There was an argument in "American Antiquity" back in the late 1970s early 1980s over the settlement along the Pacific Northwest Coast, as one of the major settlement routes into North America that some think led to further settlement further south along the California coast at least. It was shown linguistically to have been possible by research at Oxford University I recall. One of the problems is that the level of glaciation along the coast and how much the local "eco-niches" and flyways of birds would support human travel. And, also most of the archaeological evidence would be below current sea-level, though some recent cave deposit excavations in that area have shown to be quite old. Anadromous fish populations, i.e., salmonid species probably played a large part in prehistoric subsistence as the various salmon do today, which could be caught in large numbers at the right time of spawning, returning from the sea to the rivers. One "experimental" artifact I saw in the Alaska State Museum was an "umiak" which is a fairly large boat made from "frames" of wood or bone and animal skins sewn together in a waterproof technique on the exterior which could carry a small number of people at a time (up to six?). The other primary route argued was inter-montane, in the high plateau of the Rocky Mountain cordillera, after travel around what is argued too many small lakes and ponds of Alaska where a great number of birds have their young on the end of a large flyway, the hatchlings feasting on the larvae of mosquitos and other insects. Bears have been found to be older than thought in that region one might say.
No comments:
Post a Comment