Arrival of Early Man
North America

[Map: Migration from Siberia]
[Animated GIF: Bering Strait, Ice Age to Present] **2.5 MB
[Satellite Photo: Bering Strait]

NASA-JPL satellite image (Terra satellite) of the Bering Strait, 8-18-2000.

NASA-JPL description:

    With the Seward Peninsula of Alaska to the east, and Chukotskiy Poluostrovof Siberia to the west, the Bering Strait separates the United States and the Russian Federation by only 90 kilometers. It is named for Danish explorer Vitus Bering, who spotted the Alaskan mainland in 1741 while leading anexpedition of Russian sailors. This view of the region was captured by MISR's vertical-viewing (nadir) camera on August 18, 2000 during Terra orbit 3562.
    The boundary between the US and Russia lies between Big and Little Diomede Islands, which are visible in the middle of the Bering Strait. The Artic Circle, at 66.5 degrees north latitude, runs through the Arctic Ocean in the top part of this image. This circle marks the southernmost latitude for which the Sun does not rise above the horizon on the day of the winter solstice. At the bottom of this image is St. Lawrence Island. Situated in the Bering Sea, it is part of Alaska and home to Yupik Eskimos.
    MISR was built and is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, for NASA's Office of Earth Science, Washington, DC. The Terra satellite is managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology. For more information: www-misr.jpl.nasa.gov.

Early man migrated across the so-called Bering Land Bridge from Siberia, traveled down the west coast of North America and fanned out across the current United States and into Mexico approximately 13,000 years ago. The identity of the earliest humans in the Santa Clarita Valley — and what language they spoke — is unknown. They predated the Tataviam, who spoke a Uto-Aztecan language, by about 11,000 years.

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LW2162c: 2400 dpi jpeg