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The Bering Land Bridge was more like a swamp
- throwaway984393 2y agoSo it was Florida but north
- ggm 2y agoI wonder if this is what Doggerland was like too? Because they found evidence of occupation, and people keep finding submerged structures which look like fish stock pens, things you make when somewhere is above sealevel "mostly" or in the strand. I wonder if there are artifacts deep in Bering St ooze?
- TomK32 2y agoDoggerland had a lot more hills and dry land, Doggerbank being the high spot. Combined with the warmer climate it had a far more stable and longer occupation than the Bering Land Bridge Wikipedia has what might have been a map of Doggerbank https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doggerland#Discovery_and_investigation_by_archaeologists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doggerland#Discovery_and_inves... And there's individuals who have found hundreds of artifacts https://www.science.org/content/article/relics-washed-beaches-reveal-lost-world-beneath-north-sea https://www.science.org/content/article/relics-washed-beache...
- exe34 2y agoI'm a bit confused - why wouldn't it have been under a ton of ice? I thought most of the northern hemisphere was under ice at the time - but from the description it sounds almost temperate.
- defrost 2y agoThe notion is that most of the water was held in higher altitude (than sea level) glaciers across interior mountainous regions of the major continents leaving the polar sea extents much as they are today albeit with lower sea levels. See (for further links at least): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beringia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beringia
- exe34 2y agonice, thank you!
- topherclay 2y agoAlaska was never really fully under ice. If you look at this picture of the Laurentide ice sheet [1] during the last glacial maximum [2] then that shows the most Alaska was covered in ice which was 26 to 20 thousand years ago. The time frame where the Bering land bridge is being looked at for the OP article is a wider 36 to 11 thousand years ago. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurentide_ice_sheet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurentide_ice_sheet [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Glacial_Maximum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Glacial_Maximum
- exe34 2y agothat's really cool thank you!
- yxhuvud 2y agoAnd even if it wasn't glaciated, there should still have been winters where the lakes would have been less of a barrier and more of a clear path to walk..
- InDubioProRubio 2y agoFlorida keys of days gone by
- metalman 2y agospeculating, but it seems that durring the phase when the oceans were droping, it would have been arid , with high cold plains/step conditions in much of the sub artic, and pockets of tundra and muskeg, all dependent on average temperature, prceipitation and topography. The turn to ocean rise would have to see increased precipitation and average temperatures, so the top layers of core samples would reflect the conditions, before the land was submerged permanently......swampy, kind of like a lot of low lying areas today.....
- sgt101 2y agoSuper easy for humans to get around - much better than a forest. If you have canoes, fishtraps, fire and portable shelters as technology then a pretty good environment to live in as well. I should imagine that over a period of time people will have simply colonised the whole area and then colonised over into NA rather than migrating to follow game or for some other reason.
- willvarfar 2y ago(just thinking about how when I stomp around in the northern forest, which I do daily, I avoid the swampy bits and stick to the dry bits to avoid getting really stuck in the mud. I can't imagine getting through the swamp with a canoe.)
- ynniv 2y agoCanoe in the ocean, camp in the swamp
- sgt101 2y agoMy experience of virgin forest is that it's totally impassible - fallen trees and dense understory everywhere - really really difficult to move through, but perhaps I've just got a biased view due to low samples. On the other hand I definitely don't think that humans would have had an easy time going through a swamp - but instead round the edges with access into the land up rivers for trapping and camping.
- willvarfar 2y ago
- Eumenes 2y agoIts protected wetlands - no invading Russia!
- api 2y agoThe fact that people crossed this in an arctic climate with Stone Age technology is insane. In some ways it sounds harder than trying to be an early settler of the Moon or Mars with today’s technology — at least in that case you would have medicine, climate control, nutritional science, etc. The Polynesian settlement of the archipelago is pretty hard core too. Long range long duration ocean voyages with canoes and star navigation. They made it to f’ing Hawaii. Of course I’m sure many people died in all these migrations… which makes it even crazier that people did it. Things like the Trail of Tears were forced but I’m not aware of anyone forcing this. Makes me think about what wimps most of us (including myself) are today.
- thaumasiotes 2y ago> The Polynesian settlement of the archipelago is pretty hard core too. Long range long duration ocean voyages with canoes and star navigation. They weren't using canoes. You need something that won't capsize. They used catamarans.
- pjob 2y agoPolynesian use of outrigger canoes is well documented. Are you claiming all outriggers are catamarans? Why be pedantic about this?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- thaumasiotes 2y agoBecause anyone with experience rowing a canoe is going to wonder how you take one across the ocean without drowning. And the answer is, you use a boat that can handle the ocean. I initially noted that the Polynesians who settled Hawaii didn't have outriggers, and that was wrong - they did have single outriggers. They maintained heavy use of catamarans. The technological progression goes: raft -> catamaran ("This raft would be more stable with a canoe at either end") -> single outrigger ("I don't need the passenger space of the raft or the second canoe, but I still need the stability, so the second canoe will just be a log") -> double outrigger ("I like being lightweight with no passenger space, but I wish I could turn in both directions")
- dmd 2y ago> It’s worth noting that the name “Bering Land Bridge” is often misleading. The landscape was not a literal bridge riveting science reporting from gizmodo
- 082349872349872 2y agoAfter hearing many war stories about Siberian winters from a colleague, I asked why they didn't do field work in summer instead. The reply was short: mosquitos and mud. (they could pretty much only travel to their field sites after the ground was frozen enough to permit it)
- m3rc 2y agoI mean yeah that makes sense