DNA from a newly unearthed Alaska graveyard offers fresh knowledge about ancient Arctic populations

Arctic Today ^ | January 21, 2019 | Dermot Cole

[SunkenCiv]

The beach at Point Barrow, the northernmost point of Alaska, near the Nuvuk site where erosion revealed an ancient graveyard. (U.S. Coast Guard)

[SunkenCiv]

[PIF]

looks like a great clam beach - but the water probably is too cold.

[CardCarryingMember.VastRightWC]

[TalBlack]

tests on older human remains would be needed to say where earlier Native populations came from.

Think about that line for a moment. (Strictly speaking, are you a native if you came from somewhere else?)

[Theoria]

Tell that to the Hawaiians. They only beat Cook by a few hundred years.

[Buffalo Head]

DNA testing would supply all answers.

[sphinx]

What is too cold for clams? The water isn't frozen. Given typical salinity, salt water freezes at 28 degrees Fahrenheit. I suppose wave action would modify that a bit. Of course, clams can't head south for the winter, so balmy summer weather as shown in the picture is one thing, and surviving a hard freeze in the winter is another.

If I were there, I'd at least go wading just to say I've bathed in the Arctic Ocean. Since it would probably be a once in a lifetime thing, I might even do one of those polar bear runs and get immersed. Provided, of course, that I had a quick way to warm up when I got out. I don't live far enough north to trust frozen lakes and streams, but I've broken through the ice and gotten my feet wet in shallow creeks a couple of times. So I've experienced water colder than in this picture. So have you, probably.

[relictele]

Early Hawaiian motto:

‘Our cook cooked Cook.’

[Varda]

Yes. Native means first settlers. It’s why there’s such a thing as native Europeans since their ancestors migrated there as well.

[Tallguy]

“The Thule people were predecessors of the Inupiat and are believed to have migrated eastward from northern Alaska about 800 years ago.”

Does that make the Thule the same group that eventually ejected diplaced the Medieval Norse from Greenland?

[Reily]

Looks like wandering herds of tracked vehicles were there earlier!

[bgill]

How many ancient diseases were unearthed?

[SunkenCiv]

:^) I think the Vikings gave up Greenland because the first ships they'd seen in years arrived, and they quick rounded up everyone, piled aboard, and got out of there. That would have been my move, other than never having gone there in the first place. I've got PaleoEaskimo genes, but they're drowned out by my hot climate loving genes.

[SunkenCiv]

Any self-respecting disease would avoid that place like the plague.

[SunkenCiv]

Those aren't from tracked vehicles, those marks were left by the Point Barrow Sandworm. /rimshot

[PIF]

Clams don’t fo well up there - Manilas and Little Necks prefer warmer water.

[sparklite2]

“In other news, a four-seater Piper Club crashed
into the New London Peaceful Breeze Cemetery this
morning. So far, thirty-eight bodies have been found.
The search is ongoing. We’ll have more news at eleven.”

[Reily]

That’s right! They have caterpillar treads!

[SunkenCiv]

LOL