University of Alberta Museums Search

Important site in northwest Alaska containing one of the continent's longest stratigraphies; occupied from at least 8500 BP by a number of Eskimo-Siberian-Indian subcultures (American Palaeoarctic, Northern archaic, Arctic Small tool Traditions, Inuit cultures). The oldest industries, called Akmak and Kobuk, are thought to last from c 9000 BC until the mid-7th millennium BC, and include chipped tools (blades, bifaces and associated cores) which are closer to Siberian types than to those of temperate America. The Kobuk (6200-6000 BC) contained similar tools but of limited variety. After a long hiatus in occupation, the Palisades II industry (4850-3350 BC, variously 4000-2000 BC) shows links with the archaic cultures of the forest zone to the southeast, as does the succeeding Portage complex (3350-3000 BC, variously 2600-2200 BC). Next came tools of the Denbigh Flint complex (3200 BC, variously 2200-1800 BC), followed by Chloris (1500-500 BC) with the oldest pottery in the Arctic, then a local version (Norton) of Ipiutak (400-800 AD), by a forest-adapted Indian culture called Itkillik complex (500-1000 AD), and finally by an Arctic Woodland culture facies of the Thule tradition. The excellent vertical stratigraphy of this site makes it the major reference for all western Arctic chronologies, especially when taken together with the horizontal stratigraphy of Cape Krusenstern.