Beringia

Beringia was a time not yet flooded from the sea, continuous land bridge between North America and Asia, of which the first people immigrated to North America in the colonization of America. Beringia was located on the northern edge of the present-day Bering Sea and is not to be confused with the Bering bridge on the southern edge of this sea today.

Whitehorse is a museum and a small research department in the Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre deals with Beringia, the. During the glacial period ice-free area in the east of Alaska and the Yukon

Geography

Beringia was located at the site of present-day Bering Strait, the northern end of the Bering Sea, and thus lay between the west coast of present-day Alaska (USA) and the east coast of present-day Siberia (Russia). The land bridge was part of a 34 million km ² of the ice-free area, which ranged from the Lena River in eastern Siberia to the Mackenzie River in Canada and occupied a part of today's Arctic Ocean.

History

Until about 10,000 years ago ( recent studies have also 11000-12000 appear as possible), as the last ice age ended and the sea level was still sunk far, was at the northern end of the Bering Sea (now the Bering Strait ) the continuous land bridge Beringia, the Americas and Asia combined. Due to the multiple ice advances and retreats and the associated changes in sea levels the last 100,000 years, it is possible that Beringia repeatedly emerged from the waves and sank again.

At that time the sea level was through the ice, bound large amounts of water of the oceans in itself to decreased up to about 125 m, so that was a about 40 to 50 km wide and up to 85 km long, undulating landscape that together the two continents association. There is a grassy steppe, the specific features of the mammoth steppe developed.

This sunken land bridge was the route through which came the first immigrants to America. At that time, today's Bering Strait was a fertile grassland, which was inhabited by many large animals such as mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, reindeer and musk ox. It is believed that the ancestors of the later Indians followed the vast herds and reached the New World in this way. To explain the difference in time between the departure into Asia around 25,000 years ago and the arrival of the first humans in the Americas about 15,000 years ago, a long stay in the range of Beringia is discussed. The reason for the delayed train the strong glacier in America and the particular suitability of Beringia for a human settlement apply because by climatic factors prevailing there a tundra -like vegetation, particularly trees and thus firewood offered.

Besides Beringia was on the south side of the Bering Sea which partly interrupted by deep sea areas Bering bridge over which the time - could be reached also immigrants to North America - according to today's popular theories.