Mystery of Native Americans' missing 10,000 years solved: Ancestors lived on wooded land between Siberia and Alaska 25,000 years ago
Ancestors of Native Americans used wood from the shrub tundra to build fires and keep warm, it is thought
It was a mystery how the ancestors of Native Americans survived the Ice Age.
But now a team of international scientists think they might have solved the mystery and it has to do with the ancient people living in a wooded tundra area after splitting from their Asian relatives 25,000 years ago.
The ancestors of Native Americans probably set up home in a region between Siberia and Alaska, which contained woody plants that they could use to make fires, according to a new study.
A group of academics at Royal Holloway, University of London, and the universities of Colorado and Utah analysed fossils to come to this conclusion.
Until now no-one had any idea about where the ancestors of Native Americans spent around 10,000 years before they arrived in Alaska and the rest of North America.
Professor Scott Elias, from the Department of Geography at Royal Holloway said: ‘This work fills in a 10,000-year missing link in the story of the peopling of the New World.’
The experts think that the group of people must have lived on the Bering land Bridge, which is now under the waters of the Bering and Chukchi Seas.
The landscape is dominated by dwarf willow and birch shrubs, mosses and lichens.
Professor Elias said: ‘We believe that these ancestors survived on the shrub tundra of the Bering Land Bridge because this was the only region of the Arctic where any woody plants were growing.’
‘They needed the wood for fuel to make camp fires in this bitterly cold region of the world. They would have used dwarf shrub wood to get a small fire going, then placed large mammal bones on top of the fire, to ignite the fats inside the bones.
‘Once burning, large leg bones of ice-age mammals would have burned for hours, keeping people alive through Arctic winter nights.’
The academics analysed insect and plant fossils extracted from sediment cores taken from the ancient land bridge, to make the discovery. It now lies on the sea floor between 50 and 60 metres below the water’s surface.
Source
Ancestors of Native Americans used wood from the shrub tundra to build fires and keep warm, it is thought
It was a mystery how the ancestors of Native Americans survived the Ice Age.
But now a team of international scientists think they might have solved the mystery and it has to do with the ancient people living in a wooded tundra area after splitting from their Asian relatives 25,000 years ago.
The ancestors of Native Americans probably set up home in a region between Siberia and Alaska, which contained woody plants that they could use to make fires, according to a new study.
A group of academics at Royal Holloway, University of London, and the universities of Colorado and Utah analysed fossils to come to this conclusion.
Until now no-one had any idea about where the ancestors of Native Americans spent around 10,000 years before they arrived in Alaska and the rest of North America.
Professor Scott Elias, from the Department of Geography at Royal Holloway said: ‘This work fills in a 10,000-year missing link in the story of the peopling of the New World.’
The experts think that the group of people must have lived on the Bering land Bridge, which is now under the waters of the Bering and Chukchi Seas.
Photo Credit: Jean Stevens
The land bridge and some adjacent regions were not as dry as the rest of Beringia - the region surrounding the Bering Strait, including parts of Russia and Alaska – and the central part where the Native Americans are now thought to have lived, was covered in shrub tundra, which is the most common vegetation in modern Arctic Alaska.The landscape is dominated by dwarf willow and birch shrubs, mosses and lichens.
Professor Elias said: ‘We believe that these ancestors survived on the shrub tundra of the Bering Land Bridge because this was the only region of the Arctic where any woody plants were growing.’
‘They needed the wood for fuel to make camp fires in this bitterly cold region of the world. They would have used dwarf shrub wood to get a small fire going, then placed large mammal bones on top of the fire, to ignite the fats inside the bones.
‘Once burning, large leg bones of ice-age mammals would have burned for hours, keeping people alive through Arctic winter nights.’
The academics analysed insect and plant fossils extracted from sediment cores taken from the ancient land bridge, to make the discovery. It now lies on the sea floor between 50 and 60 metres below the water’s surface.
Source
The central part of Beringia where the Native Americans are now thought to have lived, was covered in shrub tundra, which is the most common vegetation in modern Arctic Alaska (pictured). The landscape is dominated by dwarf willow and birch shrubs, mosses and lichens.
Bones, they burned bones.