How did the first Americans get here? A story of boats, bones and ice - The Washington Post
▻https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2016/08/10/how-did-the-first-americans-get-here-a-story-of-boats-bones-and-ice
At long last, the Ice Age is almost over. The vast glaciers that have formed an impenetrable barrier across the top of North America are finally beginning to recede. Between the two walls of ice, a corridor emerges, harsh and scrubby, but green enough to sustain life. In a chilly but habitable region of Alaska, the descendants of Asians who daringly crossed an ice bridge into the unknown get the opportunity they’ve been waiting for: Finally, a pathway south.
They step into the corridor. They slowly edge their way south. When they emerge on the other side, many decades and 1,000 miles later, they are in what is now Montana – the first human inhabitants of what is truly a new world.
Unless you closely follow the latest findings in American paleoarchaeology, this is probably the version of America’s origin story you’re accustomed to. But it’s almost certainly wrong.
A growing body of evidence suggests that people had colonized the Americas several thousand years before the end of the last Ice Age — long before the corridor between the glaciers was even open.
