Mar 22, 2022 04:41 PM
https://cosmosmagazine.com/history/archa...ree-entry/
EXCERPTS: Thousands of years ago, scientists believe, the first peoples migrated across a broad land bridge connecting Siberia to Alaska. From there, they spread southward throughout the Americas.
But how, during the height of the Ice Age, did they get from Alaska to points south? The land bridge between Siberia and Alaska (often called Beringia, because much of it is now beneath the Bering Sea) was ice free. But to the south was a giant wall of ice, spreading all the way across Canada.
This icy barrier, however, had a weak link, a seam between its eastern and western ice sheets that was known to have “unzipped” late in the Ice Age, creating an “ice-free corridor” through which archaeologists presumed ancient peoples could have migrated down the east side of the Canadian Rockies.
A study in today’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, however, appears to put the kibosh on that theory.
The ice-free corridor, reports a team led by Jorie Clark, a geologist at Oregon State University, US, didn’t open up until 13,800 years ago – 1,800 years before[?] archaeologists believe people were living south of the ice, in Idaho. The only way they could have gotten there via the ice-free corridor would have been with the help of a time machine.
[...] But if the first Americans didn’t come down the ice-free corridor, how did they get there?
Most likely they came down the Pacific coast. This would have required boats, for which archaeologists have yet to find traces. But, Raff says, if the peopling of the Americas happened at about that time, the only way would have been down the coast.
[...Or...] Maybe the first people came here far earlier, before the glaciers slammed shut the overland route. If so, they wouldn’t have needed boats… but would have been on the continent 10,000 years or more before archaeologists are sure they were... (MORE - missing details)
EXCERPTS: Thousands of years ago, scientists believe, the first peoples migrated across a broad land bridge connecting Siberia to Alaska. From there, they spread southward throughout the Americas.
But how, during the height of the Ice Age, did they get from Alaska to points south? The land bridge between Siberia and Alaska (often called Beringia, because much of it is now beneath the Bering Sea) was ice free. But to the south was a giant wall of ice, spreading all the way across Canada.
This icy barrier, however, had a weak link, a seam between its eastern and western ice sheets that was known to have “unzipped” late in the Ice Age, creating an “ice-free corridor” through which archaeologists presumed ancient peoples could have migrated down the east side of the Canadian Rockies.
A study in today’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, however, appears to put the kibosh on that theory.
The ice-free corridor, reports a team led by Jorie Clark, a geologist at Oregon State University, US, didn’t open up until 13,800 years ago – 1,800 years before[?] archaeologists believe people were living south of the ice, in Idaho. The only way they could have gotten there via the ice-free corridor would have been with the help of a time machine.
[...] But if the first Americans didn’t come down the ice-free corridor, how did they get there?
Most likely they came down the Pacific coast. This would have required boats, for which archaeologists have yet to find traces. But, Raff says, if the peopling of the Americas happened at about that time, the only way would have been down the coast.
[...Or...] Maybe the first people came here far earlier, before the glaciers slammed shut the overland route. If so, they wouldn’t have needed boats… but would have been on the continent 10,000 years or more before archaeologists are sure they were... (MORE - missing details)