scholarly journals Holarctic genetic structure and range dynamics in the woolly mammoth

2013 ◽  
Vol 280 (1770) ◽  
pp. 20131910 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eleftheria Palkopoulou ◽  
Love Dalén ◽  
Adrian M. Lister ◽  
Sergey Vartanyan ◽  
Mikhail Sablin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Late Pleistocene ◽  
Before Present ◽  
Land Bridge ◽  
Dna Analyses ◽  
Bering Land Bridge ◽  
Mtdna Variation ◽  
Enhanced Resolution ◽  
Coalescent Simulations ◽  
Range Dynamics ◽  
Woolly Mammoth

Ancient DNA analyses have provided enhanced resolution of population histories in many Pleistocene taxa. However, most studies are spatially restricted, making inference of species-level biogeographic histories difficult. Here, we analyse mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) variation in the woolly mammoth from across its Holarctic range to reconstruct its history over the last 200 thousand years (kyr). We identify a previously undocumented major mtDNA lineage in Europe, which was replaced by another major mtDNA lineage 32–34 kyr before present (BP). Coalescent simulations provide support for demographic expansions at approximately 121 kyr BP, suggesting that the previous interglacial was an important driver for demography and intraspecific genetic divergence. Furthermore, our results suggest an expansion into Eurasia from America around 66 kyr BP, coinciding with the first exposure of the Bering Land Bridge during the Late Pleistocene. Bayesian inference indicates Late Pleistocene demographic stability until 20–15 kyr BP, when a severe population size decline occurred.

scholarly journals Setting the Stage: The Late Pleistocene Colonization of North America

Quaternary ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael O’Brien
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Late Pleistocene ◽  
New World ◽  
Pacific Coast ◽  
Ice Sheets ◽  
Land Bridge ◽  
Projectile Points ◽  
Bering Land Bridge ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Northern Half

The timing of human entrance into North America has been a topic of debate that dates back to the late 19th century. Central to the modern discussion is not whether late Pleistocene-age populations were present on the continent, but the timing of their arrival. Key to the debate is the age of tools—bone rods, large prismatic stone blades, and bifacially chipped and fluted stone weapon tips—often found associated with the remains of late Pleistocene fauna. For decades, it was assumed that this techno-complex—termed “Clovis”—was left by the first humans in North America, who, by 11,000–12,000 years ago, made their way eastward across the Bering Land Bridge, or Beringia, and then turned south through a corridor that ran between the Cordilleran and Laurentide ice sheets, which blanketed the northern half of the continent. That scenario has been challenged by more-recent archaeological and archaeogenetic data that suggest populations entered North America as much as 15,300–14,300 years ago and moved south along the Pacific Coast and/or through the ice-free corridor, which apparently was open several thousand years earlier than initially thought. Evidence indicates that Clovis might date as early as 13,400 years ago, which means that it was not the first technology in North America. Given the lack of fluted projectile points in the Old World, it appears certain that the Clovis techno-complex, or at least major components of it, emerged in the New World.

THE BERING LAND BRIDGE

Taxon ◽  
1968 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. P. Jonker
Keyword(s):  
Land Bridge ◽  
Bering Land Bridge

Arctic archaeologies: recent work on Beringia

Antiquity ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 89 (345) ◽  
pp. 740-742 ◽  
Author(s):  
Herbert Maschner
Keyword(s):  
Bering Sea ◽  
North Pacific ◽  
Yukon Territory ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Land Bridge ◽  
Far North ◽  
North East ◽  
Bering Land Bridge ◽  
Last Glaciation ◽  
The Bering Sea

This review considers three books on the archaeology of territories situated around the Bering Sea—a region often referred to as Beringia, adopting the term created for the Late Pleistocene landscape that extended from north-east Asia, across the Bering Land Bridge, to approximately the Yukon Territory of Canada. This region is critical to the archaeology of the Arctic for two fundamental reasons. First, it is the gateway to the Americas, and was certainly the route by which the territory was colonised at the end of the last glaciation. Second, it is the place where the entire Aleut-Eskimo (Unangan, Yupik, Alutiiq, Inupiat and Inuit) phenomenon began, and every coastal culture from the far north Pacific, to Chukotka, to north Alaska, and to arctic Canada and Greenland, has its foundation in the cultural developments that occurred around the Bering Sea.

Flake Tools in the American Arctic: Some Speculations

1964 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 338-344 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edwin N. Wilmsen
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Central Asia ◽  
New World ◽  
Yukon Territory ◽  
River Delta ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Land Bridge ◽  
Bering Land Bridge

AbstractTwo sites, Kogruk (at the summit of Anaktuvuk Pass, Alaska) and Engigstciak (at the head of the Firth River delta, Yukon Territory, Canada), have recently yielded flake-tool assemblages which show striking resemblances to a Eurasiatic flake-blade tradition based on a Levallois-Mousterian stone-chipping technique, and to the Clovis flake-blade tradition of America which appears to be based on a similar chipping technique. It is suggested that these traditions are historically related and that the Arctic sites provide a possible link between the two. The presence of incipient fluting in Siberia and at Engigstciak may prove significant. Dating is discussed in terms of the ecology and geology of the sites and is correlated with the probable periods of availability of the Bering land bridge. An upland-foothills zone is seen to be essentially continuous from central Asia to central North America. It is suggested that this zone provided the only environmentally compatible link between the two continents, and that it was therefore the most probable route of early hunting peoples into the New World.

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