The first people to enter the Americas may have taken the coastal route along the Bering Strait Land Bridge during these two periods.
During the last ice age, the coastal route from Asia to North America was so treacherous, humans likely crossed over only during two time windows, when environmental factors were more favorable for the long and dangerous journey, a new study finds.
During these periods, winter sea ice cover and sea ice-free summers would have likely given these travelers access to a diverse marine buffet, as well as ways to safely travel along the North Pacific coast, the researchers said. To see how viable the coastal route may have been for migration at different times, scientists analyzed how changes in climate over the past 45,000 years might have influenced sea ice, glacier extent, ocean current strength, and food supplies on land and sea.The researchers developed climate models based on new data on sea ice variations and previously collected sediment samples from the Gulf of Alaska holding details about sea ice, sea surface temperatures, salinity and debris carried on ice.
"Rather than being an obstacle, we suggest that sea ice may have partly facilitated movement and subsistence in this region," study first author Summer Praetorius , a paleoceanographer at the U.S. Geological Survey, in Menlo Park, California, told Live Science.
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