Prehistory of Alaska

History of Alaska
Prehistory
Russian America (1733–1867)
Department of Alaska (1867–1884)
District of Alaska (1884–1912)
Territory of Alaska (1912–1959)
State of Alaska (1959–present)
Other topics

Prehistoric Alaska begins with Paleolithic people moving into northwestern North America sometime between 40,000 and 15,000 years ago across the Bering Land Bridge in western Alaska; a date less than 20,000 years ago is most likely. They found their passage blocked by a huge sheet of ice until a temporary recession in the Wisconsin glaciation (the last ice age) opened up an ice-free corridor through northwestern Canada, possibly allowing bands to fan out throughout the rest of the continent. Eventually, Alaska became populated by the Inuit and a variety of Native American groups. Trade with both Asia and southern tribes was active even before the advent of Europeans.

Today, early Alaskans are divided into several main groups: the Southeastern Coastal Native Americans (the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian), the Athabascans, the Aleut, and the two groups of Eskimos, Inupiat and Yup'ik.

The Coastal Native Americans were probably the first wave of immigrants to cross the Bering Land Bridge in western Alaska, although many of them initially settled in interior Canada. The Tlingit were the most numerous of this group, populating most of the coastal Panhandle by the time of European contact. The southern portion of Prince of Wales Island was settled by the Haidas emigrating from the Queen Charlotte Islands in Canada. The Tsimshian emigrated during the territorial period from a town near Prince Rupert in British Columbia. The Tlingit were known to travel for more than 1,000 miles (1,600 km) south to trade with Native peoples in the Pacific Northwest. There was no standard currency of trade, but slaves, native copper materials, and blankets made of red cedar bark, and dog and goat-hair were highly valued.

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