Evening star., 1935-08-10
STARS, MEN AND ATOMS
Notebook of Science Progress in Field,
Laboratory and Study.
BY THOMAS r. HENRY.

The valley of the Mackenzie River
in Northwestern Canada, favorite path
OF Arctic storms into the North Ameri-
can Continent, probably was the south
ward road of the first human beings in
the New World about $4,000 years ago.
Such is the deduction of DR.. Ernst
Antevs of Yale, foremost authority on
the glaciation of North America, from
the sites where the earliest human re-
mains have been found considered in
relation to the late ice-age distribution
Of glaciers.
AnthropologiStS are agreed that the
continent was peopled from Siberia by
way of Bering Strait, the ancestors of
the Indians possibly crossing over a
land bridge which since has disappeared.
But the earliest relics of human habi-
tation have been found in New Mexico
and Colorado at the southeastern edge
of the Rocky Mountains where man.
made implements occur in the same
deposits with bones of such extinct
creatures as the mammoth and a South.
ern variety of muSk-ox. This is about
where they might be expected. according
to DR.. Antevs' calculations as reported
in the Geographic Review. Early man
had followed the only open road from
North to South by way of the Mackenzie
Valley and the eastern rim of the
mountains.
At the time of the last glaciation
he points out, the entire mainland of
Northeastern North America was COW
cred with ice north of line extending
westward from New York City through
DeS MoineS. The western edge of this
Laurentide ice-sheet ran through the
northwestern corner of North Dakota
and northwestward into Canada, passing
somewhat to the eastward of the present
site OF Edmonton. 1t was all a great,
desolate ocean of ice with few barren
islands which now are the tops of high
Canadian peaks.
At the same time there lay over the
Rocky Mountain area and to the vest
ward the so-called Cordillerian ice sheet,
an entirely different formation. At
about the f1fty-flfth parallel the edges
OF the two ice oceans joined, or were
very close together. But since the
eastern and western glaciations belonged
to different systems they did not act in
unison and parted company soon after
the last ice retreat began. The result
GAAdO VAlClC was dIl ICc-ITC6 Delb GA-
tending from the headwaters of the
Mackenzie along the western border
of the great plains, eliminating in a
broad wedge south of Edmonton be-
tween the eastern glacier system and the
Rockies.
Here was an open road southwark, If
there were any human beings to take
advantage of it. But, assuming that
man had actually reached the western
course of Alaska, the only land roads
available to him would have taken him
eastward into the Mackenzie Valley. His
only other route would have been south
ward by sea and it is doubtful If he had
boats suitable for such a voyage. Once
in the northern part of the valley he
would have had to keep going. The
climate was more severe than is the
case today. The land probably was
barren tundra, possibly with sparse herds
of musk-ox and caribou. Life must
have been harder for the earliest arrivals
than for the Caribou Eskimo OF the
present who often are the victims of
famine. The probability is that the
first migrants were subjected to pressure
from behind as more and more arrived
from Asia. There was nothing to do but
move south and as they moved eondi-
tions Of life began to become easier
and easier.