Evidence suggests that there are grounds to believe that Africans made it to America first by migrating from the African continent and sailing along the West African Coast.
Presently, it is thought that the Native American Indians encountered by Columbus were the first people in America.
However, there are also alternatives arguments which suggest that Africans made it to America first before both the Native Americans and Columbus.
If it is correct that Africans made it to America first, it means that the presence of Black African people in the Americas predates the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.
The Arguments Why Africans Made It To America First
In The Black Native Americans, Dr Clyde Winters also suggests that Africans made it to America first since anatomically Black modern humans have been found in the Americas for over 100,000 years.
In addition, according to Paleobiologist James Critters, suggests that Africans made it to America first because the oldest American skeletons resemble Black Africans which may be explained by the fact that the oldest American Skeletons are from the period of African settlement dating back 100 000 years, whilst Modern Native American Skeletons date back to the Mongoloid Population that arrived circa 6000 BC.
The argument that Africans made it to America first is also based on the theory that Aboriginal Austrtalian Paleoamericans first settled South America between 130-25000 years ago.
A second Paleoamerican migration led to Black African Khoisan Grimladi people becoming the first settlers of North America, Brazil and Mexico between 22 000-10 000 years ago.
Given the fact that the earliest dates for habitation of the American continent occur below Canada in South America, it is highly suggestive of the fact that Africans made it to America first by crossing over from Africa before the Ice melted at the Bering Straits.
In 1975 the skeleton of a woman nicknamed Luthia dating back 11, 500 years to the Upper Paleolithic period was discovered in Brazil which also provides evidence for the theory that Africans made it to America first.
Luthia is regarded as the oldest inhabitant of Brazil, and some archaeologists believe that she is evidence of the first wave of Pacific Aborigine immigrants who came to South America by sailing on the Pacific.
Luthia’s face was reconstructed and the conclusion drawn is that she was of Pacific Aborigine descent, suggesting that Aboriginal Africans made it to America first.
Conclusion
Since the Clovis Theory which claimed that Mongoloid Native Americans made it to America first has been discredited, there is room to examine the evidence further which may lead to the conclusion that Africans made it to America first instead.
Thus by the time Columbus arrived in the Americas, the American Continent was already known to and inhabited by Africans who had made it to America first from Africa and the Pacific.
In time, intermarriage between the Africans that had made it to America first, and the Mongoloid population which arrived circa 6000 BC resulted in the mixed Native American Indians that dominated the Americas when Columbus arrived in the Americas.
In the final analysis, the argument that Africans made it to America first remains contested.
American Aborigines Gallery
