Were The First Americans Californians?

First published July 1, 2024

Sebastian R. Uriarte* and Marshall A. Lichtman

Archeologists have deduced that the first human beings to arrive in North America, the Clovis people, traversed the Bering Sea ice bridge from Siberia to North America approximately 13,500 years ago. They crossed a region, Beringia, that connected Eastern Siberia to Alaska. The “Standstill Hypothesis” posits that ancient Beringians lived in isolation on the east Beringian Arctic steppe-tundra during the last glacial maximum and are the sole ancestral population of all Native Americans.

However, twenty million years ago, sliding plate techtonics, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes caused the Pacific plate to slide under the continental plate off southern California causing a piece of the continent to break off and join the Pacific plate off the coast of present day San Diego, forming an island, Santarosae. Continued violent upheavals moved the island northward to the coast off today’s Santa Barbara. Following the ice age, the earth warmed and rising sea levels engulfed Santarosae leaving four peaks that today represent four of the five northern Channel Islands: Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, San Miguel and Anacapa, that compose the Channel Islands National Park.

Evidence indicates that hunter-gatherers travelled by sea craft along the “kelp highway” and archeological sites exist on the islands above the water line that date back over 7500 years. Pacific Rim kelp forests support an array of fish, shellfish, marine mammals, seabirds, and seaweeds, resources of critical importance for nourishment of ancient peoples migrating from Siberia down the Pacific Coast to North and, then, to South America.

The Northern Channel Islands have the largest array of ancient inhabited coastal sites uncovered in all the Americas and strongly suggests that below the current waterline, there is evidence of the actual first Americans: Californians! Currently, offshore geophysical mapping is exploring high-probability areas. Santa Rosa Island, an ancestral home of the Chumash people, is the site of the discovery of Arlington Springs Man, the oldest human remains found in North America, carbon dated to 13,000 years ago. He was in the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History and, later, repatriated to the Chumash for ceremonial burial. A complete pygmy mammoth skeleton was discovered on Santa Rosa. It, presumably, evolved on the island after its ancestors swam the, then, short distance from the mainland.

At the recent Ocean Science meeting, a team of geologists, biologists and paleoarcheologists described their plans for studying the submerged part of the Northern Channel Islands for evidence of the arrival of hunter-gatherers long before the migration across the Bering Sea. There is evidence that the migration by primitive sea craft along the continental coastline occurred circa 20,000 years ago. Such a migration of pre-Clovis people must have occurred to explain the Monte Verde site off the southern tip of Chile, which was settled thousands of years before the migration from Siberia to North America. Scientists anticipate a previously undiscovered archeological record on the submerged parts of the northern Channel Islands.

These islands are a popular destination for tourists, students, hikers, campers, and environmentalists. Santa Cruz is the largest island with numerous animal and plant species. The islands are rich in bird species, nesting sea birds, especially pelicans; sea life abounds in their waters. A University of Oregon biologist and expert on paleocoastal archaeology suspects that the Channel Islands have sites over 13,500 years old, holding evidence of the earliest people arriving on the continent, “the first Americans.” Rising seas since the last glacial maximum have submerged much of the archeological evidence. More paleoarcheologists who work underwater are needed to characterize the time of migration and sites of settlements in coastal North and South America and the nature of the pre-Clovis peoples.

*Uriarte is a deck officer who has been on the crew of many university-based oceanic research vessels, as well as civilian and military ships. He is also the grandson of Lichtman.

Limuw, an early home of the Chumash People, was renamed Santa Cruz by the Spanish. The cove is Potato Harbor, so named for its oval shape., so named for its oval shape.