Global choke points are preeminent nodes in geographic networks and geopolitical touchpoints subject to control by nations. They appear today as recurring theaters of conflict worldwide and also in archaeological investigations delving thousands of years back in time. How different were today’s global choke points at the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) ~ 20,000 years ago? For the first time, we map nine of them to visualize their conditions at LGM. The global feature aquaterra—all lands inundated and exposed repeatedly during the Late Pleistocene ice ages—initially was mapped as first approximations of sea level. Here we refine its boundaries using Glacial Isostatic Adjustment (GIA) models to account for the Earth’s deformation and horizontal migrations of shorelines in response to glacial melting. We found three choke points sufficiently open to navigation, but six others presented substantially greater barriers than today. Implications include strategic insights on where to search for submerged evidence of human settlement.

全球阻塞点是受国家控制的地理网络和地缘政治接触点中的重要节点。今天，它们在世界各地都是反复发生的冲突的战场，在考古学研究中也有数千年的历史。在20,000年前的最后一次冰河最高温度（LGM）时，今天的全球阻塞点有何不同？我们首次将其中的9个映射到LGM，以可视化其状况。全球特征水陆地形（在晚更新世冰期期间所有土地被淹没并反复暴露）最初被映射为海平面的第一近似值。在这里，我们使用冰川等静调整（GIA）模型细化其边界，以解决地球因冰川融化而变形和海岸线水平迁移的问题。我们发现三个航向点足以向航海开放，但其他六个则比今天面​​临更大的障碍。含义包括在哪里寻找人类住区的水下证据的战略见解。