8 August 2025 The Future is the Product of the Past

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.

Burbot vertebrae from the Mead site are lined up. Photo: Ben Potter

“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.

University of Alaska Fairbanks

Cover Photo: Ben Potter

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adg6802 

Related Articles

The excavation, which started in a cave in Turkey’s Mardin, turned into a huge underground city

19 April 2022

19 April 2022

In an underground city known used as a settlement in the early Christian era, in the Midyat district of Mardin,...

A 1,100-year-old lead amulet of Bulgarian soldiers sieges Constantinople found

31 March 2023

31 March 2023

A lead plate amulet bearing an inscription in Cyrillic dating from the times of Tsar Simeon the Great was discovered...

12,000-Year-Old rock art may depict extinct giants of the ice age

13 March 2022

13 March 2022

South America was filled with ice age animals more than 12,000 years ago, including car-sized ground sloths, elephantine herbivores, and...

A 4000-year-old Fabric Found in a Cave of Skulls in the Judean Desert is the Oldest Dyed with Insect Dye

15 July 2024

15 July 2024

Researchers discovered an ancient textile dyed with kermes (Kermes vermilio) in Israel’s Cave of Skulls that dates back to the...

Archaeologists uncovered over 100,000 ancient coins, some more than 2,000 years old

4 November 2023

4 November 2023 8

In an excavation at the Sosha Village East 03 archaeological site in Maebashi City, Japan, archaeologists stumbled upon a remarkable...

Multiple Burials found at Çatalhöyük

17 September 2021

17 September 2021

Multiple burials were unearthed during the ongoing excavations in the house on the eastern mound of the Neolithic settlement Çatalhöyük....

6,000-Year-Old Settlement Was home to Europe’s first megalithic monument makers

22 February 2023

22 February 2023

Archaeologists in France unearthed the remains of a series of wooden buildings within a defensive enclosure that were built at...

Romania’s 1.95 Million-Year-Old Hominin Evidence Pushes Back the Timeline of Human Presence in Europe

25 January 2025

25 January 2025

A recent study revealed evidence of “hominin activity” in Romania that dates back at least 1.95 million years, making it...

Elamite clay tablet discovered 4500 years old, in southwest Iran

4 December 2021

4 December 2021

A clay tablet, estimated to be from the Elam period, about 4500 years old, was recently discovered in southwestern Iran....

8,500-year-old buildings discovered on Abu Dhabi’s Ghagha island

17 February 2022

17 February 2022

Archaeologists in Abu Dhabi have discovered startling new evidence of the Emirates’ first known structures, which date back more than...

DNA from 20,000-year-old deer-tooth pendant reveals woman who wore it

4 May 2023

4 May 2023

A pendant made of a deer tooth that was exposed to DNA about 20,000 years ago has yielded clues about...

Archaeologists unearthed the earliest known evidence of body perforation in skeletons dating back 11,000 years at the Boncuklu Tarla in Türkiye

11 March 2024

11 March 2024

Archaeologists have unearthed the earliest known evidence of body perforation in skeletons dating back 11,000 years at the Boncuklu Tarla...

Headless skeletons discovered in Prehistoric mass grave

14 January 2023

14 January 2023

Archaeologists have found a mass grave site containing 38 decapitated burials at a Neolithic settlement in Vráble, Slovakia. The remains...

Researchers extract ancient DNA from a 2,900-year-old clay brick

6 September 2023

6 September 2023

Researchers have successfully extracted ancient DNA from a 2,900-year-old clay brick, uncovering a wealth of information about the plant life...

3,000-year-old weavings discovered in Alaska’s Alutiiq settlement

3 September 2023

3 September 2023

Archaeologists have uncovered fragments of woven grass artifacts estimated to be 3,000 years old during excavations at an ancestral sod...