Large areas of those parts of the ocean bottom we call the continental shelf were exposed as dry land, and shallow ocean straits, like the Bering Strait and the Gulf of Carpentaria, were instead land bridges. These bridges served as migratory routes for the people now known as aborigines in Australia and the Asiatic nomads now known in North America as Native Americans and in South America as Indians or indigenous people. As the glaciers retreated, the sea level rose again some 10,000 years ago, stranding the Native Americans and aborigines on their new continents. At the same time, as temperatures climbed, the global climate settled into the pattern that it has roughly maintained ever since (Gore, p. 61).

It is a lesson we should learn well, as, if we continue to cause global change through pollution of the natural environment, we will be dealing with similar catastrophes in our lifetime -- a situation that will only become worse in our children's and grandchildren's lifetimes.
Works Cited

Gore, Al. Earth in the Balance. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1992.