 The Pacific 'coastal migration theory' proposes that people first reached the Americas via water travel, following coastlines from northeast Asia into the Americas, originally proposed in 1979 by Knute Fladmark as an alternative to the ice-free corridor hypothesis.This model would help to explain the rapid spread to coastal sites extremely distant from the Bering Strait region, including sites such as Monte Verde in southern Chile and Taima-Taima in western Venezuela.The "marine migration hypothesis" is a variant of coastal migration which postulates the use of boats.