Gateway to the Americas: New Archaeological Evidence on North American Origins

University Of New Mexico, Albuquerque NM

Investigators

Abstract

Continental glaciers lowered global sea level exposing the Bering Land Bridge and blocked the entry of humans migrating from Asia to the Americas during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). However, archeological discoveries indicate that humans had colonized areas south of the ice sheets prior to the end of the last Ice Age (c 11,000 years radiocarbon ago). Based on these data, PI E. James Dixon questions the predominant theory that the Bering Land Bridge and southward migration through central North America was the original route of human entry to the Americas. Dixon?s alternative hypothesis suggests that between 16,000 and 12,000 years ago humans using watercraft may have first entered the Americas by colonizing refugia and deglaciated areas of the continental shelf of the Northwest (NW) Coast of North America exposed by lower sea level. This research project challenges traditional thought regarding the origins of Native Americans, the nature of their original adaptation, and when and how they first colonized the Americas. Native American oral histories, recent discovery of artifacts on the ocean floor, and refined paleoenvironmental and geological data, make it possible to identify specific locales where ancient submerged sites may be located in SE Alaska. This research will analyze these data and employ Geographic Information Systems (GIS) modeling of LGM and post-LGM paleogeography to identify specific under water locales on the continental shelf of Southeast (SE) Alaska that exhibit high archeological potential. Identified site locales and select areas exhibiting high archeological potential will be surveyed and sampled using marine archeological techniques including multibeam side scan sonar and bottom sediment sampling in an effort to test the coastal migration hypothesis.