TY - JOUR
T1 - Postglacial viability and colonization in North America's ice-free corridor
AU - Pedersen, Mikkel W.
AU - Ruter, Anthony
AU - Schweger, Charles
AU - Friebe, Harvey
AU - Staff, Richard A.
AU - Kjeldsen, Kristian K.
AU - Mendoza, Marie L.Z.
AU - Beaudoin, Alwynne B.
AU - Zutter, Cynthia
AU - Larsen, Nicolaj K.
AU - Potter, Ben A.
AU - Nielsen, Rasmus
AU - Rainville, Rebecca A.
AU - Orlando, Ludovic
AU - Meltzer, David J.
AU - Kjær, Kurt H.
AU - Willerslev, Eske
N1 - Funding Information:
This study was supported by the Danish National Research Foundation (DNRF94), the Lundbeck Foundation and KU2016.
PY - 2016/9/1
Y1 - 2016/9/1
N2 - During the Last Glacial Maximum, continental ice sheets isolated Beringia (northeast Siberia and northwest North America) from unglaciated North America. By around 15 to 14 thousand calibrated radiocarbon years before present (cal. kyr bp), glacial retreat opened an approximately 1,500-km-long corridor between the ice sheets. It remains unclear when plants and animals colonized this corridor and it became biologically viable for human migration. We obtained radiocarbon dates, pollen, macrofossils and metagenomic DNA from lake sediment cores in a bottleneck portion of the corridor. We find evidence of steppe vegetation, bison and mammoth by approximately 12.6 cal. kyr bp, followed by open forest, with evidence of moose and elk at about 11.5 cal. kyr bp, and boreal forest approximately 10 cal. kyr bp. Our findings reveal that the first Americans, whether Clovis or earlier groups in unglaciated North America before 12.6 cal. kyr bp, are unlikely to have travelled by this route into the Americas. However, later groups may have used this north-south passageway.
AB - During the Last Glacial Maximum, continental ice sheets isolated Beringia (northeast Siberia and northwest North America) from unglaciated North America. By around 15 to 14 thousand calibrated radiocarbon years before present (cal. kyr bp), glacial retreat opened an approximately 1,500-km-long corridor between the ice sheets. It remains unclear when plants and animals colonized this corridor and it became biologically viable for human migration. We obtained radiocarbon dates, pollen, macrofossils and metagenomic DNA from lake sediment cores in a bottleneck portion of the corridor. We find evidence of steppe vegetation, bison and mammoth by approximately 12.6 cal. kyr bp, followed by open forest, with evidence of moose and elk at about 11.5 cal. kyr bp, and boreal forest approximately 10 cal. kyr bp. Our findings reveal that the first Americans, whether Clovis or earlier groups in unglaciated North America before 12.6 cal. kyr bp, are unlikely to have travelled by this route into the Americas. However, later groups may have used this north-south passageway.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84984629864&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1038/nature19085
DO - 10.1038/nature19085
M3 - Article
C2 - 27509852
AN - SCOPUS:84984629864
SN - 0028-0836
VL - 537
SP - 45
EP - 49
JO - Nature
JF - Nature
IS - 7618
ER -