Who Got Here First?

Two prominent archeologists say North America's first inhabitants may have crossed an icy Atlantic Ocean some 18,000 years ago from Europe's Iberian Peninsula - the area that is now Spain, Portugal and southwestern France.

The "Out of Iberia" theory is at odds with the long-held notion that the continent's first settlers came across a land bridge from Asia.

Archeologists say some nomads almost certainly made their way into Alaska and found an ice-free highway down into the continent some 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 belonged to a group known as Solutreans. These pre-modern explorers may 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, say 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 archeological 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 archeology conference in Santa Fe.

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 note, 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.

Researchers who believe Clovis and the Bering Sea land-bridge theory is outdated point to sites at Monte Verde, Chile as well as Pennsylvania, Virginia and South Carolina as being settled in 12,500 B.C. to 16,000 B.C.

But Clovis defenders say many artifacts from those digs are so crude that they may be rocks that have broken naturally rather than stone tools fashioned by prehistoric hands.

Still, observers said, the older Solutrean projectile points from Europe and the more recent Clovis points from the Americas closely resemble each other. That's what makes the new theory so tantalizing.

"There is no question about it," Kent State University archeologist Kenneth Tankersley said. "There are only two places in the world and two times that this tehnology appears - Solutrean and Clovis."

How seafaring Solutreans could have arrived in North America is unknown.

Stanford said it is not farfetched to imagine Solutreans sailing to the New World in skin boats. With a strong current and favorable weather, the trip might have taken as little as three weeks, he calculated.

By this time in pre-history, he said, South Pacific islanders had been sailing open waters for at least 20,000 years.

By Joseph Verrengia