Contents
- What Was Beringia?
- How We Reconstructed the Beringian Environment
- 22,000 Years Ago — Why Beringia?
- 18,000 Years Ago — Why Did People Remain?
- Life in Beringia and the Standstill Hypothesis
- 16,000–14,600 Years Ago — The Eastern Land Opens
- 13,300–12,600 Years Ago — The Environmental Center Shifts East
- How the Beringian World Contracted and Disappeared
- From Environment to Ancestry
What Was Beringia?
Today, the Bering Sea separates northeastern Asia from Alaska. But during the last Ice Age, lower sea levels exposed a vast stretch of land between them.
Rivers crossed its low plains. Tundra and steppe vegetation covered much of its ice-free ground. Mammoths, reindeer, and other animals moved across a landscape connecting Asia and North America.
We call this lost world Beringia.
Beringia is often described as a bridge, a route people crossed on their way from Asia into the Americas. But it may have been much more than that.
See also:
- Beringia’s Exposed Land Area Changes After the LGMBeringia’s Exposed Land Area Changes After the LGM
Beringia as a Living Landscape
Around 22,000 years ago, much of the water now held in the oceans was locked inside enormous ice sheets. Global sea level was far lower than today.
The shallow continental shelf beneath the modern Bering Sea stood above water, forming one continuous landmass between Asia and Alaska.
Within the central study area, nearly 800,000 square kilometers of land remained free of regional ice, an area larger than the modern state of Texas.
This does not mean that the entire area formed one human territory. It was a broad analytical region containing many possible rivers, valleys, coasts, seasonal hunting grounds, and camp locations.
Land on a map, however, is not automatically usable land.
Ice sheets can block movement. Deep snow can hide vegetation. Long winters can restrict travel. And land that produces little food may connect two continents while supporting few people.
To understand how this landscape became a refuge, we must follow the major changes through time.