were first colonised

A remote chain of islands off the coast of California could hold the clues to rewriting the story of America’s first inhabitants.

California’s own Channel Islands are home to 13,000-year-old human remains, ancient settlements and archaeological evidence that suggests some of the earliest people to reach North America may have arrived by boat rather than travelling through an inland route from Siberia.

If the theory is correct, it would challenge the long-held belief that the first Americans crossed a land bridge between Siberia and Alaska before moving south through an ice-free corridor in western Canada.

Instead, researchers believe some early migrants may have followed a Pacific coastal route known as the “kelp highway”, using boats to travel along the shoreline and settle areas including the Channel Islands.

The islands have also revealed the remains of pygmy mammoths and remarkably preserved archaeological sites, offering scientists a rare glimpse into life during the Ice Age.

Researchers say the discoveries point towards a forgotten maritime migration that could transform understanding of how humans first spread across the Americas.

However, not all archaeologists agree the Channel Islands provide definitive proof of an early coastal migration.

While there is now broad agreement that humans were present in the Americas before the Clovis culture, experts continue to debate when the first settlers arrived and whether they travelled by sea, land or a combination of routes.

The eight California Channel Islands sit in the Pacific Ocean off Southern California, stretching from Point Conception near Santa Barbara to waters south of Los Angeles.

A new documentary released on June 30 by YouTube channel Timeline has renewed interest in the discoveries and the unanswered questions surrounding the islands.

Author Frederic Caire Chiles, who holds a PhD in history from the University of California at Santa Barbara, described the islands as “the trace of a vanished world”.

The four northern islands, San Miguel, Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz and Anacapa, have not always been located where they are today.

Geologists believe they were once much farther south, close to present-day San Diego, before tectonic movement gradually shifted them northwards and rotated them by around 110 degrees.

The islands have become a major focus for archaeologists because their ancient deposits have remained unusually well preserved, protecting evidence that has disappeared elsewhere due to rising seas and thousands of years of human activity.

One of the most significant discoveries was Arlington Springs Man, whose remains were found on Santa Rosa Island and later dated to at least 13,000 years old.

The bones were discovered in 1959, around 37 feet beneath layers of waterlaid sand, mud and gravel.

Dr Thomas Stafford, a geologist and radiocarbon dating specialist, said testing carried out in 2001 showed the remains were the oldest dated human skeletal remains in North America at the time.

The discovery was particularly significant because the remains are around the same age as the Clovis culture, which was once regarded as the earliest known population in the Americas.

Unlike Clovis sites, however, Arlington Springs Man was found on an offshore island, suggesting early inhabitants may already have possessed advanced seafaring abilities.

The Clovis people were known for their distinctive fluted spear points and were traditionally believed to have entered North America through an ice-free corridor in Canada.

The Channel Islands discoveries raised the possibility that another population reached the continent by following the Pacific coast instead.

The presence of humans on an island thousands of years ago created a major archaeological question, as reaching the area would have required boats and maritime skills much earlier than many researchers previously believed.

This idea is known as the “kelp highway” hypothesis.

Dr John Johnson, curator of anthropology at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, said: “All the way from Japan to Baja California, there are kelp forest ecosystems that have very similar suites of animals.

“This connects with the whole idea of a coastal migration, an ancient coastal migration where people would have been using watercraft and going around glaciers when they encountered them and working their way down until they came to California.”

He added: “People showed up on this island 13,000 years ago or thereabouts and evolved through time into the group we know as the Chumash.”

The Chumash people’s ancestral homeland includes California’s central and southern coastline as well as the four northern Channel Islands.

During the Ice Age, mammoths lived across a larger landmass that connected the northern islands before eventually evolving into smaller forms known as pygmy mammoths.

The species disappeared around the same period humans arrived on the islands, leading some researchers to suggest early inhabitants may have encountered or hunted the miniature animals.

For thousands of years, the islands remained home to Chumash ancestors, who developed sophisticated maritime societies and traded shell bead currency with communities on the mainland.

The arrival of Portuguese explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo in 1542 marked the first recorded European contact with California and transformed life on the islands.

“This was the furthest projection of Europe into a world that they knew nothing about,” one historian said.

Disease, colonisation and social disruption later devastated Indigenous communities and contributed to the abandonment of some island settlements.

One of the most famous stories linked to the islands is that of the “Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island”, who survived alone for around 18 years before being rescued in 1853.

Her story later inspired the novel Island of the Blue Dolphins.

Today, researchers believe the Channel Islands still contain many undiscovered clues hidden beneath their landscapes and surrounding waters.

During the Ice Age, sea levels were hundreds of feet lower, meaning areas now submerged may once have been dry land inhabited by some of America’s earliest settlers.