14. It is probable that the ancient Americas were settled in two major migratory phases and most likely split between those who arrived by land and those who arrived by sea
Within paleo-archaeology the settlement of the Americas has remained a subject of intense debate and curiosity, with the prevailing opinion determined that the ancient migrants arrived in waves to the unknown continent; as noted, this migration is believed to have begun approximately 20,000-16,000 years ago as a result of decreasing water levels opening up access to the previously isolated landmass. These separate waves of migration resulted in, and are easiest identified, through the cultural distinctions that can be seen across ancient archaeological discoveries in the Americas, most prominently with the Athabaskan shared language; observably employed predominantly in the Alaskan region of the North American continent, a smaller sub-variant of the language interestingly appears in the American Southwest and spoken by the Navajo people, reflecting follow-up migratory patterns among early humans of the continent.
Whilst some scholars have theorized that pre-glacial migration might have occurred as an explanation for far-reaching human settlement, the most likely explanation is that although much of the early population of the Americas did indeed traverse the ancient land bridge and region of Beringia, other groups took advantage of the decreased sea levels to bypass the restrictive ice wall separating the modern-day continental United States from Beringia and journeyed via the oceans. Pacific models of early human migration to the Americas are difficult to verify, with much of the land area that would have become initial settlements since lost in a manner akin to Beringia itself, but the theory remains a compelling argument to explain known migratory patterns; the suggestion that early populations might have used sea travel for the purposes of migration helps to explain the existence of near-simultaneous ancient populations in regions greatly distant to the modern-day Bering Strait, in particular culturally distinct settlements at Monte Verde in southern Chile and Taima-Taima in western Venezuela.