A lot of talk about it. The Bering Straits are shallow, and not all that wide, and it is thought that in long past times the seas went down and/or the land went up, and people and animals could cross from Siberia to Alaska dry footed. A lot of speculation about how and when the Indians came to North America centers on when the land bridge might be open.
What the land bridge enthusiasts forget, or perhaps never knew, is that man can cross the Bering straits by boat, given decent weather. Say summer weather. The Eskimos used to cross regularly, up until the Soviets tightened up their customs enforcement after WWII and started hassling any American Eskimos they caught on their side of the straits.
The Eskimos used skin boats, umiaks, to make the crossing. Granted a skin boat sounds kinda flimsy, except the skins were walrus hides, a quarter of an inch thick and tough as fiberglass. A umiak could carry a dozen people, and were strong enough to take the thrust of a forty horsepower outboard motor.
If today's Eskimos could make the passage, I dare say the ancestors of the Indians could make the same passage, about anytime they felt like it. No land bridge required.
The recent publications about DNA analysis of an 11,500 year old Indian child from an Alaskan site all talked about crossing on the land bridge. I maintain they could have come by boat, any summer.
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