Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/85482
Title: Deglaciation of the Pacific coastal corridor directly preceded the human colonization of the Americas
Authors: Lesnek, Alia J.
Briner, Jason P.
Lindqvist, Charlotte
Baichtal, James F.
Heaton, Timothy H.
Keywords: Human Migration
Cordilleran Ice Sheet (CIS)
Issue Date: 2018
Source: 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-.
Series/Report no.: Science Advances
Abstract: 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.
URI: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/85482
http://hdl.handle.net/10220/45163
DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aar5040
Schools: School of Biological Sciences 
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.
Fulltext Permission: open
Fulltext Availability: With Fulltext
Appears in Collections:SBS Journal Articles

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