Studying ancient human history is difficult because there isn’t all that much information to go by, and much of what is available is disputed depending on which study you look at.

This is the case when trying to figure out who the first people to come to the Americas really were, and when it happened. Some suggest that the earliest people came over on the Bearing Strait when it was frozen over. Others think it might have been a group of people who may have arrived along the Pacific Ocean.

The one thing that is certain is that researchers will continue to try to figure out what the truth of this may be, and a study recently published in the journal Quaternary International has done just that.

These researchers argue that it was the Clovis people who were the first to arrive in America, and that they entered from Alaska.

The study attempts to discredit some of the strongest evidence used by those who believe that humans entered via the Pacific coast by saying that the method used to date the White Sands footprints found in New Mexico was likely inaccurate.

More importantly, however, they say that there is strong evidence showing that the Clovis people were in Alaska at least as far back as 14,000 years ago. Looking at Alaska’s Tanana Valley, the team analyzed various ivory tools that were made from the tusks of mammoths.

The Clovis people are well-known to have specialized in hunting mammoths, and the tools found are very similar in size, weight, and shape to those found at confirmed Clovis sites throughout other parts of North America. The authors wrote:

“Ivory working was a trait shared by Clovis-era traditions in mid-continental North America after 13.5 [thousand years ago]. By assessing the evidence, it seems reasonable to conclude that the early sites in the Tanana Valley are ancestral to the Clovis tradition and their Native American descendants.”

There has only been one human skeleton found at the Clovis site, which has been shown to be a toddler from about 12,900 years ago. This skeleton had stable isotopes that proved that it was breastfed and that the child’s mother had a diet that included mammoth.

While this is definitely not definitive proof that will end the debates forever, it is one more piece of evidence that the Clovis people were indeed the first in America, and that they would have crossed the frozen Bering Strait many thousands of years ago.

If you thought that was interesting, you might like to read about why we should be worried about the leak in the bottom of the ocean.