Re: Rethinking Beringia

On May 27, 10:34 am, Peter Alaca <p.al...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Jack Linthicum wrote, 27/05/2008 14:12:



On May 27, 6:53 am, Peter Alaca <p.al...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Sometimes it is good to take a few steps
back and look around, to get rid off the
narrow view on a subject.

John F. Hoffecker (2007)
Environment and the peopling of the western hemisphere:
A Bibliographic Essay

http://tinyurl.com/5qjxv7
[www.saa.org, pdf, 12 pp 618 kb]

- Introduction
"[...]

Touching on another thread in this newsgroup and looking at the map
that illustrates Hoffecker's article, it is unnecessary to use the
Aleutians at all. The enclosed area, a "Gulf of Beringa" as it were,
provides a means of navigating from Kamchatka to the Gulf of Alaska
without going outside the line of the Aleutians.

No, it is not necessary, but even with the high
sea level of today they form a chain of stepping
stones. A logical route to take by small boat.

And what struck me was the map on page 2. The extreem
cold in north-east Siberia, and the steep temperature
gradient.

What intrigues me about the whole Beringa to America question is why
the population of Beringa seems to have disappeared at the same time
as America was populated. The small number---70 or so---postulated as
the core of the migration doesn't necessarily limit the number who
left that cold tundra and went south.

No, but 70 is only a minumum number, and more than
one 'wave' is postulated.
Equally strange is that the tool assemblage seems
to be typical for Beringia (eastern Siberia-Alaska,
with not much esemblance to the early American
assemblage.

--
p.a.

I would characterize the Aleutians as signposts rather than stepping
stones and question the logic of fighting a fierce open sea over close
to shore travel. Volcanic cones sticking up out of the water, without
much in the way of landing places.

In the Wake of the Jomon by Jon Turk should put a little reality into
what a journey like this entails, minus the 20th-21st century
bureaucracy that is more than half of the problem.

http://www.oceandots.com/pacific/aleutian/agattu.htm
.