The North Pacific Rim Genetic research on the Kennewick Man will be of major interest to audiences worldwide. For years, the Arctic Studies Center has been collaborating with scientists and native groups to develop a new understanding of the cultures along the North Pacific Rim. Recently, their work with Japanese scientists and Ainu scholars has begun to introduce this little known group to the public. During the last Ice Age, water evaporated from the ocean and collected as glacial ice on the earth's surface. A land bridge formed between Alaska and Siberia as the sea level dropped.
Recent discoveries indicate that glaciers formed along the southern edge of the connected land mass.
The new ideas about glacial ice shelves across the North Pacific Rim are expanding previous migration theories. At a time when the Bering land bridge between Asia and North America was an extremely harsh and barren arctic desert, the edges of the ice shelves that extended out over the ocean were among the world's most productive environmental regions supporting multiple layers of ocean life and sea mammals. These would have been ideal hunting areas for humans. With the new environmental models have come recent discoveries indicating that people along the North Pacific Rim have been adapted to life on the ocean for at least 15,000 years. By 9,000 years ago these hunters were equipped with toggling harpoons and were settling along the Alaskan and Canadian Coasts.