Boulder-Size Clues to How Humans Settled the Americas - The New York Times

Boulder-Size Clues to How Humans Settled the Americas - The New York Times:



Scientists have debated the two theories, and in recent years support for the coastal route has grown from archaeological finds, such as 13,000-year-old footprints on an island in British Columbia. Now, geologists studying boulders and bedrock on Alaska’s southeastern islands have found evidence of an ice-free route some 17,000 years ago down the coast that would have allowed human travel.



“We’re not definitively saying they took the coastal route,” said Alia Lesnek, a graduate student at the University at Buffalo and lead author of the study. “We have some of the first direct evidence that that was something that could be done.”