EARLY HISTORY
An Aleut artifact
(scanned photo from the Anchorage
Museum of History and Art, B81.64.1)
The land mass known as Alaska is geologically young and turbulent --still
in a stage of growth. The Bering Land Bridge, a broad, rolling
plain which once linked Siberia and Alaska during the Ice Age, was critical
to the history of the Americas. In pursuit of large game animals, the first
humans crossed from one continent to the other. There is no record of earlier
human existence in all the Americas. The ancestors of the people we know
today as Athapascans, Tlingits, Aleuts,, Eskimos
were all profoundly shaped by the land where they settled. Before the Europeans
arrived, there were many different civilizations and cultures in Alaska
living separately and not always harmoniously, but rich in stories, wisdom,
history, and culture.
Crossroads of the Continent:
This maps shows how the area where the Bering Land Bridge connected Siberia
and Alaska
enabling to migration to North America.