Central Beringia is mainly underwater today, but it was a substantial land connection between 50,000 and 11,000 years ago. The term “Bering Land Bridge” gives the impression that people raced across a narrow isthmus to reach what is today Alaska. But the oceanographic data clearly show that during the LGM, the land bridge was twice the size of Texas.
If the “Out of Beringia” model is correct, Beringia wasn’t a crossing point but a homeland. It was a place where people lived for many generations, sheltering from an inhospitable climate and slowly evolving the genetic variation unique to their Native American descendants.
Either just before or shortly after the start of their period of isolation, the Beringians split into several groups: the Ancestral Native Americans, who would move south, below the ice sheets, and become ancestors of the First Peoples; the Ancient Beringians, who would stay behind in Beringia; and a mystery group (Unsampled Population A) known to us only indirectly from the traces of ancestry it contributed to some Mesoamerican populations.
Source: A Genetic Chronicle of the First Peoples in the Americas – SAPIENS



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