That specific, defensible claim was, for the field of American prehistory, significant enough on its own.

The Cold That Surrounded Them

To appreciate what the Bluefish Caves date implies about the people who were there, it is necessary to understand the environment they were living in.

Not the abstract fact of the Last Glacial Maximum, but the specific physical reality of eastern Beringia 24,000 years ago.

The Last Glacial Maximum, broadly defined, lasted from approximately 26,000 to 19,000 calibrated years before present, with peak glacial conditions — the maximum extent of the ice sheets and the minimum of sea levels — occurring roughly 20,000 to 22,000 years ago.

During this period, global average temperatures were approximately 4 to 7 degrees Celsius lower than today.