A new study shows Early Native Americans in Alaska were freshwater fishermen 13,000 years ago

A team led by the University of Alaska Fairbanks researchers has discovered the earliest known evidence that Native Americans living in present-day central Alaska may have begun freshwater fishing around 13,000 years ago during the last ice age.

Ancestors of Alaska Natives, many of whose livelihoods still depend on freshwater fish such as salmon, may have started subsistence fishing as a response to fewer food resources during long-term climate change, Ben Potter and colleagues say.

The research offers a glimpse at how early humans used a changing landscape and could offer insight for modern people facing similar changes.

“We are looking at humans as ecologists do, as biologists do,” said Ben Potter, a UAF anthropology professor and co-lead author of the paper. “Even very early on, they are able to adapt to changing conditions.”

The study, published recently in the journal Science Advances, shows that people living between 13,000 and 11,500 years ago in what is now Interior Alaska relied on freshwater fish like burbot, whitefish and pike for food. The study builds on earlier UAF findings that documented salmon fishing by the same population of ancient humans.

Native Americans have relied on freshwater fish for thousands of years, but the origins of fishing in North America have been uncertain. Beringia, a region comprising present-day Alaska and Russia, was largely ice-free during the last ice age and is considered a key gateway to the Americas.

“That discovery was really surprising because it was far from the ocean, in an area near the edge of salmon habitat,” said Potter. “That started us thinking: This could be a whole other angle on human ecology beyond large mammal hunting.”

To investigate, Potter et al. used a combination of DNA and isotope analyses to identify 1,110 fish specimens recovered from six human settlement sites – including in the Tanana, Kuskokwim, Susitna, and Copper River basins – in what was once eastern Beringia (central Alaska). They identified four main fish taxa – salmon, burbot, whitefish, and northern pike – whose earliest appearances dated to around 13,000 and 11,800 years ago.

These findings, along with well-documented fishing records from local Native Alaskans, suggest that early Native Americans may have started fishing as a response to environmental change during the Pleistocene-Holocene transition. “Our data collectively suggest that changes in climate and ultimately key mammal resources during the Younger Dryas led to human responses of widening diet breadth to incorporate multiple species of freshwater and anadromous fish, setting a pattern that would be expanded upon later in the Holocene as fish, particularly salmon, became key resources to Alaska Native lifeways,” the authors write.

The bones were found inside homes and hearths and tended to be associated with base camps, rather than short-term hunting camps. They also were far from lakes and streams, so it’s unlikely that predators moved them.

The absence of fishhooks or spears at the sites suggests that the early Alaskans likely used nets and perhaps weirs to harvest the fish.

“This is a compelling, evidence-based case for freshwater fishing at the end of the last Ice Age,” Potter said.

Until the beginning of the Younger Dryas, people relied more on waterfowl to augment large game like bison and elk. When temperatures started dropping around 13,000 years ago, that changed.

“While we don’t know why the use of waterfowl diminished, we know that the climate was changing,” Potter said. “One of the ways the people were able to adapt is to incorporate these new species and new technologies. Burbot, in particular, can be caught in late winter and early spring, when food resources were most scarce.”

The solid tie to modern subsistence activities is also compelling, he said.

Archeologists find remains of an underwater hospital and cemetery

Archeologists at Dry Tortugas National Park have found remains of a 19th-century quarantine hospital and cemetery on a submerged island. The National Park Service said in a news release that records indicate dozens of people, mostly U.S. soldiers stationed at Fort Jefferson, may have been buried there.

The small quarantine hospital was used to treat patients with yellow fever at the fort between 1890 and 1900, according to the NPS.

Major outbreaks of the disease killed dozens, but the quarantine hospital offered a place to isolate patients, likely saving hundreds of lives.

While most buried in the Fort Jefferson Post Cemetery were military members, several were also civilians.

During a survey of the area, researchers found John Greer’s grave, prominently marked with a large slab of greywacke carved into the shape of a headstone and inscribed with his name and date of death.

According to the NPS, Greer was employed as a laborer at the fort and died there on Nov. 5, 1861.

“This intriguing find highlights the potential for untold stories in Dry Tortugas National Park, both above and below the water,” project director Josh Marano said.

“Although much of the history of Fort Jefferson focuses on the fortification itself and some of its infamous prisoners, we are actively working to tell the stories of the enslaved people, women, children, and civilian laborers.”

Efforts to learn more about those buried in the cemetery are ongoing.

Genetic Study Establishes Native Ancestors Were in Alaska 3,000 Years Ago

Researchers have discovered that some modern Alaska Natives still live almost exactly where their ancestors did 3,000 years ago, highlighting genetic continuity in Southeast Alaska and shedding light on human migration patterns and pre-colonial territorial patterns in the Pacific Northwest.

The first people to live in the Americas migrated from Siberia across the Bering land bridge more than 20,000 years ago. Some made their way as far south as Tierra del Fuego, at the tip of South America. Others settled in areas much closer to their place of origin where their descendants still thrive today.

In “A paleogenome from a Holocene individual supports genetic continuity in Southeast Alaska,” published recently in the journal iScience, University at Buffalo evolutionary biologist Charlotte Lindqvist and collaborators show, using ancient genetic data analyses, that some modern Alaska Natives still live almost exactly where their ancestors did some 3,000 years ago.

Lindqvist, PhD, associate professor of biological sciences at the UB College of Arts and Sciences, is senior author of the paper. In the course of her studies in Alaska, she explored mammal remains that had been found in a cave on the state’s southeast coast. One bone was initially identified as coming from a bear. However, genetic analysis showed it to be the remains of a human female.

“We realized that modern Indigenous peoples in Alaska, should they have remained in the region since the earliest migrations, could be related to this prehistoric individual,” says Alber Aqil, a UB PhD student in biological sciences and the first author of the paper. This discovery led to efforts to solve this mystery, which DNA analyses are well suited to address when archeological remains are as sparse as these were.

Learning from an ancestor

The earliest peoples had already started moving south along the Pacific Northwest Coast before an inland route between ice sheets became viable. Some, including the female individual from the cave, made their home in the area that surrounds the Gulf of Alaska. That area is now home to the Tlingit Nation and three other groups: Haida, Tsimshian, and Nisga’a.

As Aqil and colleagues analyzed the genome from this 3,000-year-old individual — “research that was not possible just 20 years ago,” Lindqvist noted — they determined that she is most closely related to Alaska Natives living in the area today. This fact showed it was necessary to carefully document as clearly as possible any genetic connections of the ancient female to present-day Native Americans.

In such endeavors, it is important to collaborate closely with people living in lands where archeological remains are found. Therefore, cooperation between Alaska Native peoples and the scientific community has been a significant component of the cave explorations that have taken place in the region.

The Wrangell Cooperative Association named the ancient individual analyzed in this study as “Tatóok yík yées sháawat” (Young lady in cave).

Genetic continuity in Southeast Alaska persists for thousands of years

Indeed, Aqil and Lindqvist’s research demonstrated that Tatóok yík yées sháawat is in fact closest related to present-day Tlingit peoples and those of nearby tribes along the coast. Their research, therefore, strengthens the idea that genetic continuity in Southeast Alaska has continued for thousands of years.

Human migration into North America, although it began some 24,000 years ago, came in waves — one of which, about 6,000 years ago — included the Paleo-Inuit, formerly known as Paleo-Eskimos. Importantly for understanding Indigenous peoples’ migrations from Asia, Tatóok yík yées sháawat’s DNA did not reveal ancestry from the second wave of settlers, the Paleo-Inuit. Indeed, the analyses performed by Aqil and Lindqvist helped shed light on the continuing discussion of migration routes, mixtures among people from these different waves, as well as modern territorial patterns of inland and coastal people of the Pacific Northwest in the pre-colonial era.

Oral history links an ancient woman to people living in Southeast Alaska today

The oral origin narratives of the Tlingit people include the story of the most recent eruption of Mount Edgecumbe, which would place them exactly in the region by 4,500 years ago. Tatóok yík yées sháawat, their relative, therefore informs not just modern-day anthropological researchers but also the Tlingit people themselves.

Out of respect for the right of the Tlingit people to control and protect their cultural heritage and their genetic resources, data from the study of Tatóok yík yées sháawat will be available only after review of its use by the Wrangell Cooperative Association Tribal Council.

“It’s very exciting to contribute to our knowledge of the prehistory of Southeast Alaska,” said Aqil.

Reference: “A paleogenome from a Holocene individual supports genetic continuity in Southeast Alaska” by Alber Aqil, Stephanie Gill, Omer Gokcumen, Ripan S. Malhi, Esther Aaltséen Reese, Jane L. Smith, Timothy T. Heaton and Charlotte Lindqvist, 8 April 2023, iScience.