Climate and the migration of early peoples into the Americas

Abstract

This chapter reviews key elements of the last glacial cycle climate change and related geological processes and environmental impacts relative to current theories regarding the peopling of the Americas. Migration routes into the Americas during the last glacial cycle must necessarily have been feasible and landing sites habitable. Climate change and the consequential geological processes experienced during the last glacial cycle, and most particularly during and subsequent to the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), have made understanding the peopling of the Americas a challenge. Proposed land-based, coastal, and transoceanic migration routes are analyzed in the context of climate and geological processes. A case study from Canada's northwest Pacific margin, which lies along the coastal migration route, exemplifies the influence of climate and geologic processes on coastal habitation and migration and indicates that the region was potentially habitable during and definitely shortly after the LGM. Recent research demonstrates the value of using earth system climate modeling to provide constraints for ocean-based human migration theories. This interdisciplinary perspective elucidates the importance of geological processes and inevitably of climate as influencing factors in the migration of early peoples into the Americas.