Who Discovered America?

Essay by blazen2392High School, 11th grade May 2009

download word file, 3 pages 4.0 3 reviews

If talking about who was the first discoverer of America, then that title rightfully belongs to the Paleo-Asiatics, because they were the first inhabitants, the first to colonize America, and because the European explorers where only discoverers of America to the western world. It's the question that has been the subject of debate between anthropologists. Who discovered America? The conventional answer on this subject would be Christopher Columbus, to who most accredit this discovery, but to properly answer this complex question one has to analyze it by defining the term discovery and America. In terms of discovery it is defined as a first time discoverer no matter what the cause, and America is defined as the continental land masses.

The Paleo-Asiatics are the first and oldest inhabitants of America. 35,000 years ago a group of nomadic Asian hunters crossed the Bering Sea on an exposed land bridge connecting Siberia and Alaska chasing migrating herds of game.

Some can argue that their discovery was unintentional, just following their food and therefore they cannot be the true discoverers of America, but using the same logic Alexander Flemings would not be the discoverer of penicillin even though his drug was uncovered through an inadvertent spill. Even though unintentional as the discovery was, it is still a discovery. Paleo-Asiatics have been inhabitants of America thousands of years before any European contact which came through the Vikings 1000 A.D. The Paleo-Asiatics where the first to ever step foot on both continents of America making them the first discoverers of America, which we so wrongfully attribute to Christopher Columbus.

The orthodox belief of the Europeans being the first to populate and colonize The Americas is a fallacious argument, when taken into account that the Paleo-Asiatics have been Natives for thousands of years. During the time of...