The Real Peoples of Alaska have stories past down telling of
migrations when distant ancestors on a continent to the west fled
before the onslaughts of more warlike tribes to the safety of
"Al-ay-ek-sa," the Great Land. There they discovered the "Kwikpak,"
or "mighty river," the ancient name of the Yukon River. To the Real
People the Kwikpak was not just the mighty river, it was the river
of all rivers; the essential thread holding the world together;
heaven was at its headwaters, all humanity along its course, and
where the river ended so did the earth. Additional knowledge is
being discovered about the Real People of Alaska their life ways and
technology of these early peoples. We do know that the ancestral
Peoples followed the spawning salmon into the Interior, lived with
the seasonal migration patterns of the caribou herds, and learned
the habits of the moose, bear, furbearing animals, and waterfowl.
There major archaeological sites in the Yukon Region, the Campus
Site, on a hill overlooking the Chena River near the university at
Fairbanks, the lower Koyukuk drainage, south of Huslia, at Donnelly
Dome, Tangle Lakes, Teklanika River in the eastern part of Mt.
McKinley (Denali) Park, and at Healy Lake. The Healy Lake site has
been radiocarbon dated to 11,000 years Before Present (BP) and is
the oldest known site in Alaska. Several others have been located
along the lower and central Yukon River, the trans-Alaska pipeline
corridor, the lower Tanana, Kantishna, and Tolovana Rivers, and at
Lake Minchumina.
Additional information:
www.alascool.org
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