Ten years of Solutreans on the ice: a consideration of technological logistics and paleogenetics for assessing the colonization of the Americas

In 2004, a theory positing that Western Europeans were among the first peoples to colonize North America was published within the pages of World Archaeology. Ten years later this theory continues to provoke academic debate (Balter 2012; Curry 2012; Runnels 2012; Anderson 2013; Bawaya 2013; Morrow 2014) and ignite public imagination (Cook 2012; Vastag 2012; Coghlan 2012) thanks to the publication of Across Atlantic Ice (Stanford and Bradley 2012), the most recent, comprehensive and accessible presentation of what has come to be known as the "Solutrean Hypothesis". In considering how debates over entry routes into North America can be taken further, we review the technological logistics of a North Atlantic crossing and Amerindian and European genetics, examining the validity of the Solutrean Hypothesis in 2014.