If the founding population had moved directly from northeastern Asia into the Americas without pausing in Beringia, the expected degree of differentiation would be smaller.

The actual observed differentiation implies a longer period of separation from the Asian source populations — a period that, geographically, most plausibly took place in Beringia.

The geographic and paleoenvironmental context of the standstill is still being refined.

Exactly where in Beringia the founding population lived during the isolation period — in the western portion nearest to Asia, in the eastern portion nearest to the entry points into the Americas, or spread across the full Beringian landmass — is not definitively established.

The paleoenvironmental evidence suggests that the southern margins of Beringia — areas closer to the North Pacific coast — may have been more habitable during the Last Glacial Maximum than the interior of the landmass, and some researchers have proposed that the founding population may have been concentrated in coastal or near-coastal areas of Beringia during the standstill period.