Jon Erlandson
Jon Erlandson
Jon M. Erlandson is an archaeologist and Philip H. Knight Professor of Social Sciences in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Oregon, and the director of the University of Oregon Museum of Natural and Cultural History. Erlandson’s research interests include coastal adaptations, the peopling of North America, maritime archaeology and historical ecology and human impacts in coastal ecosystems...
acted americas earlier earliest evidence fact finding forests found hard human last migration migrations near pacific productive proven sites sort supports theory widespread
The coastal migration theory has yet to be proven with hard evidence, but we have been finding earlier and more widespread evidence for coastal settlement around the Pacific Rim. The fact that productive kelp forests are found adjacent to some of the earliest coastal archaeological sites in the Americas supports the idea that such forests may have facilitated human coastal migrations around the Pacific Rim near the end of the last glacial period. In essence, they may have acted as a sort of kelp highway.