The Archeology of Alaska and the Peopling of America

• Published in: Science
• Main Author: Dumond, Don E.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) 1980
• Subjects: Bering Land Bridge; Tundra; Alaska
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.209.4460.984; https://www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1126/science.209.4460.984

The proposed existence of a biotically productive tundra-steppe on the exposed Bering Land Bridge of the late Pleistocene aids conceptualization of the migrations of early Asian hunters. But clear knowledge of the human occupants of northwesternmost America before 11,000 years ago is elusive. Evidence indicates that at that time the Alaskan peoples had a culture generally based on microliths that, while obviously derived from Asia, were not sufficiently similar to the tools of the earliest widely distributed hunters of more southerly North America to support any direct and close relation between the two cultures.