Andrea Woodridge, age 11, of National City, Calif., for her question:
WHO REALLY FOUND AMERICA FIRST?
Nobody knows exactly when the first human families arrived on the earth, but it was ages ago. Perhaps they got their start in India or China or around the Mediterranean Sea. But through the first chapters of human history, nobody wandered as far as the Americas. Most experts suspect that this great adventure began in the ice ages that came and went during the past million years or so.
Some people claim that Mediterranean trading ships discovered America several thousand years ago. But there is no solid evidence that this really happened, and most experts think it is unlikely. Most of us ordinary folk give the credit to Columbus, who crossed the Atlantic and found the New World in the year 1492. Certainly he did but he was not the first to find America.
About 1,000 years ago, the seafaring Vikings crossed the North Atlantic and landed somewhere along the shores of North America. Their old records tell all about it, in fine and accurate detail. But the Vikings stayed only a short while. One reason they went back home was that others had arrived ahead of them.
The old Viking tales tell of the fierce fights they had with the Scraelings whom we call Indians. These original Americans were here to greet Columbus in 1492. Obviously they must have found America long before any of the others we hear about. And historians have toiled patiently to find out exactly how and when our so called Indians found America.
We are told they came from Asia, most likely in the far north. They came during the ice ages, when much of the ocean water was frozen in solid glaciers. Many regions now underwater were then dry land. For example, in the region of the Bering Strait in the northern Pacific there was a land bridge joining America and Asia.
Most experts agree that the original Americans walked across this frozen bridge, perhaps while hunting. No doubt many different groups came at different times without even guessing that they had found a new continent. Nobody knows when the first ones arrived, but it was more than 20,000 years ago.
No doubt many different groups arrived, perhaps unknown to each other. From the north, some wandered south and spread eastward across the continent. Others wandered due south, through Mexico and finally down to the tip of South America. Without a doubt, the New World was found first by our American Indians.