I have also seen discussion of sea arrivals, but they are much more hypothetical.

Also worth noting as the earlier arrival doesn't rule out the later ice-free corridor traversal as having also happens - it just means it wasn't the first people to arrive in the Americas.

However, i think ~23kya is a pretty safe bet at this point. And there are dozens of sites before 14kya as far south as chile. Clovis first has been largely rejected for about 30 years now but the old narratives keep floating around.

There have been a few major explanations that overlap in parts:

1) The Ice-Free Corridor, which was closed from 26-14ka. This is the old, traditional theory from the 50s-60s. It survived the widespread recognition of pre-clovis cultures with sites like Monte Verde (~13ka) because the dates hadn't been refined to where they are today. It's been considered dead for awhile now though, but potentially up for a resurrection with how far back the white sands dates are.

2) Pacific Coastal Migration Hypothesis. Around 30-25ka, coastal foragers from somewhere between Japan and Kamchatka migrated east along the Alaskan coast, living off a combination of terrestrial and marine resources in the relatively mild climate of the coast. This assumes the existence of ice free coastal refugia where people, animals, and plants were able to live during the last glacial maximum (LGM). So far, we have little to no evidence to suggest that these existed. More work needed to understand fine-scale glaciation of the Alaskan coast during the LGM. Additionally, the Alaskan current is thought to have been extremely strong during this period, potentially impossible to sail against. Again, better climate modeling needed. This is the de-facto explanation because we don't have anything better, but it's not something anyone's happy with.

3) Beringia standstill Hypothesis. Usually seen in combination with one of the previous two, but the idea is that humans inhabited inland Beringia until relatively recently and then proceeded into the subarctic Americas by one of the other routes. This works well with the genetic data, but the IFC hypothesis is basically dead and it excludes the earlier entry. The later date doesn't work with preclovis archaeology. Access to the pacific coastal route seems to be prevented by glaciation along the southern alaskan coast until later than the genetic data would indicate, so this not a well-explored hypothesis. Better climate modeling needed.

4) The kelp highway hypothesis. Basically similar to the coastal migration hypothesis, with less emphasis on terrestrial resource use. It has many of the same problems and you'll sometimes see people group them together with a term like "Pacific Coastal Route". The society this hypothesis requires doesn't look like any culture we've observed anthropologically. It's not especially compatible with available genetic data (though this can be somewhat explained). It's not well supported by archaeological evidence, either. It's not widely discussed on its own.

However, I do notice the pronounced gaps between the toes. My parents generation grew up in Melanesia starting around the 1950’s and many of them have commented on the distinctly different footprint profiles of the local people who never had worn shoes and the western newcomers. If you’ve never worn shoes your toes are far more splayed. I don’t know about lenght of toe.

So really I don’t think your observation is related to their genetic proximity and more to do with bodily adaptation. Perhaps an anthropological podiatrist can comment.

For context, how old are the oldest Egyptian pyramids?

Just looking at this article Aborigines had been in Australia for 20k - 30k years before the White Sands footprints were made. I'm sure there's footprints of similar "vintage" there. It would be curious to compare them.

[0] - https://theworld.org/stories/2016/08/01/lock-hair-dates-abor...