Siberia in the Late Glacial and Early Postglacial

Abstract

The problems of the peopling of Siberia and those of the peopling of the New World are one and the same. Regardless of when or how many times humans pressed north and east across this vast region, the successful solution to the adaptive problems they faced was an absolute precondition to their entry into the Western Hemisphere. During the last Glacial Maximum and spanning the late Glacial periods, lowered sea levels had united Asia and America at Beringia. Northern Asia experienced no continental glaciation, whereas northern North America was virtually locked in ice from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean. Large areas of eastern Beringia (Alaska and the northern part of the Yukon Territory) remained ice-free and may have been connected at times to interior North America through an ice-free corridor. But for all practical purposes, the unglaciated regions of northwest North America had become an extension of Asia and were virtually cut off from the rest of North America.