Chemical profiling of ancient hearths reveals recurrent salmon use in Ice Age Beringia

Reconstructing subsistence practices of ancient hunter-gatherers requires quantitative data on food resources, which rarely preserve. Here we use chemical profiling of hearth sediments from three Ice Age occupations in Alaska (13,200–11,500 years ago), including compound-specific stable isotope anal...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Main Authors: Choy, Kyungcheol, Potter, Ben A., McKinney, Holly J., Reuther, Joshua D., Wang, Shiway W., Wooller, Matthew J.
Format: Text
Language:English
Published: National Academy of Sciences 2016
Subjects:
Social Sciences
Alaska
Beringia
Online Access:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5024613/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27573838
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1606219113
Description
Summary:Reconstructing subsistence practices of ancient hunter-gatherers requires quantitative data on food resources, which rarely preserve. Here we use chemical profiling of hearth sediments from three Ice Age occupations in Alaska (13,200–11,500 years ago), including compound-specific stable isotope analyses and a Bayesian mixing model, to estimate proportional contributions of marine (salmon), freshwater, and terrestrial resources. The model is verified through zooarchaeological analyses and demonstrates the importance of salmonid and freshwater resources to these early Americans. Our study also provides evidence for the earliest use of salmon in the Americas.

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