Old Stone Age · At least 15,000 years ago

Beringia: the first people in the Americas

In the Ice Age a wide land joined Siberia and Alaska. Students use the Ice Age Seas layer to find Beringia, follow the first people south to the tip of South America, and see why scientists still argue about the route.

Teach it live New Open on the map
Length
50 minutes
Ages
11–14
On the map
3 steps, 20000 BC to 12500 BC
Live lesson
7 rounds, 3 on the map
Worksheet
Two A4 pages, with Classroom
You need
A projector; phones for live

Live lesson · new in Classroom

Teach it live. The class answers on their phones.

Put the board on the projector. Students join with a six-digit code, no account needed, and tap the map: where was the frontier, where did the grain come from. Their pins drop in together when you reveal, and the closest student takes the round.

€19 per month: every lesson live, every worksheet, cancel anytime. Rome at its height runs live for free.

A live lesson on the projector: the class's pins on the map around Alexandria, the closest students listed beside it A student's phone: the question and a map to tap
7 rounds
3 places to find on the map, quiz questions, a class vote and a one-line answer.
About 15 minutes
Run it as the map step, or to open the discussion. You move on with the space bar.
A report
Every answer, per student and per round, to read back or print after the lesson.
1

Introduction

5 min

Read aloud

In the Ice Age a wide land joined Siberia and Alaska. Students use the Ice Age Seas layer to find Beringia, follow the first people south to the tip of South America, and see why scientists still argue about the route.

By the end of the lesson, students can

  • Explain how the Beringia land bridge formed and why it disappeared.
  • Compare the coastal route and the inland route into the Americas.
  • Use Monte Verde and Clovis to explain how new finds changed the story of the first Americans.
2

Explore the map

15 min

Project the map, or let students follow on their own devices. Each step opens the map at the right year and place.

a

20000 BC

The land bridge

Open the map in 20,000 BC and turn on Ice Age Seas. Find Beringia between Siberia and Alaska. Compare it with the narrow strait of today: how wide is the land?

Open this view on the map
b

20000 BC

Coast or interior?

Move south along the Pacific coast of Canada. In the Ice Age, huge ice sheets covered most of this land (the map does not draw them). Was the coast or the interior an easier road south?

Open this view on the map
c

12500 BC

Monte Verde

Jump to 12,500 BC and travel to southern Chile. People camped at Monte Verde about 14,500 years ago. Zoom out: how far is it from Beringia?

Open this view on the map
3

Class discussion

15 min

Pick two or three. They run from what happened to why it mattered.

  1. Why could people walk from Asia to America 20,000 years ago, but not today?
  2. Monte Verde in Chile is about 14,500 years old, far from Beringia. What does that suggest about how fast people spread?
  3. Scientists debate whether the first people came along the coast or through a gap in the ice. What evidence could settle it?
  4. Many Indigenous nations have their own accounts of how their people came to be in their homelands. How should we treat these alongside archaeology?
  5. Rising seas drowned the land bridge and old coastlines. What might the earliest coastal camps look like today?
4

Game round

10 min

No Rule History ruler lived this early. Play one round as Moctezuma II, a ruler of the Americas thousands of years later, and discuss: scientists think the distant ancestors of his people came through Beringia. What had to happen in between for cities and empires to appear?

Open Rule History
5

Worksheet

5 min

This worksheet comes with Classroom

€19 per month unlocks every worksheet, every live lesson and the class workspace. The free lesson prints without a subscription.