Deglaciation of the Pacific coastal corridor directly preceded the human colonization of the Americas
The route and timing of early human migration to the Americas have been a contentious topic for decades. Recent paleogenetic analyses suggest that the initial colonization from Beringia took place as early as 16 thousand years (ka) ago via a deglaciated corridor along the North Pacific coast. Howeve...
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ftnanyangtu:oai:dr.ntu.edu.sg:10220/45163 2023-05-15T16:40:28+02:00 Deglaciation of the Pacific coastal corridor directly preceded the human colonization of the Americas Lesnek, Alia J. Briner, Jason P. Lindqvist, Charlotte Baichtal, James F. Heaton, Timothy H. School of Biological Sciences 2018 8 p. http://hdl.handle.net/10220/45163 https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aar5040 en eng Science Advances Lesnek, A. J., Briner, J. P., Lindqvist, C., Baichtal, J. F., & Heaton, T. H. (2018). Deglaciation of the Pacific coastal corridor directly preceded the human colonization of the Americas. Science Advances, 4(5), eaar5040-. http://hdl.handle.net/10220/45163 http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aar5040 © 2018 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license, which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, so long as the resultant use is not for commercial advantage and provided the original work is properly cited. CC-BY-NC Human Migration Cordilleran Ice Sheet (CIS) Journal Article 2018 ftnanyangtu https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aar5040 2019-05-24T19:44:14Z The route and timing of early human migration to the Americas have been a contentious topic for decades. Recent paleogenetic analyses suggest that the initial colonization from Beringia took place as early as 16 thousand years (ka) ago via a deglaciated corridor along the North Pacific coast. However, the feasibility of such a migration depends on the extent of the western Cordilleran Ice Sheet (CIS) and the available resources along the hypothesized coastal route during this timeframe. We date the culmination of maximum CIS conditions in southeastern Alaska, a potential bottleneck region for human migration, to ~20 to 17 ka ago with cosmogenic 10Be exposure dating and 14C dating of bones from an ice-overrun cave. We also show that productive marine and terrestrial ecosystems were established almost immediately following deglaciation. We conclude that CIS retreat ensured that an open and ecologically viable pathway through southeastern Alaska was available after 17 ka ago, which may have been traversed by early humans as they colonized the Americas. Published version Article in Journal/Newspaper Ice Sheet Alaska Beringia DR-NTU (Digital Repository at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore) Pacific Science Advances 4 5 eaar5040 |
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Open Polar |
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DR-NTU (Digital Repository at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore) |
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ftnanyangtu |
language |
English |
topic |
Human Migration Cordilleran Ice Sheet (CIS) |
spellingShingle |
Human Migration Cordilleran Ice Sheet (CIS) Lesnek, Alia J. Briner, Jason P. Lindqvist, Charlotte Baichtal, James F. Heaton, Timothy H. Deglaciation of the Pacific coastal corridor directly preceded the human colonization of the Americas |
topic_facet |
Human Migration Cordilleran Ice Sheet (CIS) |
description |
The route and timing of early human migration to the Americas have been a contentious topic for decades. Recent paleogenetic analyses suggest that the initial colonization from Beringia took place as early as 16 thousand years (ka) ago via a deglaciated corridor along the North Pacific coast. However, the feasibility of such a migration depends on the extent of the western Cordilleran Ice Sheet (CIS) and the available resources along the hypothesized coastal route during this timeframe. We date the culmination of maximum CIS conditions in southeastern Alaska, a potential bottleneck region for human migration, to ~20 to 17 ka ago with cosmogenic 10Be exposure dating and 14C dating of bones from an ice-overrun cave. We also show that productive marine and terrestrial ecosystems were established almost immediately following deglaciation. We conclude that CIS retreat ensured that an open and ecologically viable pathway through southeastern Alaska was available after 17 ka ago, which may have been traversed by early humans as they colonized the Americas. Published version |
author2 |
School of Biological Sciences |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Lesnek, Alia J. Briner, Jason P. Lindqvist, Charlotte Baichtal, James F. Heaton, Timothy H. |
author_facet |
Lesnek, Alia J. Briner, Jason P. Lindqvist, Charlotte Baichtal, James F. Heaton, Timothy H. |
author_sort |
Lesnek, Alia J. |
title |
Deglaciation of the Pacific coastal corridor directly preceded the human colonization of the Americas |
title_short |
Deglaciation of the Pacific coastal corridor directly preceded the human colonization of the Americas |
title_full |
Deglaciation of the Pacific coastal corridor directly preceded the human colonization of the Americas |
title_fullStr |
Deglaciation of the Pacific coastal corridor directly preceded the human colonization of the Americas |
title_full_unstemmed |
Deglaciation of the Pacific coastal corridor directly preceded the human colonization of the Americas |
title_sort |
deglaciation of the pacific coastal corridor directly preceded the human colonization of the americas |
publishDate |
2018 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/10220/45163 https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aar5040 |
geographic |
Pacific |
geographic_facet |
Pacific |
genre |
Ice Sheet Alaska Beringia |
genre_facet |
Ice Sheet Alaska Beringia |
op_relation |
Science Advances Lesnek, A. J., Briner, J. P., Lindqvist, C., Baichtal, J. F., & Heaton, T. H. (2018). Deglaciation of the Pacific coastal corridor directly preceded the human colonization of the Americas. Science Advances, 4(5), eaar5040-. http://hdl.handle.net/10220/45163 http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aar5040 |
op_rights |
© 2018 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license, which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, so long as the resultant use is not for commercial advantage and provided the original work is properly cited. |
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CC-BY-NC |
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https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aar5040 |
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Science Advances |
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