A research article published now, by Bethany Potter, Savannah Hay, Archana Singh, and Jennifer Raff (Genomic insights regarding early migrations into the Americas, Current Opinion in Genetics & Development. Volume 101, 2026, 102534, ISSN 0959-437X, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gde.2026.102534), explores the three alternatives for the peopling of America and chooses the middle of the road one. These alternatives are (1) Clovis First, sooner than 14,000 years ago, (2) Older than 25,0000 years before the Last Glacial Maximum, and (3) In between, from 21,000 to 14,000 years ago.
As expected, they accept a late peopling of Siberia, source of Native Americans, and mention the Yana River sites, 32,000 years ago. They choose the intermediate dates for genetic reasons, based on the current DNA studies (which, may I point out, set their dates based on the fossils!! A vicious circle.
They discard the older dates (older than 25,000 years) because of a lack of pre-sapiens sites (which, by the way, nobody looks for because it is not even considered as an option). The authors write: "If human paleogenomic data were recovered from the earliest claimed sites, we would expect such genomes to belong to Neanderthals, Denisovans, or an unknown lineage of early humans rather than to H. sapiens"
Then, they take the Out of Africa date (60,000 to 70,000 years ago) and agree that humans could have reached America around 40,000 years ago but "Patterns of archaic admixture present in the oldest Native American genomes (such as Upward Sun River, Anzick) are inconsistent with such a scenario ... the presence of humans in the Americas even shortly before the LGM is not immediately compatible with the genetic evidence present in ancient and contemporary Native Americans"
The evidence of an early presence of humans in America (like White Sands, NM, USA, which are 21,000 years old) is acknowledged and swept under the carpet: "Therefore, purported pre-LGM populations, such as the White Sands population (Table 1) must either belong to a lineage we have not yet sampled (unsurprising as we have very little genomic data from the Americas), a lineage that left no contemporary descendants, or perhaps a lineage that contained traces of ancestry seen in low proportions in later Native Americans, such as Population Y" (See my post on Population Y). And that is that.
The closing comments, mention that "Much of Homo sapiens’ evolutionary history involves repeated dispersals into continents that had already been inhabited by so-called ‘archaic’ hominins for hundreds of thousands of years. Genomic data show us that the dynamics of the peopling of the Americas were quite different..." This is true, but nobody has seriously looked for pre-sapiens presence in America. The Clovis Firsters, the lack of research funds in South America, the discrediting of old sites (i.e. Pedra Furada —mentioned in the paper with its name and 40 ky date, but not discussed. The same with Cerutti (∼130.0 kya), Topper (∼50 kya), and Chiquihuite Cave (∼32.0 kya). All sites are marked as "most contested" by mainstream orthodox archaeologists.
Comment
This article is a step in the right direction. It actually mentions the lack of archaic hominins in America. Neanderthals, H. erectus or Denisovans are never mentioned when the peopling of America is discussed. So, this is positive. Second, the date, though not old enough for my liking is slowly pushing the accepted dates into the 20,000s BP. Finally, DNA studies which set dates based on "facts" from archaeology should revise these "facts". If humans appeared earlier than 300 kya, or if the OOA event never existed, it would surely shake up the conclusions made by geneticists based on these "facts".
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