was the ice age during the paleolithic era
Paleolithic The Paleolithic is often held to finish at the end of the ice age (the end of the Pleistocene epoch), and Earth's climate became warmer. This may have caused or contributed to the extinction of the Pleistocene megafauna, although it is also possible that the late Pleistocene extinctions were (at least in part) caused by other factors such as disease and overhunting by humans.[17][18] New research suggests that the extinction of the woolly mammoth may have been caused by the combined effect of climatic change and human hunting.[18] Scientists suggest that climate change during the end of the Pleistocene caused the mammoths' habitat to shrink in size, resulting in a drop in population. The small populations were then hunted out by Paleolithic humans.[18] The global warming that occurred during the end of the Pleistocene and the beginning of the Holocene may have made it easier for humans to reach mammoth habitats that were previously frozen and inaccessible.[18] Small populations of wooly mammoths survived on isolated Arctic islands, Saint Paul Island and Wrangel Island, until c. 3700 BCE and c. 1700 BCE respectively. The Wrangel Island population became extinct around the same time the island was settled by prehistoric humans.[19] There is no evidence of prehistoric human presence on Saint Paul island (though early human settlements dating as far back as 6500 BCE were found on the nearby Aleutian Islands).[20]
History of North America The specifics of Paleo-Indians' migration to and throughout the Americas, including the exact dates and routes traveled, are subject to ongoing research and discussion.[1] For years, the traditional theory has been that these early migrants moved into the Beringia land bridge between eastern Siberia and present-day Alaska around 40,000 â€“ 17,000 years ago, when sea levels were significantly lowered due to the Quaternary glaciation.[1][4] These people are believed to have followed herds of now-extinct pleistocene megafauna along ice-free corridors that stretched between the Laurentide and Cordilleran ice sheets.[5] Another route proposed is that, either on foot or using primitive boats, they migrated down the Pacific coast to South America.[6] Evidence of the latter would since have been covered by a sea level rise of hundreds of meters following the last ice age.[7]