A camp on a ridge overlooking Alaska’s Tanana River is providing a detailed picture of life near the Bering Land Bridge during the late Ice Age. University of Kansas researchers identified three occupation layers dating to 13,800, 13,000 and 12,700 years ago. The evidence suggests a base where people undertook domestic activities rather than merely paused during their travels. Although spruce trees cover the ridge today, shrub tundra characterised its Ice Age landscape.
Animal remains indicate that occupants hunted mammoths, bison, horses and caribou. Within a dwelling feature, a large stone anvil lay among heavily battered bison bones and stone hammers. The researchers interpret this arrangement as evidence of marrow extraction and, probably, the rendering of bone grease near a substantial earth oven. Needles fashioned from bird bones provide further evidence of craftwork. Numerous diamond-shaped stone points, worked on both faces, may have served as weapon tips. Comparable northern examples from this period occur on the Russian side of the land bridge, suggesting journeys towards the camp and potentially in the opposite direction.
Excavation director Kelly Graf began visiting the site in 2013. Supported by National Science Foundation grants totalling $400,000, the excavations yielded more than 80,000 specimens, including animal remains, bone tools and well-preserved activity areas. The findings, published in Science Advances, illuminate life beside a land connection that formed around 35,000 years ago before rising seas submerged it approximately 12,000 years ago.
