Curious about Beringia's climate

[Tiiba]

I became curious about Beringia's climate. Beringia is located between Chukotka and Alaska, neither of which are commonly considered tropical paradises. But Beringia existred during, and because of, the Ice Age, which suggests that it should have been far colder than Alaska. Perhaps incredibly cold. But as far as I have learned on the Internet, Beringia was a grassland. And there were people in it (I knew that, of course, but I assumed they were the kind that can live on the Moon). So what kind of climate did it really have? How cold did it get? How fertile were these grasslands? How many peope were there?

 

[Andre]

Well All of Siberia was a climatal enigma in the ice ages. The northern most part, the Taimyr peninsula, currently high arctic tundra, has been investigated most intensely because of the mammoths.

http://www.yukonmuseums.ca/mammoth/abstrmol-mor.htm may be helpfull; the climate - habitat of Beringia should have been roughly the same.

Scroll down almost halfway:

Paleoecological results

Microfossils (pollen, algae, fungal spores) were studied in sediment samples taken from between the hairs of the Jarkov Mammoth. The analysis of microfossils was combined with the identification of fruits, seeds and vegetative plant remains. The pollen spectra are dominated by Poaceae, Artemisia and Papaver. Macrofossils of these taxa were also present. Mosses such as Racomitrium lanuginosum, Pogonatum cf. P. urnigerum and cf. Polytrichum piliferum indicate dry, sandy or stony environments, with cryogenic phenomena as well as disturbance as a consequence of trampling or grazing. The vegetation reconstruction based on the recorded microfossils and macroremains indicates a steppe (cool and dry climatic conditions), and this fits well with the reconstructions based on palynological studies of lake sediments in Taimyr (Andreev et al. 2002; Hahne and Melles 1999). But some mosses (Calliergon giganteum, Drepanocladus aduncus, Rhizomnium pseudopunctatum) and the alga Pediastrum indicate that some wet sites were also present in the predominantly dry landscape of Taimyr. The abundance of ascospores of the dung-inhabiting fungus Sporormiella (Davis 1987) and Sordaria type (Van Geel 2001, Van Geel et al. 2003) is a clear indication of a high population density of herbivores.

But how is that high population density of herbivores getting it's daily diet of several hundred pounds of fodder daily in that "cold steppe" in the high arctic?

 

[hypatia]

I believe Beringia was much wetter then that. Or had major spells of mild flooding which encouraged animals and people to move on to higher ground.

 

[Andre]

I guess so. Also time depending. At one time it probably was steppe in order for the Woolly Mammoth to pass the landbridge. Taimyr has been very wet too, during the Bolling Allerod event 14,900-12,800 years ago, but that seems to have been a near global event (You see, I just read 200 abstracts about that time)

 

[hypatia]

Its mostly believed that people trickled across the land bridge. Much like the low grass lands today, it could support about 15 to 20 people per 500 sq. acre.
Large animals ate the grasses and sedges/willows and the people ate the animals.
Four major anthropological groups of that area share common physical traits, Eskimos, Aleuts, Athabascans, and Northwest Coast Indians.
The area was probably much like the Canadian grass lands today, very short summers, and long, very windy winters.