Woolly mammoths in mainland Alaska overlapped with the region's first people for at least a millennium. However, it is unclear how mammoths used the space shared with people. Here, we use detailed ...isotopic analyses of a female mammoth tusk found in a 14,000-year-old archaeological site to show that she moved ~1000 kilometers from northwestern Canada to inhabit an area with the highest density of early archaeological sites in interior Alaska until her death. DNA from the tusk and other local contemporaneous archaeological mammoth remains revealed that multiple mammoth herds congregated in this region. Early Alaskans seem to have structured their settlements partly based on mammoth prevalence and made use of mammoths for raw materials and likely food.
Nogahabara I is a late Pleistocene age archaeological site located in interior northwestern Alaska. In contrast to most archaeological assemblages left by mobile hunter-gatherers, which consist ...largely of manufacturing debris and a few worn or broken tools, the site contains 267 largely whole, useful tools, which we interpret as a lost or abandoned toolkit. As a snapshot of the tools carried by an individual or small group during an archaeological instant, the toolkit offers insights into specific technological behaviors and general processes that influence the formation of lithic assemblages. The toolkit exhibits a surprisingly wide range of tool forms and production technologies. It also shows direct archaeological evidence of transport and episodic use and maintenance of tools and cores. This evidence suggests intensive toolstone conservation that would have reduced the frequency with which toolkit depletion would have forced people to re-provision. One implication of these behaviors is that lithic assemblages left scattered across the landscape should be highly variable. Another is that there are profound differences between systemic toolkits and the archaeological assemblages from which they are derived.
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BFBNIB, INZLJ, NMLJ, NUK, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK, ZRSKP
Fine grained volcanic rocks are common in lithic assemblages of interior Alaska and are amenable to geochemical characterization using a variety of analytical techniques. Our study focuses on ...rhyolite with the intent of identifying and delineating geochemical groups that may correlate to specific geological source areas. PXRF technology was used to analyze 676 rhyolite artifacts from 123 sites in interior Alaska. Our preliminary results recognize ten distinct geochemical groups that appear to correlate with distinct geological sources. While geological origins of eight of the ten groups identified remain unknown, two geological sources have been pinpointed, one (represented by Group H) is located in the central Alaska Range and the second (Group G) is in the Talkeetna Mountains. The provisional framework of geochemical variation among tool quality rhyolite sources in this region is an important first step toward a more robust understanding of prehistoric landuse in interior Alaska.
•Initial rhyolite source provenance study in central Alaska.•Rhyolitic artifacts and source samples are geochemically characterized.•The distribution and pre-contact use of rhyolite in central Alaska is discussed.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK
After decades of debate, the homeland of the First Americans is now generally understood to be northeast Asia; however, the process of Late Pleistocene peopling remains unresolved. As more ...archaeological sites south of the continental ice sheets are discovered that predate the opening of the interior “ice-free” corridor, interest in a coastal Pacific dispersal route has grown, and previously overlooked regions proximal to the Pacific coast have become a central focus of exploration efforts. The Copper River basin of southern Alaska is one such region. Here we present the results of 2019 archaeological excavations at Nataeł Na’, a buried and stratified archaeological site situated along the upper Copper River. The site contains a robust occupation dating to the late Younger Dryas climate reversal as well as an earlier occupation dating to the late Allerød interstadial. This discovery demonstrates that Pleistocene hunter-gatherers inhabited the Pacific basin of southern Alaska during the same time Clovis peoples inhabited temperate North America. The occupations at Nataeł Na’ join a growing body of evidence suggesting that the early inhabitants of eastern Beringia were geographically more widely dispersed than previously documented.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
Magnetic survey methods have recently shown tremendous potential for the detection of archaeological hearths in Eastern Beringia, ranging from intermittent open-air camp fires to larger heat ...intensive activity areas. Here we present an overview of the method along with eight supporting case studies from seven U.S. National Park Service units in the U.S. state of Alaska, covering diverse geographic settings and time-periods. Together, these case studies demonstrate the capabilities of magnetic detection instruments in various modes of operation for finding datable archaeological deposits that span the breadth of known human occupation of this region. The examples range from the simplest use of the magnetometer as a single sensor reconnaissance instrument in a “search mode”, to use as a gradiometer in conjunction with other geophysical methods such as ground-penetrating radar, to record precise measurements and inform nuanced interpretations. Examples presented here range from the terminal Pleistocene to historic periods, spanning 12,000 years of human activity in Eastern Beringia, and encompassing the arrival, emergence, and expansion of multiple human groups or cultural traditions in the New World.
•Magnetic surveying successfully detected direct evidence of human fire use in Alaska in the form of hearths.•A range of hearth types from very small campfires to large activity areas were detected and delineated.•Hearths representing a variety of cultural traditions spanning a 12,000 year period were successfully detected.•Many of the hearths yielded both diagnostic artifacts and radiocarbon dates.•The method was successful in a range of depositional contexts.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
While bison were the most abundant large mammals in Eastern Beringia for most of the last 100 000 years, their range declined drastically at the end of the Pleistocene and through the Holocene. ...Research into the nature of Holocene human interactions with bison suffers from scarcity of faunal remains from most archaeological sites and poor chronological control of paleontological specimens overbroad areas of Eastern Beringia. We examined the dating, context, and identification of purported bison bones spatially associated with two late prehistoric archaeological sites in northern Alaska to contribute to a better understanding of bison biogeography and the possible role of these large mammals in prehistoric economies. We confirmed the presence of two bison bones from the 17th century Kangiguksuk archaeological site (49-XBM-012) in northwestern Alaska, but radiocarbon dates older than 30 000 ¹⁴C years BP for both bones demonstrate that those bison were not hunted by the site occupants. From the Lakeside site (49-KIR-275) in the central Brooks Range, a bone reported to be bison and dated to about 2400 ¹⁴C years BP was shown through DNA sequencing to be moose (Alces alces). We point to a large set of dated bison specimens from Alaska's Arctic Slope that suggests bison were locally extinct in north-central and northwestern Alaska by the beginning of the Holocene and were subsequently unavailable to human hunters in that region. /// Bien que le bison était le gros mammifère le plus abondant de la Béringie de l'Est pendant la plus grande partie des 100000 dernières années, sa répartition a diminué considérablement à la fin du pléistocène et pendant l'holocène. Puisque la plupart des sites archéologiques présentent peu de restes d'animaux et que le contrôle chronologique des spécimens paléontologiques sur de grandes régions de la Béringie de l'Est laisse à désirer, cela rend difficiles les recherches portant sur la nature des interactions humaines avec le bison pendant la période de l'holocène. Nous avons examiné la datation, le contexte et l'identification des soidisant os de bison géographiquement rattachés à deux anciens sites archéologiques préhistoriques du nord de l'Alaska afin de pouvoir mieux comprendre la biogéographie du bison de même que le rôle possible de ce gros mammifère au sein des économies préhistoriques. Nous avons confirmé la présence de deux os de bison provenant du site archéologique Kangiguksuk du XVIIe siècle (49-XBM-012) dans le nord-ouest de l'Alaska, mais d'après les dates déterminées par la méthode du carbone 14 remontant à plus de 30000 ¹⁴C années BP pour les deux os, ces bisons n'ont pas été chassés par les occupants du site. Au site Lakeside (49-KIR-275) de la chaîne centrale Brooks, un os qui était censé appartenir à un bison dont la datation était d'environ 2400 ¹⁴C années BP était en fait celui d'un original, ce qui a été déterminé grâce au séquençage de l'ADN (Alces alces). Nous faisons mention d'un grand ensemble de spécimens de bisons datés et provenant du talus de l'Arctique de l'Alaska. Ces spécimens laissent supposer que les bisons avaient disparu du centre-nord et du nord-ouest de l'Alaska vers le début de l'holocène et par conséquent, ils n'étaient pas à la portée des chasseurs humains de cette région.
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BFBNIB, DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NMLJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
•Subarctic hunter-gatherers used exotic obsidian through the Holocene.•Historical networks of coastal-interior exchange existed for millennia.•A large-scale volcanic eruption caused a temporary ...displacement of hunter-gatherers.•Existing kin and exchange networks influenced responses to ecological disturbances.•Disturbances stimulated developments including bow and arrow transmission.
Lithic provenance analyses offer means to reconstruct ancestral social relationships in Subarctic North America. We summarize sourced obsidian data from 462 archaeological sites in the Yukon and Northwest Territories, Canada, and interpret obsidian distribution through the Holocene with particular attention to the volcanic White River Ash East event of A.D. 846–848. We argue that social mechanisms explain overlapping occurrences of exotic and local obsidians and that the volcanic ash fall triggered changes to obsidian exchange patterns. Following the volcanic event, obsidian from British Columbia moved north into the Yukon with higher frequency. Instead of a population replacement, persistent patterns in the distribution of some obsidian source groups suggest that the ash temporarily pushed some Yukon First Nations south where they strengthened networks of exchange that were retained upon their return. The short-term displacement may also have facilitated the movement of bow and arrow technology into the Yukon, which appears concurrent with the volcanic event. The large-scale eruption had the potential to sever connections between a small group of ancestral Dene (Athapaskans) and their homeland, which culminated in a continent-wide migration in the Late Holocene.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
When did mammoths go extinct?/Reply Miller, Joshua H; Simpson, Carl; Wang, Yucheng ...
Nature (London),
12/2022, Volume:
612, Issue:
7938
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Because bones are particularly resistant to decay, quantifying how their persistence changes across environments enables us to constrain the durations that dead individuals generally contribute to ...eDNA archives. The magnitude of temporal mixing in eDNA must, therefore, largely depend on the decay durations of bones and other tissues. Because DNA cannot be directly dated, the degree of temporal mixing cannot be estimated for an individual eDNA sample. Mammoth body fossils found in Northeast Siberia, Northwest and Central Siberia, and northern North America (n = 101, 468, and 394, respectively; Supplementary Methods and Supplementary Data 3) are known semi-continuously from around 50 cal kyr bp until their last occurrences. ...their predicted extinction intervals12 (Supplementary Methods) are tightly constrained (Fig. 2). On the basis of the temperature of the most recent mammoth DNA-bearing site (MAT = -13.3 °C), we would expect bone persistence times of between 2.26 and 4.19 kyr (mean and upper 95% confidence intervals for never buried bones) to more than 8.0 kyr (upper 95% CI for potentially never buried bones). ...using eDNA time series at face value implies that bones of the last mainland Siberian mammoths might still be persisting on today's landscapes.
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EMUNI, FIS, FZAB, GEOZS, GIS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, MFDPS, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, SBMB, SBNM, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VKSCE, ZAGLJ
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