Estimates using sea-level curves and bathymetric data have placed the minimum Pleistocene separation at roughly four to seven miles at its narrowest point.

More recent reconstructions using higher-resolution acoustic data of the seafloor sediment stratigraphy have refined these estimates, but the basic conclusion is unchanged: there was always water.

The crossing was always a genuine maritime challenge.

No rafting event — no accidental crossing on a floating log or debris field — can reliably deposit a person on an island miles offshore in open Pacific waters.

Accidental ocean crossings of this type do occur, but they are survivable only by chance in very specific circumstances, and they cannot be the basis for a population established enough to leave remains at documented sites.