4 ms·

If those early people had boats or other means of floating along the coasts they easily could've found their way to present-day New Mexico during the time perio

If those early people had boats or other means of floating along the coasts they easily could've found their way to present-day New Mexico during the time period in question with or without glaciers in North America. A single family or individual who managed to hug the coast to a point south of the glaciers could easily walk the width of the United States in under a year averaging only 10 miles per day. There is plenty of time for a nomadic person or group following game animals or just walking over the hill to see what they can see to cover the entire United States on foot in a short lifetime. If they have rafts, boats, or any other way of navigating waterways without drowning it is even easier. These people were not stupid and they likely were as curious as we are today. They didn't have the cool technologies that we have today or in the last 200 years but they had a deep knowledge of their environments and could read the landscapes, the skies, the animals, and the plants and understand a lot more than most of today could. The real question needs to be about how far back we can go and say conclusively that humans built boats, hollowed logs, etc. and used those constructed contraptions to travel over water.

kylebenzle 3y ago
What a great comment! I love needing to remind myself of this, that a person can walk across the US in about a 1, but over 2 years would be relatively leisurely.
- doodlebugging 3y ago
  Thanks! I think most people have not hitchhiked cross-country or spent a full day walking. Too many of us have never been motivated by hunger or thirst to see what was over the next hill. We just do a quick search for a 7-11 on our smart phone. In contrast, these ancient people would understand how to use acquired knowledge and local resources to insure their survival, to deal with unfamiliar animals or plants, and to safely navigate unfamiliar terrain. This would be second nature to them.
AlotOfReading 3y ago
It's not nearly as easy as you think [0]. I'm not going to cite the whole library of work on this topic because that comes across a bit rude, but there's been a lot of ink spilled here and I'm summarizing heavily for brevity's sake. Humans had likely already invented boats, given that they reached Japan and Australia tens of thousands of years previously. The North Pacific was just a deeply unfriendly place during the LGM. There were few resources, frigid weather (Beringia itself was practically temperate in comparison!), and they'd have to fight a strong Alaska current all the way down the coast. It's pretty clear at this point that the coastal route happened eventually, but we need a lot more data to put together a sensible theory that can reconcile these outliers. [0] https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2208738120 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2208738120
- tzs 3y ago
  Looking at it from the other direction, humans reached North America before the wheel, and before domestication of any animals except possibly dogs. Traveling a great distance by land would then mean either carrying your stuff or dragging it possibly on a sled maybe with dogs to help. I'm not sure boats are old enough, but rafts definitely are. Humans also had rope well before then, and string even longer. A boat or raft train down the coast seems feasible, and would let you let you bring a lot more of your stuff. Fishing is also old enough, which might make picking traveling by water a more attractive choice than going by land. Going to some far away unknown place by land runs the risk of having to cross mountains or deserts along the way where food may be scarce. (And that's another advantage of a water route--no mountains).
  - AlotOfReading 3y ago
    Much of the Alaskan and Canadian coast was glaciated during the period in question. You should trust me that doing a raft train along the live edge of sea ice is a very quick way to die.
    - doodlebugging 3y ago
      According to the paper sea ice was a seasonal consideration during the LGM. There was open ocean during the summers. If these people were fishermen they would have all the skills and motivation to follow the fish wherever they led. Since the circulation in the area of interest is cyclonic, or counterclockwise, a boatload of people would naturally be carried to the central Oregon coast if they launched from Beringia off present-day Kodiak Island. The whole journey, assuming as I tend to do that systems operate today in the same fashion that they operated back then, (uniformitarianism) has those people making landfall about 90-120 days later riding the ocean currents. That sounds reasonable. The thing that I most wish would change in archaeology is the dumbing down of people who lived a long time ago. The very truth of their survival in situations where few of us modern people would thrive or survive tells modern people everything they should know about our common ancestors. They were ignorant only of the things that we all take for granted today - paved roads, wristwatches, computers, air conditioning, automobiles and engine power, etc. They were masters of their environments who learned by doing things with their hands and by listening to the oral histories of their heroes and internalizing that knowledge so that they could thrive if confronted with similar challenges in their own lives. The fact that sections of the trails they took to get into North America have been erased since they made their epic journey is entirely due to everyday processes like erosion, inundation, etc. When we find a new site with outlier dates we should consider that we are constrained by the sparse sampling in the data driving our determinations of climate conditions during that period. We don't have high enough resolution to define seasonal variations so we can't say with confidence that it didn't happen during a summer's journey to a group of people who just followed the roving food supply wherever that led and laid in enough supplies to last them thru the winter that they knew was coming.
decremental 3y ago
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kylebenzle 3y ago

What a great comment! I love needing to remind myself of this, that a person can walk across the US in about a 1, but over 2 years would be relatively leisurely.

doodlebugging 3y ago
Thanks! I think most people have not hitchhiked cross-country or spent a full day walking. Too many of us have never been motivated by hunger or thirst to see what was over the next hill. We just do a quick search for a 7-11 on our smart phone. In contrast, these ancient people would understand how to use acquired knowledge and local resources to insure their survival, to deal with unfamiliar animals or plants, and to safely navigate unfamiliar terrain. This would be second nature to them.

AlotOfReading 3y ago

It's not nearly as easy as you think [0]. I'm not going to cite the whole library of work on this topic because that comes across a bit rude, but there's been a lot of ink spilled here and I'm summarizing heavily for brevity's sake. Humans had likely already invented boats, given that they reached Japan and Australia tens of thousands of years previously. The North Pacific was just a deeply unfriendly place during the LGM. There were few resources, frigid weather (Beringia itself was practically temperate in comparison!), and they'd have to fight a strong Alaska current all the way down the coast. It's pretty clear at this point that the coastal route happened eventually, but we need a lot more data to put together a sensible theory that can reconcile these outliers. [0] https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2208738120 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2208738120

tzs 3y ago
Looking at it from the other direction, humans reached North America before the wheel, and before domestication of any animals except possibly dogs. Traveling a great distance by land would then mean either carrying your stuff or dragging it possibly on a sled maybe with dogs to help. I'm not sure boats are old enough, but rafts definitely are. Humans also had rope well before then, and string even longer. A boat or raft train down the coast seems feasible, and would let you let you bring a lot more of your stuff. Fishing is also old enough, which might make picking traveling by water a more attractive choice than going by land. Going to some far away unknown place by land runs the risk of having to cross mountains or deserts along the way where food may be scarce. (And that's another advantage of a water route--no mountains).
- AlotOfReading 3y ago
  Much of the Alaskan and Canadian coast was glaciated during the period in question. You should trust me that doing a raft train along the live edge of sea ice is a very quick way to die.
  - doodlebugging 3y ago
    According to the paper sea ice was a seasonal consideration during the LGM. There was open ocean during the summers. If these people were fishermen they would have all the skills and motivation to follow the fish wherever they led. Since the circulation in the area of interest is cyclonic, or counterclockwise, a boatload of people would naturally be carried to the central Oregon coast if they launched from Beringia off present-day Kodiak Island. The whole journey, assuming as I tend to do that systems operate today in the same fashion that they operated back then, (uniformitarianism) has those people making landfall about 90-120 days later riding the ocean currents. That sounds reasonable. The thing that I most wish would change in archaeology is the dumbing down of people who lived a long time ago. The very truth of their survival in situations where few of us modern people would thrive or survive tells modern people everything they should know about our common ancestors. They were ignorant only of the things that we all take for granted today - paved roads, wristwatches, computers, air conditioning, automobiles and engine power, etc. They were masters of their environments who learned by doing things with their hands and by listening to the oral histories of their heroes and internalizing that knowledge so that they could thrive if confronted with similar challenges in their own lives. The fact that sections of the trails they took to get into North America have been erased since they made their epic journey is entirely due to everyday processes like erosion, inundation, etc. When we find a new site with outlier dates we should consider that we are constrained by the sparse sampling in the data driving our determinations of climate conditions during that period. We don't have high enough resolution to define seasonal variations so we can't say with confidence that it didn't happen during a summer's journey to a group of people who just followed the roving food supply wherever that led and laid in enough supplies to last them thru the winter that they knew was coming.

decremental 3y ago

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