Yukon Beringia Interpretive Center

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The Yukon Beringia Interpretive Center is a research and exhibition facility in Whitehorse in the Canadian Yukon . It opened in 1997.

Entrance to the Yukon Beringia Interpretive Center

The focus of the Interpretive center is Beringia , an area between Eastern Siberia and the Yukon, which has been a bridge between Asia and America over the last 70 million years . The coastal fringe, which is up to 125 m below sea level, is an important research area for the colonization of America, especially since the oldest relics of human cultures in Northeast Asia and North America were found here. Eric Hultén , a Swedish botanist , suggested the name "Beringia" in 1937. Today, the Beringia research area covers the area between Kolyma in northern Russia and Mackenzie in Canada.

The most important research areas are sites on the Klondike and around Old Crow in the area of ​​the Vuntut Gwitchin , who work together with the paleontologists. During an excavation campaign in 2006, over 2000 bones from the Pleistocene , many of woolly mammoths (location Whitestone River) and horses were found there . There are also sites at which giant beaver ( Castor ohioensis ), West Camels ( Camelops hesternus ), mastodons ( Mammut americanum ), saber-toothed cats ( Homotherium serum ) and short-faced bear ( Arctodus simus ), peccary ( Platygonus compressus ) and the giant sloth Megalonyx jeffersonii found. They date from a time when there were large lakes around Old Crow (about 40,000 to 15,000 years ago).

management

The director is Grant Zazula.

Events

The Yukon Science Institute gives regular lectures here. In addition, there are teaching programs for different age groups under the title Education Corner and Kids Corner .

literature

  • Grant Zazula: Full-glacial Macrofossils, Palaeoecology and Stratigraphy of the Bluefish Exposure, Northern Yukon , Occasional Papers in Earth Sciences No. 4, Yukon Heritage Resources Unit, 2003.

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Yukon Science Institute , June 30, 2012.

Coordinates: 60 ° 42 ′ 32.3 "  N , 135 ° 4 ′ 45.4"  W.