Beringia : Archaic Migrations into North America [1 ed.] 9781443827805, 9781443826839

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Beringia

Beringia: Archaic Migrations into North America

By

Robert D. Morritt

Beringia: Archaic Migrations into North America, by Robert D. Morritt This book first published 2011 Cambridge Scholars Publishing 12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2011 by Robert D. Morritt All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-2683-9, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-2683-9

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction ............................................................................................... vii Hunter Gatherers – Origins.......................................................................... 1 Northwest Canada – Three Types of Glaciers ............................................. 3 The Mackenzie River, Mountains and Petroglyph ...................................... 4 The Dene ..................................................................................................... 7 The Land-Bridge from Siberia to North America...................................... 11 The Ket Language ..................................................................................... 17 Dene – DNA Analysis and Languages (Chipewyan) ................................ 22 Population Drift ......................................................................................... 41 Glacial Effects – Pleistocene Period.......................................................... 43 Coastal Migration 10,000 to 14,000 Years Ago ........................................ 46 Ocean Currents – Ancient Peoples ............................................................ 48 Ancient Trans-Pacific Influence on the New World.................................. 50 Southwest Alaska and Pacific Coast.......................................................... 55 Radio Carbon Dates on Saiga Fossils ........................................................ 59 The Bluefish Caves.................................................................................... 62 Significance of the Bluefish Caves in Beringian Prehistory...................... 69 Siberian Fluted Point ................................................................................. 80 Bering Strait Migration – Siberian Origin ................................................. 82 The Ket People of Siberia.......................................................................... 84 Dene – Yeniseic in Past and Future Perspective........................................ 95 Diring Yuriakh (Siberia)............................................................................ 98 Native Peoples of Eastern Siberia (1650 AD) ......................................... 100 DNA and the Peopling of Siberia ............................................................ 101 Yakutia Shamans ..................................................................................... 103 Siberia’s Bronze and Iron Age Civilizations ........................................... 107 Ancient DNA – Caribou History Linked to Volcanic Eruption............... 109 The Navajo .............................................................................................. 115 Western Apache Language ...................................................................... 144 The Chuktee – Folk Tales........................................................................ 149 Navajo – Creation Tales .......................................................................... 154 Los Lunas Hebrew Inscription................................................................. 169 The Tutchone People ............................................................................... 172 Na-Dene Language Family (Athabaskan) ............................................... 174 Vajda’s Siberian Language Link (Individual Assessments of)................ 179

INTRODUCTION

For years it had intrigued me (and many others) of how North and South America became populated. So many theories for a north-south and viceversa migration of different cultures have been theorized. The question has arisen, was it a migration from north to south, or vice-versa? In my recent book ‘The Lure of New Mexico” I noticed whilst researching the history of the area that there was a very close resemblance of the Navajo language there to that of the Dene peoples in the Yukon (and parts of Alaska. This set me on a quest to see where these indigenous people had originated. The direction of their migrations and to consider other theories of population shift in the Americas in the pre and post lithic era. My intention is to afford the reader a closer look at this intriguing area by examining Beringia during the Pleistocene period and lithic and cultural evidence of early indigenous people.. Specialization and modern scientific equipment has now allowed researchers to have a better understanding of this intriguing search. Modern methods are analysed such as paleogeographic analysis similar to the work or Jacques Cinq-Mars and specialists in oceanography and glaciation regarding the coastline and ocean levels together with the work of seasoned archaeologists.also the study of flora and fauna to assist us to know more about the daily life of these migratory people. Anthropological evidence is scarce regarding the people of the Pleistocene era. in both Siberia and in North America , therefore scientific techniques such as radio-carbon dating and of Genetics (DNA) are now allowing us to understand this hitherto obscure culture. Mythology also contains elements of a similar connection to both cultures from descriptions of early volcanic activity found within folk tales also from linguistic comparisons. Scientists have established that from the end of the Pleistocene era, favourable conditions existed due to the appearance of the Anadyrsk strait near Chukot, and later the appearance of the Bering Strait.

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Introduction

The Bering strait was still accessible to migratory groups most probably by small boats or by traversing the ice in winter. An extensively large glacier in the kordilerskogo area covered in the south, the Aleutian and Alaska ridges and partially the Aleutian Islands. Glaciers appear to have retreated around 12.8 thousand years ago, leaving an area in the middle part of the peninsula accessible for the migration of people. In the south the Mackenzie District was an ice-free corridor with a length of 1600 km between the Lavrentiyskimi and Kordilerskimi glacial panels. Also included are a look at the native peoples of Eastern Siberia, Yakutia Shamans, the Dene-Yeniseic cultures, Diring Yuriakh and Bering Strait migrations. The Tutchone people of the Northwest Teritories, the Dene language relationship to the Navajo, DNA, Caves, Creation tales of the Navajo and Siberian language links. If any emolument within these pages, then I will be truly gratified. —Robert D. Morritt, St.Thomas – June 2010

HUNTER GATHERERS – ORIGINS

Time Horizons – an Overview Period 1 – 40,000 – 20,000 BP Earliest arrival of people in the New World from Asia, small groups of Hunters and Gatherers. Period 2 – 20,000 – 15,000 BP Tools – The appearance of the earliest bifacially flaked lanceolate point or knife in the New World A larger influx of people from Asia arrives. Period 3 – 15,000 – 8000 BP Beginnings of Big-Game Hunting, (which may have emanated out of Asia) Reliable datings from this period 10,000 to 9,000 BP There is much speculation to the origin of the first migrants over the landbridge into North America. It appears that when conditions were favourable. It is unfortunate that many of the migratory routes these early people made (their campsites and remains are now under the sea. Hunter gatherers who knew no borders, migrated, probably in both directions dependant on which ‘thaw’ occurred and when and only when conditions were favourable to do so. Russian archaeologists uncovered remains form Upper Paleolithic huntergatherers who used stone spear points when hunting they were possibly the ancestors of those migrants that later were the earliest groups to cross into North America. There also was the prospect of a sporadic West to East movement of peoples and herein we examine the origins, migratory routes and probable dates of arrival in North America.

2

Hunter Gatherers – Origins

New theories support evidence of two ice-sheets that were not connected during warmer climate conditions, creating an area for migration. Evidence has been discovered that during the Wisconsin glacial phase, the sea level was lower than it is today, this created tundra rather than land in the area now refer to as Beringia. It was in this region that people resided in the new ice-free area approximately 10000 to 12000 years ago, they settled close to the slopes of mountain regions. Around 7000 years ago the ice retreated from these sub-arctic regions and this was evidenced by proof of human habitation. Materials of Stone, bone and wood also points of quartzite similar to those of the Plano people.. Eventually, the climate grew warmer about 4000 years ago, as the hunter-gatherer culture emerged.

Hunter-Gatherers - Three hunter-gather groups emerged 1. The Shield Archaic in the Keewatin District 2. The Boreal Forest People near the Great Slave Lake 3. The Paleo-Eskimo(from Asia, ancestors of the Inuit along the coasts of the Arctic.

NORTHWEST CANADA – THREE TYPES OF GLACIERS

1) Cordilleran glaciers that developed on the continental divide and extended westward as a cordilleran ice-sheet to Yukon Territory; 2) Montane glaciers that were formed on local peaks away from the continental divide; 3) Continental ice-sheet that occupied the plains and the lower part of the Mackenzie and Richardson mountains. About 30 ka y. B.P. the Laurentide Ice-Sheet reached its maximum extent (Duk-Rodkin et al., 1996; 2004; 1010). The ice-sheet retreated slowly at first from its maximum extent and elevation (880 m). It took 8 000 years for the Laurentide ice to retreat to an elevation of 740 metres along the eastern slopes of Richardson Mountains. This was the ice sheet that caused tremendous impact to early man migration and the landscape. The Laurentide ice sheet caused the inundation of Old Crow Basin, the permanent diversion of Porcupine River to Alaska (previously draining to the Beaufort-Mackenzie area) and the formation of the Mackenzie River (previously draining to Hudson Bay). The continental ice retreated from the mountain foothills by stages.

THE MACKENZIE RIVER, MOUNTAINS AND PETROGLYPH

In the Mackenzie Mountains from the continental divide the moisture from the Pacific Ocean was enough to form only valley glaciers on the eastern side of the continental divide. These glaciers advanced down valleys reaching its maximum extent app. 24 ka BP (Duk-Rodkin et al., 1996). Note that the continental glacier had reached its maximum much earlier than the montane glaciation did about 30 ka BP. These valley glaciers merged with the retreating (melting back) continental ice at the montane maximum. Only some interfluves were left free of ice. Where continental ice did not meet montane ice, meltwater drainage was trapped between the ice masses forming glacial lakes. Therefore, climatic conditions for migration during maximum montane glaciation (app. 24 ka BP) were poor. With retreat of montane glaciers which occurred much faster than that of continental ice the first land to be freed of ice were the mountains. The Mackenzie Mountains are higher to the south than to the north were they formed isolated ice caps. These isolated caps would have blocked (though all is possible) in my opinion migration of early man through the Mackenzie Mountains. If glacial lakes and poor vegetation to the interfluves is added to the environment the conditions were very difficult. However, it is known interesting high mountain archaeological sites of Holocene age have been found in St Elias Mountains. New evidence in the last 4-5 years has demonstrated that the Laurentide Ice-Sheet has been the only continental glacier to have reached N.W. Canada and this happened during the Late Pleistocene (30 ka). A site in the Smoking Hills (near the Arctic Coast) in the N.W.T. has yielded multiple tills with lithologies of local origin with the exception of the upper lag containing granites from the Canadian Shield (Duk-Rodkin et al., 1010). This further indicates that there was only one continental glacier that reached N.W. Canada. As well, several C14 ages obtained from southern

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5

Mackenzie Mountains indicate that the Laurentide ice was present close to 9000 y B.P. just south of Keele River latitude. This coincides with ages obtained for the drainage of glacial Lake Mackenzie in the same area ca. 9ka. No archaeological sites have been found in the Mackenzie Mountains or in its foothills except Holocene. In my mapping research in the area between Nahanni and Keele rivers near their confluence with the Mackenzie River a petroglyph was found on the flood plain of the Mackenzie River (see below). This petroglyph was carved in a quartzite boulder. Because of the style of carving it may have been done by Athabascans 2-3 ka B.P.?

A Petroglyph from the Canadian Arctic Coast

Photograph by kind permission of Alejandra Duk-Rodkin to Author July 2010.

It is my believe that early man migration would have been much easier through the coast or Yukon interior however no old archaeological sites have been found to warrant migration through the shifting “ice free corridor”.

6

The Mackenzie River, Mountains and Petroglyph

Sources: *Aa-5, 2010. Duk-Rodkin A., Barendregt R.W., and White J. An extensive Terrestrial record of multiple glaciations preserved in the Tintina Trench of west-central Yukon: stratigraphy, paleomagnetism, paleosols and pollen. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences (July 2010). 2004. Barendregt R.W. and Alejandra Duk-Rodkin. Chronology and extent of Late Cenozoic ice sheets in North America: A magnetostratigraphic assessment. In Quaternary Glaciations - Extent and Chronology, Part II: North America, Editors J. Ehlers and P.L.Gibbard. Developments in Quaternary Science 2 series editor: Jim Rose. 1996. Duk-Rodkin A., Barendregt R.W. Tarnocai C. and Phillips F.M. Late Tertiary to late Quaternary record in the Mackenzie Mountains, Northwest Territories, Canada: stratigraphy, paleosols, paleomagnetism, and chlorine-36. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences vol 33: 875-895

THE DENE

There has been much controversy about the origin of the Dene people. Linguists noted that there are differences in the grammar also in the vocabulary of the Athapaskan language of the Dene.1 The linguistic differences could occur due to the evolvement of language due to the affect of time,geographical distance. These changes in language even if minute indicate a inflections from indigenous migratory movements. It is a possibility that the Dene people have a more recent history than other indigenous groups of people who arrived in the region prior to the arrival of the Inuit. Their three languages are; 1 .Southern Athapaskan 2. Northern Athapaskan 3. Pacific Athapaskan The Dene culture has persistent tales of migration from one land to another. In the year 1789, Alexander Mackenzie related from his own travels in the area, that the Chipewyan told him that in ancient times, their ancestors feet were ‘worn out’ with walking, that they had migrated from that country and had traversed a great lake which was narrow, shallow and full of islands. A land where, “It was always winter, with ice and deep snow.” Archaeological evidence, linguistic theories and oral traditions appear to depict the Yukon-Alaska border as the ancestral home of the Dene. It appears a catastrophe later occurred which caused them to disperse abandoning their ‘homeland’ in a search for new territory. It appears there was a legitimate reason for the sudden migration of the Dene. A major volcanic eruption occurred in the St. Elias range2 which 1

It is possible that the early Athapaskan peoples originated in Alaska before the migration through the mountains to the east and south. Source; Robert D. Morritt. 2 The White Mountain Volcano. Source; Robert D. Morritt.

8

The Dene

geophysical scientista attribute to a date of c. 310-525 AD. It is believed that the eruption caused ash up to 30 centimetres deep downwind over an area estimated at 324,000 square kilometers which emitted noxious gas together with acid rain would certainly be a strong hypothesis for the sudden shift of population from the area.

A Navajo connection Father Emile Petitot, a collector of Folk tales related that in the year 1869, the mountain people related to him a tale of an exploding mountain, saying that, “The ground smoked around them, then caught fire, the rocks exploded, the mountain opened up and out of it came an enormous fire.” The Navajo related to him the collapse had occurred in the west. There was then a sudden movement by the Dene southward In 1905 Father Leopold Osternmann wrote that the Navajo called their northern relatives, the Dene nahodloni. Translated it means, “They are also Navajos”. There is a tradition anong the Navajo of the Southwestern States, that a party set out to meet the Dene, but after living with them briefly, the Navajo returned home, unable to convince the Dene to go south with them. The origin of the Dine people is obscure. Certain spurious origins have been speculated, others more practical hone in on the linguistic roots from Siberia during the Ice Age in North America. The Wisconsin phase began over 70,000 years ago. Unlike the European glacial interstadial periods (The Güntz.Mindel, Riss and the Würm periods) in North America the ice did not ‘advance’ and then ‘retreat’ there were two main ice sheets covering North America. 1. The eastern Laurentide sheet and 2. The western Cordilleran which advanced into the western mountain ridges. It is believed that during warmer periods the two ice sheets did not meet which left an ice-free land corridor such as a vast plain which now lies beneath the Bering Strait.It was hypothetically possible for the Dene to have migrated from Siberia fromYeniseaian family3 roots.

3 Observation; Dene linguistic connection to the Navajo and Apache. Robert D. Morritt.

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The Ket people of Siberia still retain a language pattern unique to both the Yukon Dene and later evolved into an Athabascan dialect today still spoken by the Navajo and the Apaches further south. There is no archaeological proof for habitation in Alaska or the Yukon during the Wisconsin phase, however there is belief of a date as early as 40,000 years ago of habitation in the area. In the course of classifying the languages of the Americas, a Dr. Greenberg realized that their major families were related to other languages on the North American continent as would be expected if the Americas had been inhabited by people migrating through Siberia. “Na-Dene, for example, is related to an isolated Siberian language known as Ket”. Dr. Joseph H. Greenberg of Stanford University Edward Vajda spent a year in Siberia (2005-2006) studying the Ket people, and finds a relationship of Ket language to that of Native American languages.Linguistically and anthropologically, the Ket are one of the most enigmatic people of Asia. The Yeniseian peoples are thought to be descendents of some of the earliest inhabitants of Central Southern Siberia. The language still spoken by about 600 of the Ket is entirely different than any other language in Siberia. (The extinct Yeniseian languages, which were recorded in the 18th and 19th centuries by European exploreres, were all fairly similar to modern Ket.

Dene – Ket Connection Some linguists see an affinity between proto-Yeniseian and such Native American languages as Tlingit and Navajo, as well. Recently, linguists have posited a superfamily called Dene-Causasian which includes Yeniseian as one of its branches. If all of these languages do stem from some common ancestor, this ancient proto-language might have existed 20,000 or more years ago. The present-day Ket are thought to have migrated to their present location on the middle Yenisei from some point closer to the Altai and Sayan mountains during the past 2000 years (where they were probably neighbors to the proto-Samoyeds. Ket legends tell of ancient migrations north into the taiga to escape fierce invaders. The legends tell of the tribe crossing a huge mountain range to escape the Tystad, or stone people.

10

The Dene

While we do not know who these stone people were, it is fairly certain that the mountain range in question was the Sayan mountains on the RussoChinese border. The Ket adapted to clothing more suitable to their new habitat. They wore a type of loose-fitting robe or caftan unlike any found elsewhere in the northern taiga. Later, additions were made to the clothing which insulated it and better safeguarded against the extreme cold of the northern taiga. Ket men wore a type of scarf. There is also evidence that the southernmost Yeniseian peoples, the Arins and others had knowledge of iron smelting, and participated in livestock raising, features which the northermost Ket4 either lost during their migrations into the forest zone or never developed. As the most northerly representatives of the ancient Yeniseian tribes, the Ket lived in the taiga as nomadic hunters and gatherers. They came under Russian influence in the early 1600's. The basic occupation of the Ket was hunting in the taiga. Squirrel pelts provided the most important trade item. Hunting was originally done with sharp wooden arrows tipped with a type of poison made from decomposed fish oil. The northernmost Ket adopted reindeer breeding from their Samoyedic neighbors, but this occupation always remained secondary to hunting and foraging. The Ket allowed their reindeer to wander during summer and kept them close to camp during winter.

4

Ancestral Yeniseic speakers moved northward from areas west of Lake Baikal and northeast of present-day Tuva, where their original economy appears to have been more fundamentally tied to fishing than overland hunting. Toponymic and archeological evidence suggests the ancient Yeniseians occupied the margins of rivers and streams in more southerly areas of mixed forests, developing a subArctic hunting economy only during the past two millennia (Alekseenko 1967).

THE LAND-BRIDGE FROM SIBERIA TO NORTH AMERICA

Postglacial Flooding of the Bering Land Bridge During the last Glacial Maximum (~21,000 years ago), The sea level rose across the land bridge between Siberia and Alaska. The Bering Land Bridge was a vast tundra plain connecting Asia and North America. At that time, the global sea level was 120 meters lower than it is today. Melting ice sheets and glaciers caused the sea level to rise and flood the land bridge. By permission of; Manley, W.F., 2002, Postglacial Flooding of the Bering Land Bridge: A Geospatial Animation: INSTAAR, University of Colorado, v1, http://instaar.colorado.edu/QGISL/bering_land_bridge. It has been suggested that Bering had been an area of dry land between 28,000 and 13,000 years ago. That Homo sapiens arrived in the New World for the first time within that time period. It appears that after 11,000 BC, warmer climate conditions caused the continental ice-sheets to melt the water gradually returning the sea to present levels, thus impacting further emigration from Beringia. At one time the continental ice-sheets stretched from Greenland westward across northern Canada to the Aleutian islands at the coldest era. At that time Alaska was cut off from the rest of North America and was actually part of Asia not situated in the ‘New World’. It has been discovered that a gap or corridor was open allowing access for hunting groups to forage between 28,000 and 25,000 years ago. This was not to occur again until 15,000 BC. At that time it is speculated that they may have migrated into the North American continent and further areas south.

12

The Land-Bridge from Siberia to North America

Another possible route lay along the western coastline of North America. The rich coastal habitat would have been\ ice-free and likely accesible to the hunters crossing the Bering land bridge. Whatever the route, there is little archaeologica evidence of these hunters suggesting they may have been few in number. All in all, it now appears that the movements of people into North America was not a single event, but rather a series of crossings. (The ancestors of modern Inuit (Eskimos) came across the Strait relatively late, perhaps 4000 years ago).

Beringia One of the most important research domains of interest in Alaska is Beringia and the entry of humans into the New World. A broad view of this domain would include the first, early entry and the successive waves of immigrants that followed. It is generally accepted that the New World was settled by immigrants from Siberia and Northeast Asia at least 13,000 years ago and that the majority of these people arrived across the Bering Land Bridge and Bering Strait. Siberia and Alaska today are separated by less than 100km (60 miles) at their closest point. The sea floor nowadays is approximately 40 metres (120 feet) beneath the surface. The date of the first arrival is still an unsettled issue among researchers. An early date of 33,000 years BP has been proposed for a cultural complex found at Monte Verde, Chile by Dillahay (1984, 1988) but it has not yet been generally accepted. Another, more substantial component at this site, dating from 14,000 to 12,000, has been widely accepted. Another site, Meadowcroft Rockshelter in west- central Pennsylvania, has a component dated at about 16,000 years BP. Further to the north, a small cultural component at Bluefish Caves in the Yukon has been dated by Cinq-Mars at ca. 13,000 BP. Also in the time range of 13,000 BP are some broken bones from Trail Creek Caves on the Seward Peninsula that the excavator feels could only have been broken by humans (Larson 1968). All other firmly dated sites that seem to be pertinent to early human settlement of this hemisphere postdate 12,000 BP. The picture of who crossed the bridge and when. is still a murky one, with new finds and hypotheses modifying the model on a regular basis. The strongest current hypothesis is the Three Wave theory proposed by Greenberg, Turner and Zegura (Turner 1994). It is based on linguistic,

Beringia: Archaic Migrations into North America

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dental and genetic data and it generally correlates to the current state of archaeological knowledge. This model hypothesizes that there were three main waves of immigration across Bering Strait that came from distinctive founding populations in Siberia and northeast Asia. The first wave passed through Alaska to found the main Amerindian groups of the New World. The second wave would have been the Athabaskan settlers that occupied the taiga areas. The last wave, according to this model, would have been the ancestors of the Eskimo/Aleut populations. This model gives a fine broad picture but it is hard to prove or disprove in the details of the archeological record . There are also scholars who disagree with this hypothesis on theoretical grounds (Moore 1994). Since the waves would have been made up of many small groups of people, the archeological remains could have varied widely as each group carried a tool kit that varied from other groups. As a result, there are almost as many ideas and theories as there are differing archeological assemblages. The general picture presented here represents a very general syntheses and is far from definitive.

Paleoarctic Tradition The most widely accepted early tradition in Alaska has been the Paleoarctic Tradition (also called the American Paleoarctic, the SiberianAmerican Paleoarctic, the Beringian Tradition, the Denali Tradition,and the Paleomarine Tradition), which is characterized by a lithic assemblage based on a core and blade technology featuring microblades, distinctive microcores, and burins. This tradition has been found in most parts of Alaska, under one guise or another. It is generally dated at 8,000 to 10,000 BP. The type site is Onion Portage in KOVA (but not NPS property) where the Akmak assemblage was investigated by Anderson (1970a). This tradition shows clear antecedents in and relationships to archeological sites of Siberia and northeast Asia, e.g. archeological entities in Kamchatka and Chukotka (Late Ushki and early Ul'khum as defined by Dikov (1993), the Duiktai Complex of Siberia) as well as more distant sites in Japan, northeastern China, and Mongolia. While no one Siberian or Asian archaeological entity shows as an exact antecedent there are definite correlations across the board with the technology of the Paleoarctic Tradition sites of Alaska.

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The Land-Bridge from Siberia to North America

In greater Beringia, which Anderson (1970a:70) sees as an environmental zone of tundra/northern taiga that stretched from Lake Baikal to eastern Alaska, the concept of this tradition reflects the presence of a common adaptation with an economy focused on land-based hunting by small and mobile groups of people whose sites seem to represent small camps and/or lookouts. The Paleoarctic Tradition is widespread in Alaska, especially the hallmark microblade and burin technological complex. Paleoarctic type assemblages have been found in or very near every NPS area in Alaska except SITK and KLGO. Paleoarctic materials, sometimes called the Denali Complex, have been found at Dry Creek (Component II) in the Interior by DENA, and at Aishihik Lake in western Canada near WRST. Along the coast it has been called the Paleomarine and has been found at Groundhog Bay on the tip of the Chilkat Peninsula, just outside GLBA, at Hidden Falls on Baranof Island, and Chuck Lake on Hecata Island. These coastal sites provide support for the theory of a coastal migration route for the early settlement of the New World that Fladmark (1979) first proposed. Paleoindian Tradition Recent discoveries in Alaska have led to the revival of the scholarly debate on the origins of the Paleoindian cultures that are exemplified by the Clovis, Folsom, Agate Basin, Plainview and other archeological traditions that were extant in the continental United States from 11,500 BP until Archaic times. The currently accepted idea is that the Clovis culture, with its distinctive fluted point technology, evolved south of the continental ice sheets of the late Pleistocene, and followed the periglacial environmental zones (characterized by a megafaunal subsistence base) northward as the glaciers retreated. One of the main supports of this theory of indigenous development has been the apparent lack of antecedent cultures in Siberia, Northeastern Asia, and Alaska. While fluted points have been found in Alaska (but not in Siberia) they have never been firmly dated as early enough to mark the migration or diffusion of the technology from north to the south. Recently, Dikov (1993) has suggested that the archeological assemblage of the lowest levels of the Ushki sites in Kamchatka, the Early Ushki component, seems to have some Paleoindian affinities. Recently, Kunz and Reanier (1994) have redated and reinterpreted the data from the Mesa Site, which lies at Iteriak Creek just north of the boundary

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of GAAR. The site, now dated at between 10,300 and 11,500 BP, contains a lithic assemblage characterized by lanceolate points that are like some Paleoindian points but lacking the fluting. Also lacking is the Paleoarctic core and blade complex. This has led the researchers to postulate that this site represents a different group of people, a cultural group they have named the Northern Paleoindian tradition, which is related to the Paleoindian groups, such as Agate Basin and Hell Gap of mid-continent North America. Component I at Dry Creek near DENA, which lies stratigraphically under a Paleoarctic component and has been dated around 11,500 BP, also lacks a core and blade industry. This Nenana Complex is also seen as having links to the Paleoindian traditions of the lower 48 and as predating the Paleoarctic cultures. Thus it can be seen that the early cultural history of Alaska has not been definitively described. Relatively few early sites have been found and thoroughly investigated. Given the size of the potential resource and the unexplored nature of the terrain, there are bound to be new discoveries that generate as many questions and theories as answers. The next widespread cultural entity (horizon?) that can be discerned in the prehistory of Alaska is another technological tradition. It has been named the Northern Archaic tradition because it seems related to the Archaic cultures of the boreal forest south and east of Alaska. This apparently intrusive group or groups appeared around 6000 BP across a wide area of Alaska. The type site is at Onion Portage in KOVA. It has also been found in the Brooks Range in GAAR, at the Palisades in CAKR, in the Graveyard Point site in KATM, in the interior of Alaska, and in the northern Yukon of Canada. Some of the sites include microblade technology and tabular microcores such as that found at the Tuktu and Kurupa Lake sites in GAAR. At the Engigstciak site1 estimated to be as early as 16,000 to 11,000 BP.) Flint artifacts, crude unifacial projectile points, burins and heavy pebble choppers were found associated with caribou and extinct bison bones in a context that suggested a warmer, damper climate. The Engigstciak site is situated at the mouth of the Firth River on the Yukon Arctic Coast situated on the Arctic slope just east of the Alaska-Canada border. R.S.McNeish considered Engigstciak to be one of the earliest projectile point sites in the 1 R.S. MacNeish “The Engigstciak Site on the Yukon Arctic Coast”. Anthropological Papers Vol.4, No.2, University of Alaska, Fairbanks (1956).

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The Land-Bridge from Siberia to North America

New World. He suggested its remote similarity to Asiatic Upper Paleolithic complexes such as the Buret-Malta of the Trans-Baikal area of Siberia. E.N.Wilmsen2 suggested that the technique employed by the early ‘toolmakers’ at the British Mountain complex (Engigistciak) was based on the Lavallois-Mousterian flake tradition. At some time between 21,000 and 11,000 BP these people migrated through the Bering Strait which at that time could be crossed by foot thus being the first initial inhabitants of North America. There have been varied interpretations of the origins and roles of the Northern Archaic people. On one hand it has been judged as basically an interior tradition, a result of people following the expanding boreal forest northward during a climatic warming period and displacing the local descendants of the Paleoarctic groups in Alaska. On the other hand, others have seen it as a technological diffusion that spread with varying degrees of acceptance from the boreal forests northward and westward. Migration and/or diffusion, this enigmatic cultural level appears to have had relatively little influence on later prehistory in the region. Cook (1969) and some others, however, see this tradition as a possible root for the later Athabaskan cultures in the Interior of Alaska. At Anaktuvak Pass, above the Arctic Coast in the Brooks Range. The Kogruk Phase3 yielded a range of tools which included unifacial points and bi-faces and some microblades. J.M. Campbell estimated the date of that site at approximately 6000-8000 BP he mentioned it resembled the site at the Siberian Buret-Malta.complex in the Lake Baikal region. A possibly related site related to British Mountain is the Palisades 1 group of artifacts which J.L.Giddings obtained from Cape Krusenstern4 on the Chukchi Sea. The site had a high marine terrace and other sites on lower terraces, with marked weathering of chert or chalcedony from which implements such as axe-like choppers fashioned from beach pebbles and flaked cutting tools.

2

E.N. Wilmsen, “Flake Tools in the American Arctic; Some Speculations”, American Antiquity, Vol.29, No.3, Salt Lake City (1964). 3 J.M. Campbell, “The Kogruk Complex of Anaktuvuk Pass, Alaska.” Anthropologia. Vol.3, No.1. Ottawa (1962). 4 J.L Giddings, J.L., “The Archaeology of Bering Strait”, Current Anthropology, Vol 1.No.2 (1960).

THE KET LANGUAGE Siberian Yenisiec and North American Athapaskian Languages Appear Related. A U.S. researcher studying an ancient language now spoken by only a few hundred people in a remote corner of Siberia has found the first-ever linguistic link between the Old World and any first nation in Canada. The landmark discovery, the result of a 10-year investigation by Western Washington University professor Edward Vajda, came after a dramatic insight involving the most Canadian of objects: the canoe. Vajda found that the few remaining speakers of the relic Ket language in Russia's Yenisei River region, and the tens of thousands of Athapaskanspeaking native people in Canada and the U.S. – including the Dene, Gwich'in, Navaho and Apache – use almost identical words for canoe and such component parts as prow and cross-piece. "Finally, here was the beginning of a system that struck me as beyond the realm of chance," Vajda recounts in a soon-to-be published essay obtained by Canwest News Service. "I became irrevocably convinced that demonstrating the connection was actually possible. At that moment, I think I realized how an archeologist must feel who peers inside a freshly opened Egyptian tomb and witnesses what no one has seen for thousands of years." Currently, only the Eskimo-Aleut family of aboriginal languages spoken by the Inuit of Arctic Canada, Alaska, Greenland and Russia straddle the hemispheric divide between Asia and the Americas. Those connections aren't surprising given the relatively recent arrival of the Inuit to North America. But linguists have never definitively linked any Old World language to the multitude of speech systems among the Indian nations of North and South America, whose earliest migrations from Asia to the New World took place at least 13,000 years ago.

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That's why Vajda's discovery about Ket and the Athapaskan or "Na-Dene" language family is being compared with the 18th-century "Indo-European" revolution that ultimately classified English, French and other modern languages with ancient Sanskrit. "This is a big breakthrough to be able to link these," University of Alberta anthropologist Jack Ives, an expert in Athapaskan culture, said Wednesday. Vajda's claim of a "Dene-Yeniseic" was endorsed recently at an academic conference in Alaska attended by Ives and other experts in linguistics and anthropology."The idea has floated around for a while but has only been treated in a superficial way," Ives noted, crediting Vajda with compiling "undeniable" proof of a Dene-Yeniseic language family that includes dozens of common words, but also a clear correspondence in verb systems and other grammatical structures. "It's exciting," said Ives, praising the "rigorous" research behind the new classification. In an interview, Vajda said Ket is the only surviving member of the ancient Yeniseic family of languages that were once dominant in central Siberia. But the migration of reindeer-breeding tribes from Mongolia and Manchuria gradually displaced the hunter-gatherer culture of the Yeniseic people about 1,500 years ago. "The Ket are the only ones who survived," he said, but their language is now on the brink of extinction, too. Only about 1,200 people living in four villages along the Yenisei River in central Russia call themselves Ket today. And while 200 or so can speak some of the original language, fewer than 100 would be considered fluent, Vajda said. And all of those skilled speakers are 50 or older. The Athapaskan or Na-Dene family of languages, are spoken by a wide variety of first nations in B.C., the Yukon, Northwest Territories, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Vajda says his research shows that a host of distinct Na-Dene languages in Canada – Dogrib, Slave and Beaver among them – share a common origin with Ket that dates from at least 5,000 years ago, and possibly much further back in time.

Beringia: Archaic Migrations into North America A few words in one of the planet's most obscure languages may help support the theory that Native Americans left Asia in several separate migrations, a linguist said in an article released Monday. Merritt Ruhlen of Stanford University has found compelling similarities between Ket, a language spoken by just 500 people in remote Siberia, and Na-Dene, a family of Native American languages. Writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, he gives examples of 36 words that are very similar in the two language families, including the words for birch bark, children and rabbit. Ket is a member of the Yeniseian family of languages. All the other languages in the family became extinct in the 19th century. Na-Dene has four branches, including Tlingit and Eyak, which are spoken in western Canada and Alaska, as well as Navajo and Apache. "It would seem that Na-Dene and Yeniseian must have once formed a single population in Eurasia," Ruhlen wrote. Comparing words is a basic tool in linguistics and can help show how languages and the populations that speak them are related. For instance, English is an Indo-European language, one of a family of languages that ranges from Sanskrit, the ancient Indian language, to German and French. Related words are often easy to spot - for instance the German word "mutter" is similar to its English counterpart, "mother," while the Russian word "brat" looks very much like "brother" and is similar to the Latin root for words like "fraternal." Ruhlen stumbled onto doing a comparison of Yeniseian and Na-Dene languages while doing other comparisons. He found striking similarities. "I like (the word for) birch bark quite a bit," he said in a telephone interview. "It's so specific. It seems to me that it would be extremely improbable that two families would invent the same word for birch bark." In Ket the word is pronounced something like "ch'ee" - a sound hard to transliterate into English. In several existing Na-Dene languages it is pronounced very similarly. The words for breast also correlate. In Ket the word is "tuhguh" and in the Na-Dene Koyukon language it is "t'uga'." There are enough of these instances to convince Ruhlen. "I just picked out 36 (examples) for this article that looked like the best and most obvious and strongest," he said. There is much evidence that Native Americans crossed a land bridge over what is now the Bering Strait from Siberia into Alaska, including genetic, archaeological and other linguistic evidence. —Source; The Vancouver Sun, April 3, 2008

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The Ket Language