First Americans: no ice-free entry

[Judi Lynn]

22 March 2022
/Richard A Lovett

It’s long been thought that the first humans accessed the Americas through an ‘ice-free corridor’ in the eastern Canadian Rocky Mountains. Not so, says a new study.



the eastern Canadian rockies
The Rocky Mountains in Alberta, Canada. Credit: Anders Carlson


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.

More:
https://cosmosmagazine.com/history/archaeology/first-americans-no-ice-free-entry/

[Blues Heron]

1. I think they meant 1800 years AFTER people were living south of the ice.

Interesting article.

[Warpy]

2. Agricultural expeditions to northern Canada are discovering a lot about these people

and it seems ice, especially patchy ice, was their friend, not their enemy.

Caribou are known to travel to icy areas in summer. It's the only way they can avoid parasitic flies. Archeology is finding some pretty sophisticated throwing darts in ice melt, darts that were used with an atlatl for some pretty ferocious accuracy and firepower. Ice wouldn't have stopped these people, it just provided another hunting ground to exploit.

Clark is also ignoring the obvious, seafaring. Some skin boats, notably those from the Aleutians and Ireland, were remarkably seaworthy. They could have fished their way down the coast, accessing the interior by the more southerly routes, groups staying in coastal areas not covered by glaciers.