The idea that Beringia was a human refugia during the Late Glacial Maximum has been gaining momentum over the last few years. It is getting more and more popular but it is really only a hypothesis that has yet to be proven by actual physical proof. It's a reasonable idea but to present as unassailable fact what it essentially speculation is all about propaganda – or a shortage of thinking outside the box. See for instance http://phys.org/print380270151.html
As you can see the theory of Beringia appears to be a fact – aimed at the little people. Joe Public. The link is to an article which then goes on to to tie it all up with the Out of Africa consensus theory. The fact they do this is suspicious in itself – why?
Migration out of Beringia is said to have occurred as sea levels rose – which relies on the assumption those sea levels rose slowly enough for humans to escape. If not the theory is stumped. It is an attempt to justify why genetics associate people that migrated into N America with people living, not in NE Siberia (which is frozen and not kind to archaeologists) but to people living in central Asia (in particular around the Lake Baikal region). Rather than thinking of people migrating across the Arctic Ocean in their boats (it was an Ice Age and it must have been frozen) they have invented Beringia (a region that was swallowed up by sea level rise – or geological change). What if Alaska and NE Siberia were not frozen – and people were able to move from central Asia to N America in one direction and to Europe in the other (after the Ice Age). There would have been no requirement for a refugia as such as that would have been a warm part of the world and attractive to humans. It seems they have created an elaborate means to get round some contrary evidence to Out of Africa. There is a lot to learn about the peopling of America – and the peopling of Europe too. Lots and lots. Therefore it is a disservice to thwart research by wrapping it all up in a refugia. This might work in regions of the world definitely glaciated during the LGM but the fact is we don't know if there was a necessity in the unglaciated regions of Siberia and East Asia. The idea of course came about as the Clovis First theory collapsed and the Beringia Refugia can be seen as an attempt to plug the hole. Genetics seems to show humans were in the Americas 'during' the LGM – and therefore they must have been isolated from other human groups in Asia at the time and Beringia was invented to accommodate the anomaly. A halfway house. However, if LGM mainly affected northern Europe and NE America it follows that people could have migrated into the Americas during the LGM (and not afterwards as the Clovis First mind set insists). There has been lots of indications this is so – but is regularly debunked. The assumption is based on the idea that the northern hemisphere was collectively buried under an ice sheet during the LGM – an assumption based on extrapolating the ice sheet that is obvious in the West. If Beringia was unglaciated, and parts of Alaska, why didn't the alarm bells start ringing?