Scientists May Have Found an Ancient Path Into America 24,000 Years Ago

[Judi Lynn]

23 December 2023
By MIKE MCRAE

A frozen highway may have given ancient travelers a clear path from Siberia into the New World more than 10,000 years earlier than America's First Nations people are thought to have arrived.

According to data based on studies of sediment and fossilized marine life analyzed by researchers from the US Geological Survey, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and Oregon State University, an early migration would have been made a lot easier by sea ice.

A presentation by US Geological Survey geologist Summer Praetorius delivered at the American Geophysical Union Annual Meeting (AGU23) in San Francisco suggests flat expanses of winter ice may have played a critical role in facilitating travel at times when passage by boat would have been too treacherous.

For the better part of half a century, archaeologists generally regarded a culture known as the Clovis people as the original pioneers of the North American continent. Lured by fertile new hunting grounds, families trekked across lands briefly exposed by retreating ice linking Siberia with Alaska around 13,000 years ago.

More:
https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-may-have-found-an-ancient-path-into-america-24000-years-ago