Bering Land Bridge

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Bering Land Bridge Beringia
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Where is it?

• It was located where the Bering Strait is today,
  between Russia and North America.
• The Bering Strait is the water way that separates
  Russia from North America.
• Under it lies a submerged landmass that once
  connected Asia with North America called
  Beringia or the Bering Land Bridge.

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How was it formed?

• During the Ice Age changes in climate caused the
  formation of huge amounts of ice made from the
  surrounding seas.
• This freezing caused the sea levels to fall and
  coastlines to change.
• During this time a 12-mile wide, 1000 mile long
  land bridge formed (Beringa), approximately
  40,000 B.C. to 10,000 B.C.

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Land Bridge
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Geography

• During cycles of global cooling, such as the most
  recent ice age, enough sea water became
  concentrated in the ice caps of the Arctic and
  Antarctic that the subsequent drop in sea levels
  exposed shallow sea floors.

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People

• The Earliest Americans crossed the Arctic Ocean
  from Asia to North America during the Ice Age.
• Around 11,000 B.C. to 9,000 B.C., Native
  Americans walked across the land bridge and
  slowly migrated south establishing three of our
  earliest distinct cultures the Inuits, the
  Anasazi, and the Mound Builders.

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Where did it go?

• At the end of the Ice Age (approx. 10,000 B.C.)
  temperatures began to rise and ice began to melt.
  
• Eventually the water covered the 12-mile wide
  land bridge that had been created by glaciers and
  people could no longer walk to America.

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Where did the people go?

• People chose different lifestyles based on the
  climate, the food sources and movement.
• Some chose to stay in the north and hunt while
  others moved further south and eventually became
  farmers.

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Wheres the Proof?
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At first, Scientists found proof that the first
Americans were the Clovis people named for an
archeological site located near Clovis, New
Mexico and that they walked across the Bering
Land Bridge and spread into what is now the
United States about 13,500 years ago.
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In recent years, however, researchers have
unearthed many sites that appear to be
pre-Clovis, some of them potentially doubling the
time frame people have been in the Western
Hemisphere. Look at interactive site
http//www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/stoneage/clovis.html
What evidence do researchers have of
pre-Clovis settlements? Those that settled in
North America were deft hunters capable of
bringing down massive animals while tolerating
harsh environmental conditions,
There is no evidence that early Americans
hunted the short face bear and saber tooth cat.
They did hunt Mastodon
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dire wolf and peccary
The giant ground sloth is just one of numerous
large mammals that vanished forever as the Ice
Age wound down in North America.
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More proof found before Clovis
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Lets watch.
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Stone Age Toolkit
Draw (as best you can each tool) Guess what each
tool was used for.
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http//www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/stoneage/toolkit.html
http//www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/stoneage/toolkit.htm
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