Archaeologists excavating a 13,800-year-old site in interior Alaska report uncovering the oldest dwelling in the Western Hemisphere, along with thousands of artifacts that include early bone needles, stone tools linked to Beringia, and remains that may be from some of the first domesticated dogs in the Americas.
The encampment, known as Shégˊ Xdaltthˊíˊ, meaning “They Were There” in the Alaska Native Athabascan language, lies about 34 miles, or 55 kilometers, southeast of Fairbanks. Researchers say the location served as a base camp used intermittently for roughly a thousand years by some of the earliest people in North America.
Shégˊ Xdaltthˊíˊ sits within eastern Beringia, the region that bridged northeast Asia and northwest North America during the last ice age. While recent archaeological and genetic evidence places the arrival of the ancestors of today’s Indigenous Americans around 21,000 years ago, early Beringian sites are often small and scattered, leaving many questions about how the first populations lived and moved across the landscape.
Study lead author Kelly Graf, an archaeologist at the University of Kansas, said she had expected to find a modest hunting camp. Instead, excavations revealed tens of thousands of artifacts. The findings are detailed in a study published Wednesday, Oct. 14, in Science Advances, which focuses on the earliest occupation at the site about 13,800 years ago as a sign of people establishing themselves in a new territory.
Excavations exposed a hearth, a small pit, and a soil stain interpreted as a former post, likely the footprint of a lean-to or early tent-like shelter. Researchers also recovered stone tools, bone needles, and a pendant made from antler. Nearby, an earth oven packed with charcoal and animal bone appears to have been used for slow-cooking meat for a larger family group. The team wrote that the complex at Shégˊ Xdaltthˊíˊ represents the earliest potential habitation structure in North America, adding that early Alaskans had a strong command of their surroundings.
Cross-cultural links in early Beringia
The stone tools from Shégˊ Xdaltthˊíˊ stood out for their distinctive forms unique to central Alaska. The so-called diamond-shaped hafted bifaces, made from rhyolite and basalt, resemble tools more commonly found farther west in Beringia, in what is now northern Siberia. Obsidian artifacts at the site trace back to a source hundreds of miles to the northwest, indicating the movement of materials across long distances.
Bones from more than a dozen wolf-like animals suggest additional ties to Asia. Analysis of one jaw indicates it did not belong to a dire wolf, nor to a Pleistocene Beringian or gray wolf, but to a wolf-like population unique to central Alaska. Genetic research to date points to domesticated dogs in North America originating from Siberian wolves. The timing and location of Shégˊ Xdaltthˊíˊ provide circumstantial evidence that the people there may have had dogs. As the researchers noted, like the humans at the site, the canids could have been recent arrivals from Asian Beringia.
Connections to areas south of the Canadian ice sheets also emerged. Eight fragments of bone needles were recovered, making them the oldest needles known in the Western Hemisphere. Previously, eyed needles had only been documented at Paleoindian sites in temperate North America. An antler pendant with a drilled hole at one end and a pointed tip at the other resembles personal ornaments found farther south. The study argues that the co-occurrence of these cultural elements at Shégˊ Xdaltthˊíˊ underscores strong links between early Beringians and early Americans.
Whether people at Shégˊ Xdaltthˊíˊ traveled to forge these ties remains unresolved. Graf said it is difficult to determine movement patterns within a single lifetime, but the cultural connections are evident.
Further work in Beringia is needed
Future excavations across Beringia could clarify the lifeways of the earliest people in the Americas, according to Graf, who noted that Alaska’s vast and remote terrain has limited intensive investigation to only a few areas.
In an accompanying perspective in Science Advances, University of Wyoming archaeologist Spencer Pelton, who was not involved in the research, called Shégˊ Xdaltthˊíˊ the oldest site in the Americas with a large, rich assemblage of features, artifacts, and animal remains consistent with prolonged residential occupation. He wrote that the site offers an unprecedented view into the daily lives of North America’s first residents.
Graf said her team plans additional fieldwork and hopes to involve younger Alaska Native participants. Two co-authors are elders from Alaska Native corporations closest to the site, and they named Shégˊ Xdaltthˊíˊ and have guided where to dig and what to expect.
Researchers add that much remains to be learned about Beringia around 14,000 years ago. Only two archaeological sites, including the 24,000-year-old Bluefish Caves in the Yukon, currently indicate people may have been present in the region considerably earlier. For comparison with other deep-time research on human activity, see how tuna fishing history traces back at least 44,000 years.