Ecology of the kelp highway: did marine resources facilitate human dispersal from Northeast Asia to the Americas?
Erlandson, J.M.; Braje, T.J.; Gill, K.M.; Graham, M.H. (2015). Ecology of the kelp highway: did marine resources facilitate human dispersal from Northeast Asia to the Americas? The Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology 10(3): 392-411. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15564894.2014.1001923
In: The Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology. Taylor & Francis: Philadelphia. ISSN 1556-4894; e-ISSN 1556-1828, more
|  |
| Keyword |
|
| Author keywords |
aquatic resources, ecological resistance, marine ecology, Pacific Rim, peopling the Americas |
| Authors | | Top |
- Erlandson, J.M.
- Braje, T.J.
- Gill, K.M.
- Graham, M.H.
|
|
|
| Abstract |
We explore the ecology of Pacific Rim marine ecosystems and the idea that the broad geographic range of many nearshore food resources facilitated a dispersal of maritime peoples from Asia to the Americas. Geographically, a coastal route offered less ecological resistance than interior routes, providing a linear corridor entirely at sea level and essentially free of major obstructions after about 16,000 years ago. We show that North Pacific nearshore ecosystems—from Japan to Mexico—contained hundreds of species of edible shellfish, fish, marine mammals, birds, and seaweeds distributed more or less continuously over vast stretches of coast. A coastal route, including kelp forests and estuaries, would have provided a rich mix of marine, estuarine, riverine, and terrestrial resources. A maritime dispersal following Pacific Rim shorelines could have moved relatively rapidly from northeast Asia into the Americas, leaving behind ancestral populations who followed the aquatic corridors of major river drainages deep into the interior. This model, recognizing the importance of aquatic and terrestrial resources, as well as the behavioral flexibility of Homo sapiens, can account for a relatively rapid dispersal of humans throughout the Americas and the full range of diversity of Paleoindian adaptations found in the Americas. |
|
