Re:Chinese yes, (Score 3, Interesting)

If I remember correctly, Tom Dillehay wrote a book proposing very early dates for Monte Verde based on radiocarbon dates of layers associated w/ certain stone tools. There has been a lot of controversy, however, as to whether these artifacts were actually associated with the dated layers. The linguistic evidence is which one of the other posts mentions is based on the assumption of steady rates in linguistic mutation - something which I admit that I don't necessarily buy into.

What you do have to keep in mind, though, is that Monte Verde is in Chile. If the Americas were populated solely via the Bering land bridge, then these people most likely would have taken many generations to not only travel all across two continents, but also to adapt lifeways suited to the new environments which they were encountering. The same goes for Meadowcraft, at least to a lesser extent. Even assuming an incredibly swift migration, you have to go back several centuries from even the latest dates to get to the date of the actual crossing into North America

Unfortunately, if the earliest migrations southward took place along the pacific coast, any habitation sites have likely been submerged with the rise in sealevels following the alst ice age. Robert Ballard and his bunch have recently had a lot of success identifying submerged sites in the Black Sea, so it is conceivable that some of the earliest sites might be found, but as of yet, we still know next to nothing about them.