Northwest History. Alaska 7. Archaeology, United States

• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1929
• Subjects: New Haven; Conn.; Alaska; prehistoric villages; archaeological relics; Edward Weyer; Stoll-McCracken arctic expedition; Yale anthropology club; American continents; eastern hemisphere; American Indians; Asiatic immigrants; North America; Alaska peninsula ;Aleutian islands; civilization; Northwest; Pacific > History > 20th century; Arctic; Pacific; Aleutian Islands
• Online Access: http://content.libraries.wsu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/clipping/id/88988

Traces Of Early Man Discovered: Alaska Evidently Was Home Of Earliest Settler On Continent. TRACES OF EARLY Alaska Evidently Was Home of Earliest Settler on Continent. NEW HAVEN, Conn., Feb. 12. OP)—Tlie disco-very in Alaska, of buried prehistoric villages, which yielded hundreds of archaeological relics, was described here tonight, by Edward Weyer, anthropologist and archaeologist for the Stoll-McCraoken arctic expedition. Mr. Weyer, before the Yale anthropology club, "The American continents are younger with regard to human occupation than the eastern hemisphere. The first immigrant's to them, forerunners of the American Indians, doubtless came from Asia. Thus Alaska, which lies much closer to Asia than any other part ofAmerica, probably was the gateway through which passed those early immigrants. The northwest cornerer of North America therefore, can be regarded as the first scene of human history in America." For one month Mr. Weyer and two companions were encamped on an ancient village site on the Alaska peninsula. On the almost inaccessible summit of an island in the Aleutian chain, the expedition discovered a grave containing mummies of unkown age. The bodies remianed in a remarkable state of preservation. This grave afforded the first comprehensive information concerning this type of burial in the Aleutian islands before the introduction of higher civilization.