The Solutrean hypothesis on the peopling of the Americas is the claim that the earliest human migration to the Americas began from Europe during the Solutrean Period, with Europeans traveling along pack ice in the Atlantic Ocean. This hypothesis contrasts with the mainstream academic narrative that the Americas were populated first by people crossing the Bering Strait to Alaska by foot on what was land during the Last Glacial Period or by following the Pacific coastline from Asia to America by boat. The Solutrean hypothesis posits that about 21,000 years ago a group of people from the Solutré region of France, who are characterized historically by their unique lithic technique, migrated to North America along pack ice in the Atlantic Ocean. Once they made it to North America, their lithic technique dispersed around the continent (c. 13,000 years ago) to provide the basis for the later popularization of Clovis lithic technology. The premise of the Solutrean Hypothesis is that the similarities between Clovis and Solutrean lithic technologies are evidence that the Solutreans were the first people to migrate to the Americas, dating long before mainstream scientific theories of the peopling of the Americas. The theory was proposed in 2004 by Dennis Stanford of the Smithsonian Institution and Bruce Bradley of the University of Exeter. However, according to David Meltzer, "[f]ew if any archaeologists—or, for that matter, geneticists, linguists, or physical anthropologists—take seriously the idea of a Solutrean colonization of America." The evidence for the hypothesis is considered more consistent with other scenarios. In addition to an interval of thousands of years between the Clovis and Solutrean eras, the two technologies show only incidental similarities. There is no evidence for any Solutrean seafaring, much less for any technology that could take humans across the Atlantic during an ice age. Genetic evidence supports the theory of Asian, not European, origins for the peopling of the Americas.
Origin of Solutrean culture Solutrean culture originated in present-day France, Spain and Portugal, from roughly 21,000 to 17,000 years ago. The Solutrean tool manufacturing epoch is a late intermediate stage, following microlithic miniaturization innovations and composite tool industries in the Aurignacian and Gravettian periods, between the mostly large-scale lithic industries of the Middle Paleolithic and the precision bone tools of the Magdalenian epochs, respectively, with an interlude termed the Badegoulian during the Last Glacial Maximum in which the lithic assemblage was specialised for the processing of osseous materials and wood. Solutrean tool-making employed techniques not done before and not rediscovered for millennia, distinguishing the Solutrean technique as far ahead of its time. The Solutrean toolmaking industry disappeared from Europe around 17,000 years ago to be replaced by the Magdalenian bone and flint-based industry and Epigravettian microlithic composite traditions, which were more often more expedient than Solutrean tools. Solutrean technology involves the restoration of bifacial reduction techniques that were largely abandoned, but refined, during the Gravettian and Pavlovian phases in Europe.
Characteristics of Solutrean lithic techniques
The most important and distinctive characteristic of Solutrean lithic techniques is the bifacial percussion-flaked points present in most Solutrean artifacts. This characteristic provides the primary foundation for evidence in support of the Hypothesis, as Solutrean and Clovis points share this commonality. The Clovis culture is a prehistoric Paleoamerican culture, named for distinct stone tools found near Clovis, New Mexico. When observed, both of these tools share common aesthetic features which have led to the speculation that Clovis points derived from Solutrean techniques. Clovis tools are characterized by a distinctive type of spear point, known as the Clovis point. Solutrean and Clovis points do have common traits: the points are thin and bifacial, and both use the "outrepassé", or overshot flaking technique, that quickly reduces the thickness of a biface without reducing its width. The Clovis point differs from the Solutrean in that some of the former have bifacial fluting, referring to the long groove carved into the bottom edge of a point to help attach it to the head of a spear. Bifacial fluting describes blades on which this feature appears on both its sides. Clovis toolmaking technology appears in the archaeological record in much of North America between 12,800 and 13,500 years ago. Older blades with this attribute have yet to be discovered from sites in either Asia or Alaska. The idea of a Clovis-Solutrean link remains controversial and does not enjoy wide acceptance. The hypothesis is challenged by the large gaps in time between the Clovis culture and Solutrean eras, a lack of evidence of Solutrean seafaring, lack of specific Solutrean features and tools in Clovis technology, the difficulties of the route, and other issues.
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