Ancient Arrival: North America's First People Traveled via Sea Ice Highway

New research presented at the American Geophysical Union Annual Meeting suggests that North America's first people may have arrived as early as 24,000 years ago by traveling along a "sea ice highway" along the Pacific coastline. Paleoclimate reconstructions of the Pacific Northwest indicate that sea ice may have provided a platform for early Americans to move farther south, aided by lower sea levels and glacial winds. This theory challenges the traditional belief that people walked through an ice-free corridor 13,000 years ago and provides a new framework for understanding human migration to North America.