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Which routes may early peoples have used to travel south from Beringia?
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Native American
November is the traditional time of harvest, gathering, and celebration in Native communities.
Early peoples likely utilized two primary routes to travel south from Beringia into the Americas:
- Coastal Route: Evidence suggests that initial migration occurred along the coast, as people were present in the Americas thousands of years before interior routes became viable. Travelers may have used boats or a combination of walking and boat travel to navigate southward.1
- Interior Ice-Free Route: Geological studies indicate that passages existed through the interior of North America, specifically within the Mackenzie Basin and along the Yukon, Liard, and Peace river systems. While it was once believed that large numbers of people moved south through this Canadian plains corridor between the Cordilleran and Laurentide ice sheets, recent evidence shows these routes were not viable until approximately 12,600 years ago.12
Because archaeological sites across the Americas predate the opening of these interior passages, it is widely accepted that the earliest migrations followed one or both of the coastlines.1