Researchers from the University of Kansas have studied a camp above Alaska’s Tanana River where people lived 13,800 years ago. The discoveries suggest that the site was more than a brief stopping place. Animal remains and tools show how its occupants hunted, prepared food and made useful objects.
The hunters caught large animals, including mammoths, bison, horses and caribou. Inside the remains of a living space, researchers found a large stone surrounded by broken bison bones and smaller stones used as hammers. They think people broke the bones to reach the soft food inside and probably heated them to collect fat. A large earth oven stood nearby. Bird bones were also made into needles.
Another important discovery was a collection of diamond-shaped stone points, possibly used as weapon tips. Similar points from the same period occur on the Russian side of the Bering Land Bridge. This connection suggests that people travelled across the bridge to the Alaska camp, and possibly back again.
