Ecology of the Kelp Highway: Did Marine Resources Facilitate Human Dispersal From Northeast Asia to the Americas?

ABSTRACT

We explore the ecology of Pacific Rim marine ecosystems and the idea that the broad geographic range of many nearshore food resources facilitated a dispersal of maritime peoples from Asia to the Americas. Geographically, a coastal route offered less ecological resistance than interior routes, providing a linear corridor entirely at sea level and essentially free of major obstructions after about 16,000 years ago. We show that North Pacific nearshore ecosystems—from Japan to Mexico—contained hundreds of species of edible shellfish, fish, marine mammals, birds, and seaweeds distributed more or less continuously over vast stretches of coast. A coastal route, including kelp forests and estuaries, would have provided a rich mix of marine, estuarine, riverine, and terrestrial resources. A maritime dispersal following Pacific Rim shorelines could have moved relatively rapidly from northeast Asia into the Americas, leaving behind ancestral populations who followed the aquatic corridors of major river drainages deep into the interior. This model, recognizing the importance of aquatic and terrestrial resources, as well as the behavioral flexibility of Homo sapiens, can account for a relatively rapid dispersal of humans throughout the Americas and the full range of diversity of Paleoindian adaptations found in the Americas.

Keywords:

• aquatic resources
• ecological resistance
• marine ecology
• Pacific Rim
• peopling the Americas

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The data tables supporting this article were compiled from several online databases that provide a wealth of information on the distribution, ecology, and biology of thousands of marine species: Fishbase, Sealifebase, Avibase, the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS), Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS), the Encyclopedia of Life, and Discover Life (discoverlife.org). Other data were compiled from additional online and print sources, ranging from Wikipedia to books summarizing the marine species found along North Pacific coastlines (Peterson guides, Ricketts et al., etc.). We thank Keith Hamm, Jack Watts, Paul Dayton, and an anonymous reviewer for help in compiling data, reviewing, revision, and publication of this article.