If they found footprints in Chile, how long would it have taken people to migrate south from the Bering land bridge? 1,000 years? 5,000?
I’m always curious what prompted people to move and how far they could go in one year. Did they move 10 miles a year? 50?
Did they know that there could be places with warmer climates and that they should head south? How could they have known that?
This is exactly my question. How long would this have taken? Did they take some kind of boat/canoe down the coast?
I’d say they moved from hill to hill with a nearby waterhole and plants in the surround.
“If they found footprints in Chile, how long would it have taken people to migrate south from the Bering land bridge? 1,000 years? 5,000?”
Or perhaps they crossed the seas. There seems to be considerable evidence of this in extreme antiquity.
I think the way it is for larger mammals is the same - it got crowded, so pressure evolved in one direction: away from the crowd and towards more food, better hunting. Sure, there were exceptions - some may have wandered towards less food, worse conditions. Just that on the average, populations tend to spread out to "fill the room".
The movie "Ao, the last Neanderthal" depicts some of this. Cool prehistoric docu-drama-comedy.
Geese
Imo, they were most probably coast hopping.
Moving by sea and landing when they needed to and establishing camps. Some camps became permanent. All of those would be under a lot of water now.
Actually it’s part of the story of Noah and the ark which got left out of Genesis. The Bible makes it sound like the only people on board the ark were Noah and his family. But Noah had had to get the help of a lawyer to get the building permits, so he let the lawyer and his family on board, but then the lawyer killed and BBQ’d the last unicorn. When Noah found out, the lawyer taunted him, “What are you going to do—sue me?” Instead Noah put the lawyer and his family on a lifeboat which came to ground in Chile.
Question: How long did it take humans to figure out that it was warmer in the south?
Possible answer: Not that long. They followed their food. One season of following whatever antelope they liked to BBQ did the trick.