CGRG Bibliography of Canadian Geomorphology
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Author : Fladmark, K.R.
Date : 2003.
Title : By land or sea? A review of current evidence supporting a coastal route for the first North Americans penetrating south of Beringia.
Publication : CAA 2003. Current and Future Directions in Canadian Archaeology. 36th Annual Conference of the Canadian Archaeological Association, May 7-10, 2003. McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario.
Issue :
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Abstract
This paper offers an updated review of the two dominant theories concerning how people first spread south of Beringia in North America during the Late Pleistocene. They are (1) via an interior “ice-free corridor” between Laurentide and Cordilleran ice masses, and (2) via a “coastal route”, or chain of unglaciated refugia around the Northwestern Pacific margin of the continent. In summary, it now seems coalescent glaciers blocked virtually the entire “corridor” during the Late Wisconsin glaciation and that a continuous, inhabitable, ice-free strip did not open up in that area before about 11.5-11.3 kya. Dated archaeological sites also support a south-to-north movement by the first people penetrating into that mid-continental region. In contrast, rapidly accruing evidence indicates that significant portions of the outer Pacific margin of North America, stretching almost continuously from the Bering Land Bridge to the southern margin of Late Wisconsin glaciation, were ice-free and supporting significant terrestrial biota by (at least) 13-14 kya. Thus, a coastal route was clearly available to humans 1500 to 3500+ years before the so-called “ice-free corridor”. The current absence of equivalently old coastal archaeological sites simply reflects the fact that most desirable shoreline habitats of that age are now deeply submerged and unavailable to study.
Bibliography of Canadian Geomorphology