Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T10:36:39.779Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Two Early Sites of Eastern Beringia: Context and Chronology in Alaskan Interior Archaeology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2016

Jon Erlandson
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon 97403
Rudy Walser
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Alaska 99775
Howard Maxwell
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Alaska 99775
Nancy Bigelow
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Alaska 99775
John Cook
Affiliation:
Bureau of Land Management, 1150 University Ave, Fairbanks, Alaska 99709
Ralph Lively
Affiliation:
Tongass National Forest, 204 Siginaka Way, Sitka, Alaska 99835
Charles Adkins
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Alaska 99775
Dave Dodson
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Alaska 99775
Andrew Higgs
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Alaska 99775
Janette Wilber
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Alaska 99775
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Between the Alaska Range to the south and the Brooks Range to the north, the Yukon River and its tributaries form an extensive network of waterways leading through the lowlands of interior Alaska deep into the North American continent (Fig 1). Despite the extremely cold winters of this arctic and subarctic landscape, much of the region remained unglaciated during the last 50,000 years. The central Alaskan lowlands are at the west end of the “ice-free corridor,” thought by most prehistorians to be the pathway to the Americas for Asian hunter-gatherers crossing the continental Beringian “landbridge.” Until recently, relatively little was known of the early human prehistory of Alaska's interior. Growing interest in the timing, nature and paleoecological context of the initial peopling of the Americas has prompted excavation at a number of early sites in central Alaska and the adjacent Yukon (see Powers & Hamilton 1978; West 1981; Fagan 1987: 119-134; Hamilton 1989; Powers & Hoffecker 1989).

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The American Journal of Science 

References

Ackerman, RE, Hamilton, TD and Stuckenrath, R 1979 Early culture complexes on the northern Northwest Coast. Canadian Jour Archaeology 3: 195209.Google Scholar
Aigner, JS and Lively, R 1986 Excavations at the Chugwater site, Alaska. Archaeology 39(6): 5859, 76.Google Scholar
Aikens, CM and Higuchi, T 1982 Prehistory of Japan. New York, Academic Press, 356 pp.Google Scholar
Anderson, DD 1968 A Stone age campsite at the gateway to America. Scientific American 218(6): 2433.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bandi, HG 1969 Eskimo Prehistory. College, University of Alaska Press, 226 pp.Google Scholar
Campbell, JM 1961 The Tuktu complex of Anaktuvuk Pass. Anthropological Papers Univ Alaska 9: 6180.Google Scholar
Chang, K 1977 The archaeology of ancient China. New Haven, Yale Univ Press, 535 pp.Google Scholar
Cook, JP (ms) 1969 The early prehistory of Healy Lake, Alaska. PhD dissert, Univ Wisconsin.Google Scholar
Cook, JP (ms) 1975 Archaeology of interior Alaska. Western Canadian Jour Anthropology 3–4: 125133.Google Scholar
Cook, JP (ms) 1989 Historic archaeology and ethnohistory at Healy Lake, Alaska. Arctic 42: 109118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dixon, EJ 1985, Cultural chronology of central interior Alaska. Arctic Anthropology 22(1): 4766.Google Scholar
Erlandson, JM 1988 Cultural evolution and paleogeography on the Santa Barbara coast: a 9600-year 14C record from southern California. Radiocarbon 30(1): 2539.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fagan, BM 1987 The great journey: the peopling of ancient America. London, Thames and Hudson, 288 pp.Google Scholar
Giddings, JL 1941 Rock paintings in central Alaska. Am Antiquity 7(1): 6971.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giddings, JL 1964 The archaeology of Cape Denbigh. Providence, Rhode Island, Brown Univ Press, 331 pp.Google Scholar
Gifford-Gonzalez, DP, Damrosch, DB, Damrosch, DR, Pryor, J and Thunen, R 1985 The third dimension in site structure: an experiment in trampling and vertical dispersal. Am Antiquity 50(4): 803818.Google Scholar
Hamilton, TD (ms) 1989 Late Pleistocene environments and peopling of eastern Beringia. Anchorage, Alaska, US Geol Survey.Google Scholar
Hoffecker, JF 1985 The Moose Creek site. National Geog Soc Research Reps 19: 3348.Google Scholar
Kigoshi, K, Suzuki, N and Fukatsu, H 1973 Gakushuin natural radiocarbon measurements VIII. Radiocarbon 15(1): 4267.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krueger, HW and Weeks, CF 1966 Geochron Laboratories, Inc radiocarbon measurements II. Radiocarbon 8: 142160.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lively, R 1988 A study of the effectiveness of a small scale probabilistic sampling design at an interior Alaskan site, Chugwater (FAI-035). US Army Corps of Engineers, Alaska district.Google Scholar
Lynch, TF 1990 Glacial-age man in South America? A critical review. Am Antiquity 55(1): 1236.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maitland, RE 1986 The Chugwater site (FAI-035), Moose Creek Bluff, Alaska, final report, 1982 and 1983 seasons. US Army Corps of Engineers, Alaska district.Google Scholar
Maxwell, H (ms) 1987 Archaeological research at Panguingue Creek site: an early Holocene overlook site in the Nenana Valley, Alaska. MA thesis (equivalent), Univ Alaska, Fairbanks.Google Scholar
Mobley, C 1990 The Campus site, a prehistoric camp at Fairbanks, Alaska. Fairbanks, Univ Alaska Press (in press).Google Scholar
Powers, WR and Hamilton, TD 1978 Dry Creek: A late Pleistocene human occupation in central Alaska. Occasional Papers 1: 7277, Dept Anthropology, Univ Alberta.Google Scholar
Powers, WR and Hoffecker, J 1989 Late Pleistocene settlement in the Nenana Valley, central Alaska. Am Antiquity 54(2): 263287.Google Scholar
Reeburgh, WS and Young, MS 1976 University of Alaska radiocarbon dates I. Radiocarbon 18(1): 115.Google Scholar
Stuckenrath, R and Mielke, JE 1973 Smithsonian Institution radiocarbon dates VIII. Radiocarbon 15(2): 388424.Google Scholar
Sumodi, AJ 1974 Radioisotopes Laboratory radiocarbon date list I. Radiocarbon 16(2): 166177.Google Scholar
West, FH 1975 Dating the Denali complex. Arctic Anthropology 12(1): 7681.Google Scholar
West, FH 1981 The archaeology of Beringia. New York, Columbia Univ Press, 268 pp.CrossRefGoogle Scholar