Hey there, AskHistorians. I know that there supposedly have been earlier "discoveries" of North America by some Viking and Chinese seafearers before the time of Christopher Columbus, even if they did not result in permanent seettlements like we know them from the European settlers after 1492. But looking at a map I always wondered why the sea route from the west has not been discovered before the route over the Atlantic, since the distance between Siberia and Alaska is just 85km or 53 miles. What are the historical reasons for North America not beeing discovered by Russian or Asian settlers from the west before 1492?
Edit: My question is not about the genetic origin of Native Americans. My question regards permanent colonial settlements that were in contact with their country of origin. Just like the American colononies after 1492 were in contact with Portugal, Spain or England. Why were the Americas not discovered by the Western sea route by Asian powers that stayed in contact with their homelands? This route to America seems to be much shorter and the shorter distance to Siberia in perticular makes it seem strange to me that Russia in particular did not North America before the European powers.
In 1492, Russia was still west of the Ural Mountains and hadn't expanded eastward into Siberia. They wouldn't reach the Bering Sea until the 1600s. We had a recent question on this topic a few days ago, which you can read here.
As for the people who were living on the west side of the Bering Strait, they did know about Alaska well before Europeans did. The ancestors of modern-day Inuit, Inupiat, Yupik, and Aleut peoples came over from northeast Asia about 4500 years ago, with the Yupik continuing to live on both sides of the Bering Strait and trading with neighboring peoples in Asia and North America regularly. On the Asian side of things, they traded regularly with the Chukchi, whose ancestors may have also been part of that "paleo-Eskimo" wave 4500 years ago. The Saqqaq culture in northern Greenland, beginning at the same time, is more closely related to modern day Chukchi than they are to modern day Arctic peoples in North America.
As for whether anyone from East Asia (China, Japan, Korea, etc.) reached Alaska prior to the 17th Century Russian expeditions, that's currently unknown. A bronze belt buckle of East Asian design was reportedly found at a pre-Columbian site in Alaska a few years ago, but so far, there hasn't been a formal publication regarding it so we're still waiting on the details.