Download What is Beringia? [Today, Beringia is defined as the land and

What is Beringia?
[Today, Beringia is defined as the land and maritime area bounded on the west by the Lena
River in Russia; on the east by the Mackenzie River in Canada's British Columbia; on the north
by 72 degrees north latitude in the Chukchi Sea; and on the south by the tip of the Kamchatka
Peninsula.]
Ten to twenty-five thousand years ago, during the period known as the Pleistocene Ice Age,
glaciers up to two miles thick covered large parts of North America, Europe, and Asia and much
of the earth's water was locked up in the glaciers. The sea level dropped significantly - up to 300
feet - and some areas that are now under water became dry land. The result was a land bridge
connecting the continents of Asia and North America in the present day Bering Strait area and
extending into the Bering and Chukchi seas. The bridge formed a flat, grassy treeless plain that
was not a narrow isthmus, but the stocky shoulders of two continents stretching one thousand
miles from north to south. Scientists believe that Beringia was at its widest point about 21,000
years ago.
When the earth went into its climate warming cycle, the glaciers began to melt. The melt
waters raised the level of the world's oceans and submerged the land bridge connecting Asia
and North America. Today the only remaining land visible from the central part of the Bering
land bridge are the Diomede Islands, the Pribilof Islands of St. Paul and St. George, St. Lawrence
Island, and King Island.
During the time of its existence, the land bridge played a vital role in the spread of plant and
animal life between the continents. Many species of animals - the woolly mammoth, mastodon,
scimitar cat, Arctic camel, brown bear, moose, muskox, and horse - to name a few - moved
from one continent to the other across the Bering land bridge. Birds, fish, and marine mammals
established migration patterns that continue to this day.
The people who became the first North Americans followed the earlier movements of land
mammals and plants. Unlike later migrations from Europe to North America, these migrations
were not conscious efforts to populate a new continent, but rather a simple pursuit of food and
shelter - the basic necessities of life. Long after the land bridge was submerged, the peoples of
Beringia remain united by language, tradition, and their environment.
This area provides an unparalleled opportunity for a comprehensive study of the earth and
human history. Its unusually intact landforms and biological and cultural remains may reveal
the character of past climates and histories and the ebb and flow of earth forces at the
continents' edge. David Hopkins, the great Beringian scholar, wrote that, "The history of
Beringia has long excited the interest of geologists, biogeographers, anthropologists - and even
medical geographers, for the first men to colonize North America brought their diseases and
parasites over the Bering Land Bridge with them." As one of the world's great ancient
crossroads, Beringia may hold solutions to puzzles about who were the first people to populate
North America, how and when they traveled, and how they survived under such harsh climatic
conditions.
"What is Beringia?" Shared Beringian Heritage Program. U.S. Nationals Park Service, 12 Oct. 2010.
Web. 04 Sept. 2012. <http://www.nps.gov/akso/beringia/beringia/index.cfm>. The Shared
Beringian Heritage Program recognizes and celebrates the natural resources and cultural
heritage shared by Russia and the United States on both sides of the Bering Strait. NPS
provides cuurent information regarding the most recent theories as to the Beringian Land Bridge
including glacial melt models