We can thank boating, indirectly, for advancing our knowledge about the
earliest "known" inhabitants of North America- a group that is not
related to the Asian immigrants that came to be called "native
Americans".

Some people were watching a boat race in Eastern Washington when part
of the riverbank upon which they were standing gave way and revealed
some skeletal remains. Naturally, they called the cops.

No criminal investigation was warranted, however, even though a close
examination of the skeleton revealed that someone had been the victim
of violence. (There was a spear point lodged in the skelton's thigh
bone). Through carbon dating, it was established that the skeleton was
over 9,000 years old and among the oldest human remains ever discovered
in North America.

So, anybody who hopes to claim to go *way back* (!) in North America
would more than likely look a lot like this:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/first/kennewick.html