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119 7. The Earliest Alaskan Archaeological Record: A View from Siberia sergey a. vasil’ev T he evidence from Alaska is of crucial importance for the study of the peopling of the New World. Speculation continues concerning several similarities between Alaskan and Siberian data relevant to Late Pleistocene culture history. The assemblages dating to the last few millennia of the Pleistocene are considered to represent the traces of the initial colonization of America via the Bering Land Bridge. In this chapter I give some short comments on the meaning of the observed variability, confronting the explanatory hypotheses against the data on hand. I hope that, in spite of all possible errors and misinterpretations, this “view from outside ” is of interest to our American colleagues in the same way American contributions devoted to Siberian prehistory are to us. I consider only early assemblages dated to the late Pleistocene, thus omitting important younger sites that are similar in lithic assemblage composition. Moreover, I mention only clearly stratified and securely dated assemblages, ignoring surface scatters and dubious locales. Late Pleistocene Alaska: The Database The unambiguous traces of early man in eastern Beringia could be dated to roughly 12,000–11,000  C BP (13,840– 12,900 cal BP), presumably corresponding to an interstadial phase. The earliest known occupation has been found at Swan Point cultural zone 4, where a wedge-shaped core and microblade industry (Holmes, this volume) dates to about 12,000  C BP (13,840 cal BP). Besides Swan Point, all other sites predating 11,000  C BP (12,900 cal BP) in the inner part of the peninsula seem best united under the title of “Nenana complex” (or “Chindadn complex,” figure 7.1). Important deeply buried Nenana assemblages have been identified at Dry Creek (component 1), Walker Road (component 1), and Broken Mammoth (cultural zones 4 and 3). These and other Nenana sites (Mead, layer 1 at Moose Creek, component 1 at Owl Ridge, Chugwater, Healy Lake) are located in central interior Alaska, in the northern piedmont area of the Alaska Range, and along the Tanana River valley and its tributaries, the Nenana and Teklanika (Cook 1969, 1996; Goebel et al. 1996; Higgs 1992; Hoffecker 1984b, 1996; Hoffecker et al. 1996; Holmes 1996; Lively 1996; Phippen 1988; Powers et al. 1983; Yesner 1994, 1996, 2001a, 2001b; Yesner and Crossen 1994; Yesner et al. 2000). The sites are located on elevated surfaces, providing good lookouts along the river valleys. The living floors, situated in loess and eolian sands, produced flat hearths and concentrations of artifacts. Judging by the faunal data from Broken Mammoth, Nenana subsistence activities included big-game hunting (bison, wapiti, and reindeer ), bird procurement, and fishing. The Nenana lithic industry was based on the exploitation of a variety of raw materials including chert, rhyolite, basalt, quartzite, obsidian , and chalcedony. The industry lacks microblade technology; tools were manufactured on flakes and blades detached from flat single- and double-platform cores. In the majority of assemblages flakes dominate, though the Walker Road assemblage also includes a remarkable blade component. The most characteristic forms of the projectiles are teardrop-shaped Chindadn points and short bifacial triangular points. Other types include elongated points with concave bases and bipointed points. Based on the point morphology, the assemblages from Chugwater, Broken Mammoth cultural zone 3, Healy Lake, Dry Creek component 1, Walker Road, Owl Ridge, and Moose Creek are similar. The Broken Mammoth cultural zone 4 assemblage lacks the typical Nenana artifacts, which might be 120 Sergey A. Vasil’ev dates from 11,700–10,700 to 8,000  C BP (12,790 to 8890 cal BP). Thus, the earliest Denali complex is regarded as slightly younger than Nenana (Hoffecker et al. 1996; Holmes 1998; Holmes et al. 1996; Pearson 2000; Powers et al. 1983). The Denali people used the same settlement strategy as Nenana, with hilltops the preferred habitation locations. At Dry Creek they procured Dall sheep and bison. Denali is characterized by sophisticated microblade technology based on wedge-shaped cores made on bifaces and flakes (the latter often called “end” cores). There are also flat-faced and prismatic blade cores. The lithics include foliates, bifacial knives, burins, scaled pieces, end scrapers, side scrapers, retouched flakes, bladelets, notches, and choppers. The final late Pleistocene cultural tradition of Alaska is termed Northern Paleoindian. The early (Pleistoceneaged ) phase of this tradition is represented by a series of specialized localities (Mesa, Bedwell, Hilltop, Spein Mountain, and possibly Sluiceway-Tuluaq) at the northern and western periphery of...

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