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The "Out of Africa" theory, the most widely accepted model for human evolution, proposes that all modern humans, Homo sapiens, originated in Africa. Our species evolved on the African continent between 200,000 and 300,000 years ago. From there, a small group migrated out, beginning a global dispersal around 60,000 to 70,000 years ago. -
It proposes that the first people in North America were not from Asia, as widely believed, but were part of the Solutrean culture from Europe (modern-day France and Spain). Proponents of the theory claim these people crossed the Atlantic along the ice sheet around 17,000 to 22,000 years ago, and their presence is suggested by a claimed similarity between European Solutrean tools and North American Clovis points. -
The Coastal Migration theory suggests that the first people to arrive in the Americas did so by traveling along the Pacific coast of North America using boats. This route would have been accessible much earlier than the inland route, potentially over 15,000 to 20,000 years ago. -
The Land Bridge Theory, or Beringia Theory, is the long-standing idea that the first people to arrive in the Americas migrated from Asia. During the last Ice Age, a landmass called Beringia was exposed, connecting Siberia and Alaska. It's believed that early humans walked across this land bridge, and then traveled south through an "ice-free corridor" that opened up between massive glaciers.