I’ve been taking the John Hawks’ MOOC on Human Evolution for the past seven weeks. One lecture is specifically about migration of humans into the Americas. He mentions the Mal’ta individual, the Montana specimen, and the Clovis culture. The Solutrean hypothesis got only a brief mention, stating that the genetic similarities between the Montana and Mal’ta individuals precludes migration from any other place besides Siberia/Beringia. In fact, overall the genotypes of Native Americans are more similar to East Asians than to Western Europeans. There is no evidence that Western European genotypes were present in the America before the Age of Exploration.

Interestingly, there were waves of migration from the Beringia area. The first wave spread relatively quickly throughout the Americas, all the way to Tierra del Fuego. Another wave, roughly corresponding to the Clovis culture, came later, but did not penetrate as far south.

As for the supposed European connection to the Mal’ta individual, there were some similarities between that specimen and the peoples living in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, but less so to people in Western Europe. Der Spiegel either blurred that distinction on purpose, or made a sloppy mistake.