Data analysis yields striking maps of human expansion in North American Holocene
Wednesday, September 16, 2015 - 08:10
in Paleontology & Archaeology
(Phys.org)—The Holocene began approximately 11,700 years ago, and encompasses the entire history of human civilization, all known written records, the epochs of human migrations, and the development of modern urban civilization. In the absence of written records from deep human history, paleohistorians have only the archaeological record to establish the spread of humanity across time and space, and there are known gaps in our knowledge of human expansion. Some of those gaps in the historical record occurred around the time that the Cordilleran and Laurentide ice sheets retreated and allowed human colonization of North America.