The Americas are settled
People move south along a deglaciating coast and reach both continents within a few thousand years.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 2 thousand years
- Known to
- ± 1 thousand years
- Era
- Late Pleistocene, Quaternary
After a long isolation in Beringia, populations move into the Americas as the ice sheets separate. A Pacific coastal route opening around 16,000 years ago is now favoured over the interior ice-free corridor, which appears to have been biologically barren until later. Genomic evidence indicates a rapid southward expansion and an early split into northern and southern branches. Within a few thousand years people are present from Alaska to Patagonia.