April 10, 2018

Last month, in March, scientists published results of a DNA study on an ancient, mysterious, and rather alien-looking skeleton found in the Atacama Desert of Chile. Some people claimed the well-preserved skeleton, only about 6 inches (15 centimeters) long with an an elongated skull and other unusual features, was proof that aliens exist and have visited Earth. The study, however, published in the journal Genome Research, showed that the skeleton (known as Ata for Atacama) was in fact that of an infant human. The unusual skeleton is quite real, however, and the study explained the skeleton’s extraterrestrial appearance.

This mummified skeleton from the Atacama Desert in Chile had been described as “alien.” Genetic analysis showed that the skeleton was human and may have had a previously unknown bone disorder. Credit: © Emery Smith

Ata’s remains were discovered in 2003 at La Noria, an abandoned saltpeter-mining town in northern Chile. Ata eventually passed to a private collector. The tiny skeleton is remarkable in many ways. Ata has an unusual elongated, cone-shaped head and possesses only 10 pairs of ribs instead of the 12 pairs normally found in humans. The skeleton looked to be about the size of a human infant, yet the bones were remarkably well developed, more like those of a child perhaps 6 years old.

Ata’s shocking features fueled wild speculation about the skeleton’s origins. Some considered it an obvious fraud, perhaps the skeleton of a monkey that had been altered for a side show attraction. Historically, such hoaxes were created by circuses or side-shows to fool gullible patrons. Other people thought the skeleton belonged to a human child suffering from an unknown, perhaps genetic, malady. However, a few people pointed out physical similarities to reported alien visitors and suggested that the skeleton was evidence alien astronauts had visited that region of South America centuries ago.

Beginning in 2012, scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine in California conducted studies in an attempt to solve the mystery of Ata. They initially identified the skeleton as unquestionably human. The skeleton appeared ancient, although scientists could not determine exactly how old it was. Explaining the skeleton’s size and many unusual features proved more difficult. The scientists simply had never seen a skeleton quite like this before. Only after colleagues at the University of California in San Francisco examined Ata’s genetic material was the mystery solved.

The scientists were able to extract Ata’s complete genome from the bones. A genome is the entire set of genes that control heredity in a human being. The genetic material confirmed that Ata was a female and closely related to the native peoples of Chile—thus not an alien. The scientists also found that Ata suffered from a variety of genetic mutations that created her highly unusual features. The researchers identified at least seven mutated genes that are known to cause significant skeletal malformation in humans. Some of the genes are known to cause dwarfism and scoliosis, an abnormal curvature of the spine, as well as other, less common deformities.

The severity of the genetic mutations unfortunately meant that Ata most likely died soon after birth. Some of her mutated genes are involved in skeletal maturation, making her bones appear older than her actual age. When discovered, her remains were reportedly wrapped in a white cloth tied with a purple ribbon. Although her life was tragically short, Ata was cared for by her family and given a loving funeral.

After the genetic study was published, officials in Chile protested that the researchers had violated ethical guidelines concerning the treatment of human remains. The National Monuments Council of Chile began an investigation to determine if Ata’s remains were illegally exhumed (dug up) and exported from the country. In Chile, the government has passed laws intended to protect graves and human remains as well as other cultural items of importance to Native Americans. These laws are similar to the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) in the United States. NAGPRA makes it illegal to buy, sell, or transport for sale any Native American human remains or other cultural items. Chilean officials claim that American researchers violated the law by conducting the study on Ata’s remains without proper permission.

January 19, 2018

How and when did people first reach the Americas? It is generally agreed that humans arrived in the Western Hemisphere at least 15,000 years ago. They got there by crossing Beringia, a land bridge that once connected Asia and North America. (Beringia takes its name from the Bering Strait and Sea that now cover the former land bridge.) The details of this human movement have long been a mystery. Recently, however, ancient DNA found in Alaska has helped scientists learn about the timing and circumstances of the migration.

University of Alaska Fairbanks professors Ben Potter and Josh Reuther excavate the remains of two ancient infants along the Upward Sun River in Alaska. Credit: © Ben Potter, University of Alaska Fairbanks

In 2011, a team of archaeologists discovered the bones of two female infants along the Upward Sun River in Alaska. One was an infant who died a few months after birth. The other was a newborn or late-term fetus. The archaeologists determined that the infants died about 11,500 years ago. After the Upward Sun River infants died, their bodies were laid atop a bed of red ocher surrounded by antler points. Only small fragments of DNA from the younger infant were available to study. However, scientists were able to reconstruct the genome (the entire set of chemical instructions that control heredity in a human being) of the older infant.

This scientific illustration shows the ancient Upward Sun River camp in what is now interior Alaska. Credit: © Eric S. Carlson/Ben A. Potter/University of Alaska Fairbanks

Previous studies have shown that Native Americans are descended from one of two ancestral groups. The northern group produced most of the indigenous (native) people of Alaska and upper Canada. A southern group produced most of the indigenous people of the lower United States, Mexico, and Central and South America. The genome of the older infant revealed that she came from a very early group of Native Americans who were the ancestors of both the northern and southern indigenous groups. These original people are now known as the Ancient Beringians. The scientists’ work represents the first reconstruction of an Ancient Beringian genome. It provides key evidence to the theory that all living Native Americans are originally descended from the same group of people.

Despite the fact that the Upward Sun River infants shared a grave and seem to have been from the same community, their DNA shows a great deal of variation. This variation supports what is known as the Beringian Standstill hypothesis, which suggests that ancient Siberians entered Beringia and stayed there for thousands of years before they entered the Americas. This hypothesis proposes that ice age glaciers blocked their migration until about 15,000 years ago, when the glaciers began to melt and retreat. According to the Standstill hypothesis, much genetic mixing would have occurred in Beringia before movement into the Americas began. This helps explain why the two infants’ DNA shows such variation.

The remains of the Upward Sun River infants have shed much light on the migration of the Ancient Beringians. However, more ancient DNA must be gathered and studied before the Beringian Standstill hypothesis can be proven true. There are still many details about the populating of the Americas that remain a mystery.

February 14, 2017

World Book continues its celebration of Black History Month with a look at Edmonia Lewis, the first professional African American and Native American sculptor. In the years after the American Civil War (1861-1865) and Reconstruction (1865-1877), Lewis overcame gender, racial, social, and economic barriers to become an internationally acclaimed artist. She worked in a Neoclassical style and was notable for incorporating themes relating to the black experience and Native American culture. Neoclassicists often use subjects from ancient history to make observations about contemporary events.

Edmonia Lewis, c.1870 Credit: Smithsonian Institution

Mary Edmonia Lewis was born in 1844 in Greenbush (now Rensselaer), near Albany, New York, to a free African American father and a Chippewa mother. Orphaned as a child, Mary Edmonia and her older half-brother Samuel were adopted by her mother’s sisters and raised in a nomadic Native American community on the New York-Canadian border. Mary Edmonia was given the Native American name Wildfire.

Samuel Lewis became a gold miner in California and financed Wildfire’s early schooling. In 1859, at a time when slavery was still legal, he also helped his 15-year-old sister to attend Oberlin College in Ohio. While there, she asked to be called M. Edmonia Lewis. At Oberlin, Lewis was falsely accused of poisoning two white roommates. Days later, she was captured and beaten by a white mob. Although the charges against her were dropped, she had to endure a highly publicized trial. She was later accused of stealing art supplies at the college. Again, the case was dismissed. However, Oberlin would not allow Lewis to finish her final term and graduate.

The Death of Cleopatra (1876) by Edmonia Lewis. Credit: Smithsonian American Art Museum

In 1863, with Samuel’s help, Edmonia traveled to Boston, where she befriended the abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison. She also met the sculptor Edward A. Brackett, who taught her sculpture and helped her set up her own studio. In 1864, Lewis created busts of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, a Civil War hero who had died leading the all-black 54th Massachusetts Regiment, and the abolitionist John Brown. With the money she earned from sales of the busts, she traveled to London, Paris, and Florence, before settling in Rome, where she continued her work as a sculptor.

One of Lewis’s most acclaimed works is Forever Free (1867). Commemorating the 1865 abolition of slavery in the United States, the sculpture depicts a black man and woman emerging from the bonds of slavery. Lewis embraced her Native American heritage with works inspired by the American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and his epic poem The Song of Hiawatha (1855), about the great Native American leader Hiawatha.

Lewis also carved busts of American presidents, including Ulysses S. Grant and Abraham Lincoln, as well as sculptures of mythic, Biblical, and historical scenes. In 1876, she created a sensation at the International Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia with The Death of Cleopatra (1876). Her two-ton marble sculpture depicts the Egyptian queen in the throes of death. Lewis was the only artist of color invited to exhibit at the exposition.

Lewis continued to exhibit her work until the 1890’s. Little is known about her later years. Some sources say she died in London in 1907; others say she was still living in Rome in 1911. However, in recent decades, Lewis’s life and work have been reexamined and lauded. Her sculptures are now part of the Howard University Gallery of Art and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

December 28, 2016

On Monday, December 19, U.S. President Barack Obama signed a bill ordering the return of an ancient human skeleton known as Kennewick Man to representatives of local Native American groups for reburial. The order signaled the end of a lengthy legal tug-of-war between archaeologists and Native American groups over the handling of prehistoric graves discovered in the United States.

The exceptionally well-preserved skeleton of Kennewick Man is represented by nearly 300 bones and bone fragments. Credit: © Chip Clark, Smithsonian Institution

Kennewick Man is the name given to an ancient, nearly complete skeleton that was found by two college students on the banks of the Columbia River in south-central Washington in 1996. (Local Native Americans call the skeleton Ancient One.) Thinking it might be the remains of a recent missing person, the students reported their find to law enforcement authorities. Scientists called in to examine the skeleton quickly ended the possibility of a modern murder mystery: they found a stone spearpoint in the skeleton’s right hip. Guessing they were working with an ancient skeleton, the scientists sent a bone sample to a radiocarbon laboratory for dating. The lab results determined that Kennewick Man lived between 8,500 and 9,500 years ago. Armed with these results, the scientists determined that the skeleton was that of a Paleo-Indian. Paleo-Indians were among the earliest people to inhabit the Western Hemisphere.

This clay facial reconstruction of Kennewick Man was sculpted around the features of his skull. The reconstruction lends a deeper understanding of how the Ancient One may have looked some 9,000 years ago. (Sculpted bust of Kennewick Man by StudioEIS based on forensic facial reconstruction by sculptor Amanda Danning.) Credit: © Brittney Tatchell, Smithsonian Institution

Several Native American groups from the area where the skeleton was discovered, including the Yakama, Wanapum, Umatilla, Colville, and Nez Perce peoples, requested that the skeleton be returned for proper reburial. Many Native Americans believe the excavation of burials and analysis of remains to be disrespectful, and that doing so disrupts the spirits of the dead. The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 requires institutions receiving federal money to return human remains and grave items to Native American groups if the groups can prove their “cultural affiliation” to the remains.

For such an ancient skeleton, demonstrating cultural affiliation is difficult. No tools, weapons, clothing, or other artifacts that might help identify Kennewick Man were found with the skeleton. Because the remains were found on federal land, the U.S. Department of the Interior had to decide what to do with them. In 2000, the department determined that Kennewick Man was a Native American and would be returned without further study to the Indian groups that claimed him. A group of archaeologists, however, challenged this decision in court. In 2002, a federal court ruled that the skeleton should not be returned and could be further studied. In 2004, Native American groups ended all attempts to appeal the ruling, allowing scientists to keep the skeleton.

In 2015, however, new genetic evidence proved that Kennewick Man was, in fact, closely related to Native Americans in the Washington region. In 2016, officials from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers acknowledged the cultural affiliation of Kennewick Man. The bill signed by President Obama in December orders the skeleton to be transferred to state archaeologists in Washington. They will work with local Native American nations, who will rebury the remains according to traditional customs within 90 days. The Ancient One will soon finally rest in peace at home.

July 22, 2016

On July 19, a team of British and Puerto Rican researchers published an article in the journal Antiquity detailing drawings on the walls and ceilings of a cave on the Puerto Rican island of Mona (Isla Mona in Spanish). Cave drawings are not especially rare on islands in the Caribbean, but the rich imagery of this cave, called Cave 18, proved to be something special. Many of the inscriptions were made by native Taíno people, and some date back nearly 1,000 years. Most of the inscriptions, however, date from the 1500′s, during the early years of the region’s Spanish conquest. And many of the inscriptions were made by Spanish colonists, side-by-side with Taíno drawings. Most of the inscriptions depict a variety of religious and spiritual symbols, with space given to both Taíno and Spanish beliefs. The researchers claim the inscriptions are evidence of mutual religious exchange and tolerance, a rare occurrence at a time when the Spanish sought to convert native peoples to Christianity, often through the use of force.

A researcher shines light on inscriptions of crosses above the name Jesus (in Latin) in the soft limestone wall of Cave 18 on Mona Island, Puerto Rico.
Credit: © Jago Cooper, The British Museum/University of Leicester

Cave 18′s inscriptions include many crosses, Christian phrases written in Latin and Spanish, names of Christian Saints, and Christograms (abbreviations of the name of Christ). There are also many Taíno symbols, including complex figures with human and animal features, human faces, wavy lines, and different styles of crosses. The Spanish inscriptions were made with a metal dagger or other sharp object. They are easily distinguished from Taíno etchings made with fingers in the soft limestone. The mix of religious symbols suggests that the Taíno were able to communicate and explain their religious beliefs while receiving Spanish suggestions at the same time.

Mona Island lies some 41 miles (66 kilometers) west of Puerto Rico. The Taíno people lived there and in other areas of the Caribbean. They were the first Native Americans encountered by Christopher Columbus after he arrived in the region in 1492. Christian Spanish missionaries soon established themselves among the Taíno, and native spiritual beliefs were largely repressed. Cave 18, however, shows not all Spanish colonists treated religion with so heavy a hand. Unfortunately for the Taíno, the Spanish arrival proved their undoing. By 1600, most had been killed or had died of disease.

Some elements of Taíno culture survive in the Caribbean region as a result of syncretism, the bringing together or merger of two or more distinct beliefs or customs. Most scholars think that all religions have experienced at least some level of syncretism. Today, most people in Puerto Rico are Roman Catholic. However some remnants of Taíno beliefs survive in the practices of espiritismo, a form of traditional religious healing in Puerto Rico. Taíno culture survives also in our everyday language. English and Spanish words of Taíno origin include canoe (canoa), hammock (hamaca), hurricane (huracán), iguana, maize (maiz), manatee (manatí), papaya, and tobacco (tabaca).

October 29, 2014

The native inhabitants of Easter Island, one of the most remote and isolated places on Earth, mixed with Native Americans more than 600 years ago, according to surprising genetic evidence from a new study. Anna-Sapfo Malaspinas and her team from the Denmark Natural History Museum Centre for Geogenetics in Copenhagen analyzed the genomes of 27 people from Easter Island. A genome is the entire set of chemical instructions that control heredity in a human being. The scientists found specific genetic patterns that indicated admixture (interbreeding) between the native inhabitant of Easter Island and Native American populations several hundred years before the first Europeans reached the island in 1722.

Huge stone statues called moai stand on Easter Island. Genetic studies have revealed that Native Americans mixed with Easter Islands before the arrival of Europeans in the early 1700′s. ((c) George Holton, Photo Researchers)

The scientists also examined the family histories of eight unrelated individuals on Easter Island. This helped them to determine that European genes entered the islanders’ genomes after about 1850. This was not surprising, as immigrants, mainly from Chile, have mixed with the island’s population since the 1800′s. However, the scientists calculated that the Native American genes entered the population sometime around A.D. 1280 to 1495–hundreds of years before the first European contact.

Easter island lies in the Pacific Ocean about 2,300 miles (3,700 kilometers) west of Chile. Called Rapanui by the native people, the island was first settled between about A.D. 900 and 1200. The settlers were Polynesians who had sailed from islands to the west on large, double-hulled seagoing canoes. Easter Island is famous as the site of enigmatic giant stone statues called moai that were carved hundreds of years ago. More than 600 moai are scattered across the island. Jacob Roggeveen, a Dutch explorer, first sighted the island on Easter Sunday in 1722 and gave the island its name.

Easter island lies in the Pacific Ocean about 2,300 miles (3,700 kilometers) west of Chile. (World Book map)

The scientists believe that the seafaring Polynesians from Easter Island likely made several short trips to and from South America, perhaps bringing a few Native Americans back with them. They point out that a voyage originating from South America to Easter Island would be much more difficult and unlikely. Without modern navigation technology, any boat sailing from the Americas would likely miss the remote island completely.

Norwegian author and adventurer Thor Heyerdahl won fame in 1947 by sailing a balsa-wood raft named Kon-Tiki from Peru to the Tuamotu Islands in French Polynesia. He and his crew made the trip to test his theory that the islands of Polynesia could have been settled by Indians from South America. Most archaeologists and scholars have dismissed Heyerdahl’s ideas as fantastic speculation. However, the new study suggests that Heyerdahl may have been at least partially correct in arguing that Native Americans had visited the islands.

Additional World Book articles:

• Pacific Islands
• Ocean (1947) (a Back in Time article)

August 22, 2014

Fragments of pottery discovered by archaeologists in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado contain residues of a pain-relieving compound similar to modern aspirin. The pottery fragments, which date to more than 1,300 years ago, contain residues of salicylic acid, a chemical compound known for its ability to reduce fever and pain. Acetylsalicylic acid, or aspirin, one of the most widely used drugs in the world, is prepared from salicylic acid. The pottery fragments are the oldest known physical evidence of traditional American Indian medicinal practices ever found.

American Indians’ use of indigenous, or native, plants for a wide variety of medicinal purposes is well known from oral histories, ethnographic sources, and the continuing traditions of Indians today. Scholars have listed as many as 2,700 different plants that are recognized by American Indians as having healing purposes. For example, many Indian groups were known to boil willow bark to make a drink that reduced fever. The Pueblo people of the western United States are known to boil willow roots and bark to make a poultice (hot pack) that is used to soothe aches and pains. Although scholars know that the use of medicinal plants likely developed over thousands of years, few, if any, physical remains of traditional American Indian medicines have been found in the archaeological record.

The earliest archaeological evidence for ancient Indians creating a pain-relieving compound similar to modern aspirin was found recently in Colorado. Many types of Indians, especially the cliff-dwelling Pueblo Indians, are known to have used the willow plant to create pain relieving remedies. (© James P. Rowan.)

Archaeologists at the Colorado rock shelter originally excavated a variety of artifacts, including stone tools and pottery shards in 2011. The pottery did not have distinctive designs or other markings that could be used to determine if they were made by ancient ancestors of any American Indian group living today. However, a chemical analysis of residues coating one pottery shard identified the substance as salicylic acid, the active ingredient in aspirin. The salicylic acid was most likely deposited on the pottery as willow bark, roots, or leaves were boiled within the vessel. No other residues, such as those that would have been deposited from cooking food in the pottery, were found on this shard. The archaeologist studying this pottery suggests that the fragment was from a pot used specifically to store or prepare medicine. This indicates that an understanding of the uses of plants was already well developed in American Indian medicine more than 1,000 years ago.

Additional World Book articles:

• Analgesic
• Analytical chemistry
• Archaeology
• Medicine

May 21, 2014

The discovery of a nearly complete skeleton of a young girl who died nearly 13,000 years ago in what is now Mexico is providing evidence that anthropologists claim will end a decades-old debate over the origins of Native Americans. A diverse team of scientists led by anthropologist James Chatters published a description of the skeleton, which included preserved DNA, in the May 16 issue of Science. The discovery may finally end an often heated, decades-long debate among anthropologists over why Native Americans do not resemble Paleo-Indians, the first people to migrate to the Americas.

Underwater archaeologists discovered the skeleton of the young girl, perhaps only 13 years old when she died, with bones of extinct Ice Age animals. The skeleton was found while the scientists were exploring a submerged cave, called Hoyo Negro (black hole), in the Caribbean Sea, off the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. Scientists named her Naia, after a water nymph (maiden) in Greek mythology. The scientists speculate that Naia may have fallen into an underground cave while searching for water and died. As sea levels rose by the end of the Ice Age, the cave was submerged, creating ideal conditions to preserve Naia’s bones along with the bones of other animals that shared her fate.

Genetic studies of Native Americans indicate that their ancestors migrated into the Americas from Asia more than 12,000 years ago. The oldest known Paleo-Indian culture is the Clovis culture, identified by distinctive stone spearheads, called Clovis points. Archaeologists have discovered a only handful of Paleo-Indian skeletons, including Kennewick Man, found in Washington in 1996. However, these ancient skeletons do not physically resemble today’s Native Americans. Paleo-Indian skulls are longer and narrower, with forward projecting faces. These features are most similar to those of native people of Australia and the Ainu, an isolated native population of Japan.

The prehistoric Clovis people made distinctive stone spearheads, called Clovis points. The Clovis are the earliest known Paleo-Indian culture of the Americas (AP Photo).

Some scientists theorize that the Paleo-Indians are not the ancestors of modern Native Americans. They suggest that Native American ancestors arrived from Asia in a later migration and, over time, replaced the Paleo-Indians. Other scientists disagree. They argue that the physical features of Paleo-Indians evolved over thousands of years, giving rise to modern Native Americans.

Now, Naia may end the debate. Naia’s skull has all of the physical characteristics that confirm her identity as Paleo-Indian. However, DNA isolated from her skeleton allowed the scientists to directly link her with living Native Americans. Naia’s mitochondrial DNA—genetic material passed down from mother to child through the egg—included specific sequences of DNA that linked her with ancient populations of northeastern Asia as well as Native American peoples alive today. Similar DNA sequences were recently reported from the only known skeleton of a Paleo-Indian infant, discovered in 2001 at Anzick, a site in Montana. The DNA evidence points to Paleo-Indians as the direct ancestors of modern Native Americans. Naia indicates that the physical difference between her people and modern Native Americans results from evolutionary changes occurring over time rather than separate ancestry.

Additional World Book articles:

• Prehistoric people
• Fascinating Facts About Fossil Feces (a Special Report)
• The First Americans (a Special Report)

May 13, 2014

The long-lost remains of the flagship commanded by Christopher Columbus on his first voyage to the Americas may have been located off the coast of Haiti, according to American oceanic explorer Barry Clifford. The discovery of the Santa María, a ship involved in the most important voyage to shape the history of the modern world, is considered by many as the Holy Grail of underwater archaeology. Columbus’s voyage unintentionally changed Europeans’ commonly accepted views of the world. The voyage also set in motion a far-reaching exchange, known as the Columbian Exchange, of plants, animals, and diseases between Afro-Eurasia (Africa, Europe, and Asia) and the Americas.

Christopher Columbus, under the sponsorship of King Ferdinand V and Queen Isabella I of Spain, set out from Palos, in southwestern Spain, on Aug. 3, 1492, to search for a westward route to Asia. His fleet included three ships–the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa María. Before noon on October 12, the ships landed on an island in the Caribbean Sea. Columbus named the island San Salvador (Spanish for Holy Savior).

Clifford and his team originally discovered the remains of a wooden shipwreck in waters 10 to 15 feet (3 to 4.5 meters) deep off the northern coast of Haiti in 2003. They measured and photographed the wreck, which included an iron cannon that resembled such weapons common in the 1400′s. But the explorers did not attempt collect any of the remains. Only years later, when Clifford was able to examine the photographs in detail and compare them to historical records did he realize they may have come upon the Santa María.

A replica of the Santa María, the ship that Christopher Columbus himself captained on his first voyage to the Americas. (© Slidepix/Dreamstime)

In 2014, Clifford returned with his team to investigate the shipwreck with metal detectors and sonar. They found that the dimensions of the wreck matched well with known measurements of the Santa María. Columbus’s flagship was larger than the small, sturdy caravels of the time (which included the Niña and Pinta), and it had a deck amidships. The location of the wreck also correlated well with accounts written by Columbus himself.  The Santa María sank after it crashed and split apart on a reef near Cap-Haïtien, in present-day Haiti, on Christmas Eve night in 1492. Columbus and the crew managed to salvage some items from the stricken ship, which then drifted some distance on ocean currents. In January 1493, Columbus and his crew boarded the Niña to return to Spain.

So far, Cifford’s team has not conducted any excavations to retrieve artifacts that will be needed to prove the ship is indeed the Santa María. The cannon spotted in 2003 has apparently been stolen by looters. The government of Haiti has agreed to provide funding for excavations that could prove that the wreck is that of this most historically important ship.

Additional World Book articles:

• Exploration (The age of European exploration)
• Indian, American (Indians of the Caribbean)
• Latin America (European discovery and exploration)

October 1, 2012

The United States and Russia have agreed to preserve the Ice Age heritage of Beringia, an area that includes parts of northeastern Asia and northwestern North America and a land bridge that once connected them. During a recent visit to Russia, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton agreed with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to establish the Transboundary Area of Shared Beringian Heritage, a specially protected region that includes the Bering Strait and adjacent areas of Siberia and Alaska. Known as Beringia, this area is home to Inuit and Yuit peoples, who have a common language and traditions but are separated by international borders. A wide range of animals, including polar bears, whales, seals, and walruses, also live there.

At the Bering Strait in the northern Pacific Ocean, the United States and Russia are separated by about 50 miles (80 kilometers) of open water. But during the most recent ice age, huge glaciers covered much of the northern half of Earth and sea level was much lower than it is today. As a result, much of the Bering Strait was a vast stretch of dry land forming a bridge about 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) wide at its greatest extent that connected what are now Siberia and Alaska. Most scientists think the first American Indians, following the animals that they hunted, wandered across this harsh environment into North America at least 15,000 years ago. By 12,500 years ago, Indians had spread throughout the New World and were living from the Arctic in the north all the way to what became known as the Strait of Magellan in southern South America.

The Bering Stait is a narrow waterway that connects the Bering and Chukchi seas. (World Book map)

The Transboundary Area of Shared Beringian Heritage formally recognizes the symbolic links between the people and governments of Asia and North America. The new heritage area will aid conservation efforts in this natural ecosystem and promote international cooperation on scientific research and monitoring the enviroment. The new area will formally link two national parks in Alaska–the Bering Land Bridge Natural Preserve and the Cape Krusenstern National Monument–with the newly designated Beringia National Park in Chukhotka, Russia. The region will cover a total of about 7.2 million acres (2.9 million hectares).

United States President George H. W. Bush and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev first announced plans to create a transnational park spanning the Bering Strait in 1990, but progress towards the creation of the park stalled. Many components of this new agreement are still being worked out, but officials hope to have a finalized agreement by the end of 2012.

Additional World Book articles:

• Bering, Vitus
• Paleo-Indians
  
• Prehistoric people
• Anthropology (1951) (a Back in Time article)
• The First Americans (a Special Report)