How early is there evidence that the New World was known to exist?

Answer 1

Archaeologists and anthropologists are still trying to agree upon an "earliest date." Here's what the latest evidence points to (though personally, I think that it will be found in the future that there was human habitation in the Americas much earlier, perhaps as far back as 100,000 - or more - years ago.)

"At a bar in the Chilean town of Pelluco last January, a dozen archaeologists toasted the passing of a paradigm. They had finally accepted that the nearby site of Monte Verde was 12,500 years old. In doing so they put to rest the longstanding theory that the first Americans were the Clovis people, big-game hunters who came from northeast Asia, and whose distinctive 11,500-year-old stone spear points were first found near Clovis, New Mexico.

University of Kentucky archaeologist Tom Dillehay has been working at Monte Verde, 600 miles south of Santiago, for 20 years. "We didn't set out to question Clovis," he says. "We were just doing local research." His initial announcement about the site, over a decade ago, was met with immense skepticism. The Bering land bridge was the obvious point of entry into the New World -- aside from a trail of Clovis points, linguistic and genetic evidence also pointed to a northeast Asian origin for Native Americans -- but massive ice sheets blocked that route, it seemed, until after 13,000 years ago. And it didn't help convince people when Dillehay began saying that artifacts a few yards away from the 12,500-year-old ones might be a shocking 33,000 years old -- which he still thinks, although he says the evidence is "inconclusive."

But the evidence that people were living at Monte Verde at least a thousand years before Clovis, Dillehay says, is airtight. On the banks of Chinchihuapi Creek, he has found a campsite that was occupied by a small band of hunter-gatherers for about a year until it was flooded by the creek. Layers of peat grew over the material they left behind, shutting out oxygen and preserving things like mastodon meat, wooden lances, planks and stakes, knotted reeds, animal hide, and chewed plant leaves. The wooden planks and stakes formed the frame of a large tent, once draped with mastodon hides and divided internally by more flaps of hide. Perhaps 20 to 30 people lived in it."

Three archaeological sites in Alberta support the theory of a migration route through an Alberta corridor. Stone scrapers and choppers have been discovered at sites in Grimshaw, Bow River, and in Lethbridge. These stone tools were found under glacial sand and gravel are believed to be pre-glacial and therefore indicate humans occupied the area 20,000 to 40,000 years ago. The verification of the early dates, however, is dependent upon geological interpretation.

Human Settlement

The earliest evidence of human settlement in Canada is found on the Haida Gwaii (Queen Charlotte Islands) in British Columbia. The site at Nanu is dated beginning from 12,000 to 10,000 years ago. Ice age hunters and gathers left fluted stone tools and the remains of large butchered mammals. Nanu is unique because it is considered the site of the longest continuous human occupation in Canada."

"Emerging evidence suggests that people with boats moved along the Pacific coast into Alaska and northwestern Canada and eventually south to Peru and Chile by 12,500 years ago—and perhaps much earlier. Archaeological evidence in Australia, Melanesia, and Japan indicate boats were in use as far back as 25,000 to 40,000 years ago. Sea routes would have provide"

Answer 2

Trade happened from the dawn of time. All this business of the world being flat was laughed at by sailors and fishermen, certainly Russia was trading to the folk in Alaska and even down the west coast of America for a very long time.

The Nordic jump from Europe to Greenland to the East Coast was not a big deal either.

Evidence? There are petroglyph's in New Mexico that appear to go back much earlier than our current recorded history. Start your hunt for proof there.

Answer 3

If what you mean is how long did Europeans..Africans..Asians..etc know that the the Americas were here...a long time. The more we learn about history the more we are finding out that trade was occuring long long before we ever thought. They have unearthed mummies in Egypt that were buried with cocoa leaves..so the cocaine trade is thousands of years old.

Answer 4

Native Americans have inhabited the the place for nearly 50,000 years. Does that tell you anything?