If someone was processing a horse carcass in the Yukon 24,000 years ago — using a stone tool that left marks on the horse’s jaw — then people were present in eastern Beringia during the deepest cold of the last Ice Age.

They were not just visiting briefly; the presence implied by butchery marks on a directly dated specimen is the presence of people who were living in or traveling through the landscape, hunting or scavenging the large animals that inhabited it.

The caribou pelvis fragment also produced a date consistent with the broader pattern of early occupation at the site, supporting the interpretation that human presence at Bluefish Caves was not a single isolated event but an extended or recurring presence during a period that spans a significant portion of the Last Glacial Maximum and its immediate aftermath.

The 2017 paper — published in PLOS ONE by Bourgeon, Burke, and Higham — framed these results carefully.