Arctic Beringia and Native American Origins

Abstract

The central lowland of Beringia (aka the Bering land bridge) has been viewed alternately as a barrier or a refugium to the Native American founder population during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Here we suggest that an equally – if not more – likely LGM home for the founder population is the arctic zone of Beringia. People were drawn to eastern arctic Beringia during the post-LGM Younger Dryas (YD) cold period and occupied western arctic Beringia during the cold interval preceding the LGM (GS5/HE3). Arctic Beringia probably contained adequate resources for an LGM human population, especially across the exposed East Siberian Arctic Shelf (“Northwest Beringian Plain”), which supported an extensive steppe-tundra habitat populated by mammoth and other large mammals before and during the LGM. An arctic Beringian refugium would explain a growing body of evidence that indicates an early (or pre-) LGM divergence of the Native American founder population from its Asian source.