Environmental historian Alan MacEachern from Western University has written a fascinating article clarifying recent debates about how the first human inhabitants of the Americas reached the continent. A series of recent article have amended the theory that the first people arrived in the Americas by walking from Siberia to North America across the Bering land bridge. These articles and the responses to them have led to claims that the Bering theory has been overturned altogether. Yet, MacEachern cautions that such claims are exaggerated. He argues that recent research has not overturned the notion that the earliest inhabitants of the Americas entered the continent through the Bering land bridge. Instead, new evidence simply suggests that the earliest inhabitants crossed in boats along the ice bridge rather than through an ice-free and habitable inland corridor. The full article and links to the research under discussion can be found here.
Climate History Network