November 25, 2002
BORDER PATROL:
When People Fled Hyenas: Oversized Hyenas May Have Delayed Human Arrival in North America (Lee Dye, 11/20/02,ABCNEWS.com)
The Bering Land Bridge that the first Americans crossed into the New World from Siberia had been there for thousands of years before those first immigrants arrived, most likely around 12,000 years ago. Archaeological evidence suggests the bridge surfaced repeatedly for at least 40,000 years as seawater became trapped in glaciers during the last Ice Age.North America was one of the last places on the planet to be populated by humans, and "there has to have been a series of things that kept people out of the New World until very, very late," [Christy] Turner says.
The evidence he and his colleagues have uncovered, he says, suggests that one player in that drama may have been a most unlikely, and yet terrifying, villain.
The hyena.
We just found the official mascot for The American Conservative.
Posted by Orrin Judd at November 25, 2002 9:57 PM
Sigh, as a reporter myself, I think that ignoramuses who breathlessly report what has been known for decades should be shot.
The question is controversial, because the evidence is unclear, but the usual explanation for animals and plants (not only humans) not migrating south from the ice-free region called Beringia (most of Alaska) is that there was a barrier of ice about a mile thick in the way.
There may, or may not, have been a narrow passageway open just east of the cordillera for parts of the last Ice Age. But as E.C. Pielou explained eloquently in 1991, even if the gap had been open, it would have been extremely harsh and inhospitable, probably uninhabitable for humans with Old Stone Age technology.
Sheesh.