Dave O, Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner, work often intrudes.

You theory has one really major problem, most archaeologists believe the land bridge from Asia didn't open until 11,200 to 11,500 years ago. Please find your own sources for the opening of the asian Bering Strait landbridge through the Cordilleran Ice Sheet before that. If your dates are correct for the Mississippi mounds builders, then you need to be real clear on the Clovis Point or Landbridge Theory dates, which you apparently defend in one statement and then utterly destroy in the next.

As for those with access to Newsweek (www.newsweek.com) get the April 26, 1999 issue and read the 10 page feature article entitled "The First Americans. New digs reveal an ancient land that was a mosaic of peoples - including Asians and Europeans. Now the debate rages: Who got here first...?"

Then get the half page Washington Post (www.washingtonpost.com) article of April 5, 2000 (Page A3) entitled "Debate Around the Old Campfire, Burning the Bridge, Viginia Archeological Find Challenges Theory of Migration to North America..."

As I made clear, I'm not an archaeoligist, but neither of these articles could be characterized as hatched in the wussy wackoid world of the web. Once these articles are read, I think I'm going to hear the sound of closed minds getting their hatch door rung...

Those that have a problem of reading the English language for content need to reread my comment about "THEY believe the lost tribe was Anglo-Saxon" vs MY comment about THEIR belief "getting a helluva boost" in current theories about an earlier european migration to America. I suspect that Wavelength merely took Dave O's comments as having legitimate dates, and then tried to be cute about it, with his comment about the Anglo-Saxons. (I will apologize if he is indeed a ESL type.)

Also would someone please point out where I said that the theorized european migration took place TWENTY-ONE THOUSAND YEARS AGO? I said the diggings "pointed to the existence of a european civilization 5,000 years before the asians crossed". Taking every thing I've written, this puts those dates at 16,200 to 16,500, well within the theorized datelines of 17 to 25 thousand years ago mentioned in both articles (and the reason that Dave O has bombed his own runway).

(Incidently, since we seem to have gone FAR afield from the wonderful article that posed this thread, might I suggest that whoever does the follow-on research to the above articles, kick it over to a new thread? Thank you)

Ah! duty calls...