Archaeologists doing a land survey for the proposed Donlin Creek gold mine have found a 2,000-year-old home site along the Kuskokwim River that included a variety of tools, reports The Sun Star, the student newspaper at UAF:
This site, known traditionally as Annjurak, is ... between two other culturally important sites, UAF anthropology professor Joshua Reuther said. He said locals knew about the site, but not that it was once a settlement.
All that is left of the home is a fire pit, bones and some broken tools. Reuther said they don't know what the house looked like yet. But they have been able to guess at the activities within the home, which included a lot of sitting around and making tools. The ancient people chiseled stone tools with antler handles. Some tools were made from obsidian originating 300 miles to the north, Reuther said.
The site is near Crooked Creek, and the surrounding Yukon-Kuskokwim landscape has changed little in the past 2,000 years, the scientists said. One surprise from the 2009 research was the discovery of a mature canine tooth in the semi-subterranean home.
The tooth was too small to be from a wolf, but coyotes have only been known to be in the area for the last 100 years. [Team ecologist Justin] Hays said either the people had domesticated dogs, or coyotes also lived in the area a couple of thousand years ago.
Source: Anchorage Daily News