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Image Credit: B. Wygal
14000 Year Old Ivory Tools in Alaska Support Inland Migration to the Americas
Archaeologists working in central Alaska have uncovered 14,000-year-old ivory and stone tools that may clarify how early humans reached the Americas.
The discoveries come from the Holzman site in the Tanana Valley, where excavations revealed evidence of mammoth ivory working and stone tool production. Finds include a nearly complete mammoth tusk and hammerstones used in tool-making. The site predates the well-known Clovis culture of North America by roughly 600 years.
Researchers note striking similarities between the Alaskan ivory-working traditions and Clovis technologies found farther south in the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains. This connection suggests that the people who occupied interior Alaska may represent ancestors of the Clovis.
The Tanana Valley lies between the former Bering Land Bridge—which connected Asia and North America during the last Ice Age—and the so-called ice-free corridor that later opened through Canada. The new findings strengthen the hypothesis that early migrants entered the continent via this inland route rather than traveling exclusively along the Pacific coast.
The site’s preservation is exceptional. Frozen ground conditions have protected organic remains, including plant DNA and ancient bison hair, offering rare environmental insights alongside the tools.
However, some scholars caution that similar technologies and symbolic practices were widespread across northeast Asia at the time. They emphasize that both inland and coastal migration routes may have contributed to the peopling of the Americas.
The study adds important archaeological evidence to the ongoing debate over how and when the first populations spread across North America.
Published on: 25-02-2026
Edited by: Abdulmnam Samakie
Source: Live Science