Late Quaternary paleoenvironments of Northwestern North America: implications for inland versus coastal migration routes

Abstract

Although the long held normative view of New World colonization relies on entrance through an interior ice-free corridor by terrestrially adapted big-game hunters, a recently demonstrated human presence in southern Chile dating prior to the existence of the corridor route implies different colonization scenarios which must be seriously considered. A renewed focus of archaeological and paleoecological research on early post-glacial landscapes in Northwestern North America has revitalized the “ice-free” vs. coastal corridor controversy. Geological findings from glacial geology and paleo-sea levels support the possibility of coastal migration from Beringia to the Pacific Northwest between about 14,000 and 10,000 BP, and preliminary paleoecological data suggest that the coastal landscape was in part vegetated and probably able to support a terrestrial fauna, including humans. The same cannot be said about the “ice-free corridor”.