Sea level was more than 100 meters lower because of all the glaciers.
Geographers have actually mapped out large sections of the Russia-Alaska region that were ice free during the last glacial maximum about 20,000 years ago.
No one really had a good explanation for how that happened.
This, apparently, is the first hard evidence that the Land Bridge was warmed by ocean currents.
The first travelers across the land bridge were basically trapped in that area for hundreds or maybe even several thousand years because of the ice.
There is some evidence that some migrants may have worked their way south down the coast of Canada in boats or canoes, but I do not think anyone has ever found actual remains of a water craft from that period of time, about 15,000 years ago.
Good post. However, this article refers to coastal areas, not the inland ice-free regions, which were mostly polar desert, so wouldn’t support much life. There was a large tundra region within it though that could have.
Archaeological evidence has been found inland above the ice that cut off the habitable coastal areas: https://unews.utah.edu/ancient-babies-boost-bering-land-bridge-layover/ but those remains are 12KBP; still, the DNA suggests much older ancestry.