A University of Kansas-led international research team studying how early humans first populated the Americas has unearthed new archaeological evidence at the 13,800-year-old Shég’ Xdaltth’í’ ‘base camp’ in Alaska, suggesting a connection between sites on both sides of the Beringia Land Bridge.
Led by the study’s first author, KU researcher Kelly Graf, the team said the findings help “clarify how and when people traveled across the Bering Land Bridge from Asia to the Americas,” a topic that remains hotly debated.
13,800-Year-Old Site Predates Oldest Clovis Discoveries
According to a statement announcing the discoveries, most scientists agree that early humans migrating from Northeastern Asia passed through Beringia, an ancient land bridge connecting Asia and the Americas. The KU-led team notes that geneticists now predict that as many as five early human populations made Beringia home between 16,000 and 13,000 years ago before settling America.
However, the team also explained that archaeologists struggle to explain how these genetically inferred populations “correlate to the variability documented in the region’s archaeological record.” More controversial archaeological evidence, including findings dating back almost 50,000 years, also suggests humans may have crossed the Pacific Ocean thousands of years earlier, further complicating the First Americans Beringia theory.
(A) Map of Beringia showing the extent of ice and the extent of the land bridge during full-glacial conditions 18 ka [adapted from (87)]; (B) regional map of east-central Alaska. Stars denote locations of archaeological sites pre-dating 12.75 ka. Credit: Graf et al.
The site contains three archaeological components dating to the Late Pleistocene, 13.8, 13, and 12.7 thousand years ago. The research team said the region “represents the densest concentration of pre-Clovis–aged and Clovis-aged archaeology in the Americas.”
‘They Were There’ Site Yields Continent-Bridging Clues
Because previous efforts have dated the Shég’ Xdaltth’í’ site – pronounced shehg xuh-tuhl-TTH’EE, meaning “They were there” in Alaska Native Athabascan – to 13,800 years before present, or hundreds of years before the first Clovis sites, the team examined a component called C1.
According to a release announcing the findings, the team’s new analysis shed new light on C1’s “stratigraphy, radiocarbon chronology, artifacts, exceptionally well-preserved features, and faunal and floral remains.” Composed of more than 80,000 archaeological specimens, the site, previously called McDonald Creek, provided the team with several new pieces of evidence.
Diamond-shaped bifaces and bifacial fragments (A to F); rough biface on schist (G); fragments of finished bifaces with discernible tips, bases, or side corners (H to L); midstage biface preforms (M and O); and burin spall from the edge of a biface (N). Photo credit: B. Potter/University of Kansas.
Graf and colleagues said that the site’s oldest component yielded an “impressive array of cultural remains.” These included what the KU-led research team described as “a unique hafted-biface form,” several osseous (bone) tools, diverse fauna remains, and “well-preserved activity areas.”
Needle fragments (A to H), one awl tip (I), pendant with drilled hole (J), point fragments (K to M and O to R), and one enigmatic piece (N). Letters correspond to lettered labels in Table 2. Photo credit: B. Potter/University of Kansas.
“[It’s] a record unparalleled for this age in Beringia,” they write.
The research team noted that the tools, including the hafted-biface form, resembled similar relics discovered at sites further west and closer to Asia.
“Its distinct hafted-biface form occurs in coeval sites west of the BLB, possibly suggesting a trans-Beringian cultural connection,” they write.
The site also yielded the earliest known Nenana Complex occupation east of the Beringia Land Bridge, which the team noted also provides “an important trans-Beringian cultural link.”
Closer to Connecting Archaeology and Genetics
Beyond the site’s potential connections to other similarly aged sites to the West, the team said their work also unearthed clues connecting it to the first American sites south of the Canadian ice sheets. This included pre-Clovis, Clovis, Folsom, Western Stemmed, and/or Late Paleoindian settlements.
“There are several characteristics found at this site, and often at other >13-ka Alaskan sites, that are shared with Paleoindian complexes in temperate North America,” they write, adding that “other artifacts at Shég’ Xdaltth’í resemble those found at pre-Clovis, Clovis, Folsom, and Late Paleoindian sites further south in temperate North America.”
Notably, the team found that the people occupying C1, who left behind no testable genetic evidence, likely represented a “settled central Alaskan population” that remained in place for at least two hundred years.
“Radiocarbon dates signal up to two centuries of periodic, repeated use, and the discerned features thus far identified highlight domestic use of space,” they explained, adding that “the evidence demonstrates how the site became a settled base camp that saw more than two centuries of sustained use.
When discussing the potential impacts of their 13,800-year-old site analysis, the study authors described the findings as “transformational.” They also said their discoveries link the archaeological sites on both sides of the Bering Land Bridge in an ‘intriguing’ way, “potentially bringing us closer to connecting early archaeological variability to the current genomic model.”
Christopher Plain has spent the last six years as Associate News Editor and Head Science Reporter at The Debrief. Follow and connect with him on X, learn about his novels at plainfiction.com, or email him at christopher@thedebrief.org.