Between two continents on the edge of the Arctic lay the ancient place called Beringia. It was a land of ice, giant mammals and the First People of North America. We live in unusual times. We may think that our climate today is typical but over the past 2 million years, the climate of the northern hemisphere has been dominated by huge ice sheets. During each Ice Age,vast glaciers formed in the Northern Hemisphere, locking up much of the world’s water as ice. Global sea levels dropped as much as 100 – 150 meters as a result, revealing the floor of the Bering Sea and creating a land connection between Alaska and Siberia (shown by the area in green). This land bridge was part of a larger unglaciated area called Beringia.
Glaciers never formed in Beringia because the climate was too dry. Beringia, clothed in the hardy grasses and herbs of the mammoth steppe, was home to the giants of the Ice Age: the mammoth, the giant short-faced bear, the steppe bison, and the scimitar cat. At the height of the last great Ice Age, the most successful hunters of all, human beings, entered Beringia from the Siberian steppes, conquering the last frontier for the human species.
Beringia vanished with the end of the last Ice Age. But parts of this lost land can still be found in northern and central Yukon, Alaska and Siberia.
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