'Sea Ice Highway': Humans Arrived in North America From Asia Thousands of Years Earlier Than Previously Thought, Scientists Theorize

People were living in North America before Leif Erikson and Christopher Columbus showed up. But how did they get here?

Knewz.com has learned about a new theory for that: some of the first people may have traveled over sea ice.

The American Geophysical Union convention occurred in San Francisco. By: MEGA

The theory was one of many presented during December’s American Geophysical Union convention in San Francisco.

A team from the U.S. Geological Survey used computer simulations to reach their conclusion. The researchers tried to reenact the climate of the Pacific Northwest thousands of years ago, based on ocean sediment collected along the West Coast.

Plankton fossils provided clues as to how warm the ocean was and when sea ice covered the region of modern-day Alaska. The researchers conclude there could have been sea ice during winter between 15,000-23,000 years ago.

“Maybe they were using the sea ice as a platform,” research leader Summer Praetorius said in a press release reviewed by Newsweek.

Dog sleds iike this one in Quebec may have been used on a

In other words, the sea ice could have allowed people to hunt for mammals. As their hunts moved farther south, their living places would have expanded, the researchers believe.

But this is all theory. Proving people walked the “sea ice highway” from Alaska to places like Washington state will be hard to prove, because the Pacific Ocean covers any remains that archeologists could dig up.

One side discovery of the USGS team was that Pacific Ocean currents are calm today, compared with ancient times.

The Pacific Ocean’s current is considered much calmer now than 20,000 years ago. By: MEGA

The simulations indicate currents were twice as strong 20,000 years ago, which would have made boat travel much harder. Praetorius described it as a “horrible glacial current.”

According to the SciTechDaily website, the current was stronger because of freshwater from melting glaciers.

Before now, many archeologists thought people moved from northeast Asia to Alaska through the “Beringia” land bridge. The Geophysical Union thinks that could explain the discovery of human footprints which they date from 23,000 years ago.

A study released in Current Biology in January indicated ancient people actually went back and forth between the continents, at a time when sea levels were much lower.

A different report published in December suggests that all Native Americans come from the same population group.

One new study says all Native American people developed from the same population base. By: MEGA

The Alpha Galileo website reports the Native American population may have divided from East-Asian populations at the same time, around 16,000 years ago.

The report by a Spanish institute investigating “human evolution” is based on a dental review. The details are appearing in the American Journal of Biological Anthropology.

In contrast to all this, some supporters of creationism say the only real “ice age” occurred after a Blblical flood. Survivors of the flood multiplied and spread around the world from there.