Beringia
At a glance:
- Series: American Indians Ready Reference
- Categories: Geography
- Subcategories: Native Americans, American Indians, Demographics, Population, Prehistoric Humans
- Curriculum: American Indian History, American Pre-Colonial History (to 1606), Ancient History
- Geographical Location: Russia, Alaska
- Date: Late Pleistocene epoch, 25,000-12,000
Beringia is the name given to a land bridge that once existed in the region now known as the Bering Strait. It was periodically exposed toward the end of Pleistocene epoch, when water deposited through precipitation on the polar ice caps resulted in a lowering of global sea levels as much as 400 feet below what they are now. With the rise in global temperatures that occurred around 12,000 years ago, Beringia was submerged as sea levels rose.
Only about 60 miles separate Asia and North America in the Bering Strait today. At the time Beringia existed, the land between them was...
[The entire page is 344 words long]
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