It's possible, but in addition to the Bering strait, not instead. The Bering was crossed as many as 19,000 years ago, and some theorize an earlier wave of > 40,

It's possible, but in addition to the Bering strait, not instead. The Bering was crossed as many as 19,000 years ago, and some theorize an earlier wave of > 40,000 years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Settlement_of_the_Americas#Chronology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Settlement_of_the_Americas#Chr... The claims for more recent trans-oceanic contact across the Pacific are about much more recent times, mostly the last 1000 years (which is when eastern Polynesia was settled), and none are widely accepted except for continuing traffic with Siberia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Columbian_trans-oceanic_contact_theories#Claims_of_Polynesian_contact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Columbian_trans-oceanic_co... With the vast spans of time involved, mostly pre-literate cultures in both South America and Polynesia, and the loss of both historical knowledge and genetic diversity following European conquest, it's very hard to argue that there definitely wasn't some more recent contact; but it does not seem to have left strong genetic or linguistic signatures.