A revised view of Neanderthal's distribution in Asia and possible entry route into America. Copyright © 2011 by Austin Whittall
The map above shows what I drew in a previous map but puts it in context. You can see the entry route of modern humans (H. sapiens) into Asia through Sinai and the southern tip of the Red Sea and the tip of the Persian Gulf (see the lower sea level and the coast line during Ice Ages).
Ice sheets covered the high mountains of Eurasia and blanketed the northern part of Europe and central Asia.
These ice fields cut off the drainage of Siberian rivers (which flow north) and acted as ice dams, forming the biggest lakes that the world has ever seen Lakes Komi and West Siberian Lake. The water backed up and found a southern outlet into the Aral Sea and from there to the Caspian Sea, which filled in its current depression (nowadays this "sea" is below sea level) and led it to flow west into the seas of Azov and from there into the Black sea, at that time a lake as were all the others (freshwater due to glacial ice melt and not salt water as they have now).
These rivers were mighty barriers to Neanderthal and would have been uncrossable, they were a barrier to further expansion, as was the northern glaciers.
We have seen that Neanderthal reached the mouth of the Indus River, on the border between Pakistan and India. Why did they stop there? Perhaps ancient H. erectus population in India impeded it, or the weather / vegetation was too balmy for the Neanderthals, used to living in the icy tundra.
They would have gone north, from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran towards Altai, where their most distant remains have been found (to date).
I see nothing that would have made them stop there. They could have gone southeast, into what is now China, but perhaps there was no game to hunt or, again, H. erectus blocked the way.
They would have followed the southern edge of the tundra, just north of the mountains that separate Mongolia from Russia, on and on, towards Beringia, and once across it, into America.
Lets go into details! in my next posts.
Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia
Quite logical.
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