Aleutian "stepping stones" as an entry into America

A paper published in 2021 (Jerome E. Dobson; Giorgio Spada; Gaia Galassi. The Bering Transitory Archipelago: stepping stones for the first Americans. Comptes Rendus. Géoscience, Volume 353 (2021) no. 1, pp. 55-65. doi: 10.5802/crgeos.53) puts forward the Stepping-Stones Hypothesis for the peopling of America.

It suggests that Asian people didn't walk across the tundra of Beringia into an ice-blocked Alaska, instead they boated along the Aleutian islands.

In the words of the authors, there was a "Bering Transitory Archipelago" between 30,000 and 8,000 years ago and which had "scores of islands... with abundant sustenance... and an isolated sanctuary where Beringians could have become genetically distinct" on their way into America.

Highlights from the paper

Quoted from this paper:

• "an ancient transitory archipelago that offers a third alternative: an island-rich maritime route like stepping stones across the Bering Sea. Scores of scattered, continuously evolving islands were available to maritime people at least as early as 30,000 BP to as late as 8000 BP. This route would have provided abundant freshwater; rich sources of food from vastly expanded shorelines, kelp forests, fisheries, and game; fuel from driftwood, island shrubs, and forests; protected waters for people foraging and traveling in boats; and frequent haul-outs."
• "the southern shore of the Bering land bridge was geomorphically complex, with hundreds of islands located just off a coast riddled with bays and inlets. Such a coastline may have been a rich marine habitat for walrus and seals, both as haul-out spots and breeding localities. The possible abundance of such habitats has clear implications for the coastal migration theory."
• "scores of islands that could have served as stepping stones for maritime travelers. This archipelago would have been an ideal staging area for LGM travelers heading east. Maritime travelers would have needed food, shelter, and maritime facilities such as fish traps and haul-outs for umiak and kayak. Its islands would have provided a maritime homeland in which to hone the precise skills needed—kayaking, hunting, sheltering, and surviving—to reach and settle North American landfalls. Its shores would have abounded in iodine, Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), and other nutrients essential for human health and brain development."
• The Asians who migrated: "A source area could have been on the Yana River of Siberia, where coastal hunters are known to have existed 27,000 years ago... or offshore islands in northern Japan where maritime people are known to have exploited obsidian deposits by 30,000 BP"
• "These islands, sounds, and bays would have been the active interface among ice, land, and ocean. [At times] The entire archipelago was backed on the north by a broad swath of tundra meaning the area likely would have been as habitable as the north shore of Alaska today."
• " Literally, from 30,000 to 8000 BP a facilitative corridor did exist, and it was far better than the interior deglaciation corridor that dominated scientific debate for eight decades."

Stepping stones 30 ky ago. Source

This route could have been used at any time, the 30,000 year BP limit has only been given in order to fit it in with the mainstream belief that modern humans entered America after this date. But, it could have been used by our seafaring ancestsors the Neanderthals, or even Homo erectus, and also by the Denisovans, any time from 1.5 MA onwards.

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