Wikibooks: History of Alaska/Aboriginal ''Alaxsxaq'' (to 1800)
TOCright limit=2 =Indigenous Origin Theories= =The Bering Land Bridge Theory= The Bering Land Bridge Theory is one of the most widely supported theories explaining how Paleoindians came to inhabit North America. The theory hypothesizes that when glaciers blocking the Bering Strait began to melt appr...
| Format: | Book |
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| Language: | English |
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| Online Access: | https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/History_of_Alaska/Aboriginal_%27%27Alaxsxaq%27%27_(to_1800) |
| Summary: | TOCright limit=2 =Indigenous Origin Theories= =The Bering Land Bridge Theory= The Bering Land Bridge Theory is one of the most widely supported theories explaining how Paleoindians came to inhabit North America. The theory hypothesizes that when glaciers blocking the Bering Strait began to melt approximately 12 000 years ago they broke into sheets that carved out a path of land approximately 1 000 kilometres long. This temporary path could have been crossed by Paleoindians from Siberia into Alaska explaining how North America became inhabited by humans as well as many species of plants and animals. Recent grass and sage fossils found in eastern Beringia suggest that the area was a part of the mammoth steppe a system of dry grassland climate stretched from Europe through Eurasia and eastwards onto Canada and played the role of a ‘safe haven’ for many species escaping the ice age. Most historians and other scholars believe that people from Asia were able to cross the Beringia during the Ice Age specifically the Pleistocene epoch between 12 000 and 60 000 years ago. These people became the first natives of Alaska most likely belonging to either the Nenana or Denali complexes that eventually settled in central Alaska. It is believed that all of the natives in Alaska descended from these original groups as they share many similar characteristics. Their physical similarities for example dark hair and eyes set them apart from the European settlers. Over time the hunter gatherer communities continued to migrate from Asia to North America in search of fertile land. It was only until after the glaciers south of the mammoth steppe begin to melt did the Paleo Indians continue their migration southward making way for the possibility of the Denali and Nenana people are the first ancestors of all human life in the western world. However scientists and historians continue to dispute on the timeline as well as whether or not the materials excavated in the south match the original tools from the Alaskan complexes. In the mid ... |
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