What are the two competing ideas about how people settled in the Americas?

isaac newton first proposed that earth was not perfectly round. instead, he suggested it was an oblate spheroid—a sphere that is squashed at its poles and swollen at the equator.

the idea of the earth being a flat disc is also inconsistent with the fact that a given lunar eclipse is only visible from half of the earth at a time. the only shape that casts a round shadow no matter which direction it is pointed is a sphere, and the ancient greeks deduced that this must mean the earth is spherical.

in mcculloch v. maryland (1819) the supreme court ruled that congress had implied powers under the necessary and proper clause of article i, section 8 of the constitution to create the second bank of the united states and that the state of maryland lacked the power to tax the bank.

gibbons v. ogden, (1824), was a landmark decision in which the supreme court of the united states held that the power to regulate interstate commerce, granted to congress by the commerce clause of the united states constitution, encompassed the power to regulate navigation.