>>543759While it's faulty as far as theories go, have you ever heard of Gigantopithecus blacki? It was a giant relative of the orangutans that was known to be alive as recently as 1 million B.C.E. Some archeologists have suggested that the species might have been bipedal, from how a Giganto's jaw was situated over its neck. While the few fossils scientists have found have only been discovered in China and South Asia, it isn't entirely out if the realm of possibility that a cold-adapted subspecies could have crossed the Bering Strait millions of years ago, when the interglacial period created a land bridge between Siberia & Alaska. That's how most Eurasian megafauna entered the Americas, as well as Amerindians within 24,000-12,000 years ago.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigantopithecus