“New Evidence of Humans in North America” – Mar 20

THE MAMMOTH STEPPE HYPOTHESIS:

NEW EVIDENCE FOR HUMAN PRESENCE IN NORTH AMERICA

40,000 – 30,000 YEARS AGO

 

March 20, 2020

11:00 am – 12:00 pm

Anza-Borrego Desert State Park Visitor’s Center

Discovery Room

 

Steven and Kathleen Holen of the Center for American Paleolithic Research will present new evidence from multiple North American mid-continent archaeological sites dating to this period and the Last Glacial Maximum.

 

The Mammoth Steppe Hypothesis suggests a human movement into the Americas sometime between 40,000 and 30,000 years ago from Siberia. This period was characterized by a relatively mild climate that created a vast contiguous grassland that was capable of supporting abundant large animals.  Ecological data from the Mammoth Steppe support the assertion that humans could have followed the Mammoth Steppe into the Americas.

 

We suggest that human populations from northern Siberia were able to disperse across Siberia and Alaska and down the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains, when an interior corridor was open prior to 22,000 years ago. Support for the hypothesis is based on evidence from multiple North American mid-continent archaeological sites dating to this period and the Last Glacial Maximum. The dispersal of these small populations left a sparse archaeological record in North America that warrants ongoing investigation through systematic research in geological deposits greater than 20,000 years old.

 

A Program of the Colorado Desert Archaeological Society