Does evidence from archaeology and cultural studies support the idea that there were intrusions by Old World groups?
This is a vast topic, impossible even to summarize here. Only a few illustrative references to relevant material can be examined in the space available here. One kind of information concerns cultural complexes and the populations that brought them that certainly arrived from across the ocean. Some archaeologists finesse the issue by insisting that only “concrete archaeological evidence” for a cultural intrusion will satisfy them.77 This spurious response is well illustrated by the case of the Ugrian-language enclave in central California mentioned above; the supporting linguistic material is vast and highly “concrete,” though in a nonmaterial sense. No archaeologist has yet assessed this evident connection between California and western Siberia on the basis of material remains. Contradictorily, in the case of the settling of the island of Madagascar off the east coast of Africa, the dominant language is so obviously Austronesian (related to Malayo-Polynesian) that no scholar questions
