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Brownbag Lectures: Out of Beringia: Genetics, Paleo-ecology, and Archaeology

Brownbag Lectures: Out of Beringia: Genetics, Paleo-ecology, and Archaeology

• Location: ISM Research & Collections Center, Springfield
• Date: Wednesday, March 12, 2014, 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM

Presented by John F. Hoffecker, INSTAAR/University of Colorado-Boulder & Illinos State Museum

Human geneticists argue that most Native Americans are derived from a population isolated from its source in Asia for thousands of years before dispersing in the Americas, and some suggest that the isolated population was located in Beringia during the Last Glacial Maximum [LGM] (i.e., “Out of Beringia” or “Beringian Stand-still” model).  Evidence has accumulated for decades that central Beringia supported a shrub tundra environment with some trees and experienced relatively mild temperatures during the LGM, apparently reflecting the effect of moist air from the North Pacific Ocean.  The central Beringian shrub tundra zone represents a credible LGM refugium for humans and may have been the only substantive source of wood at high latitudes during this interval (roughly 28,000 to 17,000 years ago).  The Yana River sites document human occupation of northwestern Beringia before the LGM.  The absence of archaeological sites dating to the LGM may be explained by the inundation of central Beringia after 12,000 years ago.  Sites dating to the post-LGM period include (1) an industry that is recently derived from Northeast Asia (Dyuktai) after 15,000 years ago, as well as (2) another industry or industries (Ushki-Nenana) that has no obvious antecedents outside Beringia and may be an archaeological proxy for the hypothesized “Beringia Standstill” population that occupied central Beringia during the LGM and subsequently dispersed southward to the Americas.

One of our Brownbag Lectures

Weekly lectures held at the Museum's Research and Collections Center. Lectures are usually held during lunchtime on Wednesday. The RCC is located at 1011 E. Ash Street in Springfield. Access to the building is from 10 ½ Street (between Ash and Laurel Streets), where there is ample visitor parking in the west parking lot. For more information, please call 217-785-0037. Brown Bag Lectures are free and open to the public.

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