Ice Age Humans Were Feasting On Salmon Sooner Than We Thought

Ben Potter, an anthropologist from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and colleagues found ancient chum salmon bones from 11,500 years ago at the Upward Sun River site, where excavations also yielded human dwellings, human remains and tools.

“This suggests that salmon fishing may have played a role in the early human colonization of North America“, Potter said. Carbiou, for example, or other prey could be more unpredictable than the salmon, with its annual run upstream in very large numbers.

Dr. Potter goes on to say, “The implications are quite profound”, indicating that the study does not just dictate what humans were eating, but also where they might have traveled. There is no evidence supporting the fact that salmon runs weren’t present a few thousands of years before people started living at this Sun River site.

“We used ancient DNA analysis to identify the fish specimens as chum salmon (Oncorhynchus keta), and stable isotope analysis to confirm that the salmon were anadromous (sea-run), the researchers wrote in their study”. The river was connected to the ocean, where conditions during the ice age likely weren’t as good for salmon as they are now.

A new archeological site in Alaska has yielded an unexpected set of bones on the hearth: salmon, caught and eaten 11,500 years ago. “The exploitation of salmon at this early date is noteworthy because Paleoindians are traditionally portrayed as big-game hunting specialists”. Between 13,000 and 14,000 years ago, these ancient people crossed a land bridge between Siberia and Alaska, located in a region called Beringia.

UAF biological anthropologist Carrin Halffman, who wrote about the discovery, said ancient salmon remains are rarely found due to their delicate skeletons that get rapidly dissolved by acidic soils.

The researcher added that these are crucial to understanding how humans tapped on these resources. The hearth also contained remains of animals like hare and ground squirrel.

“They were taking advantage of a broad spectrum of resources”, says Halffman.

A study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found the earliest known evidence Ice Age humans in North America used salmon as a food source. Alaskan salmon abundances are changing and that’s having an economic impact. Hence they do preserve very well which is why their remains are mostly underrepresented in global archaeological studies and findings.