Early Human Settlement of Siberia (? Before 20¸000 to 15¸000 years ago)
If the ancestry of the first Americans lies in Siberia¸ what¸ then¸ is the earliest evidence for human settlement in extreme Northeast Asia? At present¸ there is no reliable evidence for late–Ice Age occupation ant earlier than about 20¸000 years ago¸ although¸ it is fair to say that field investigations have hardly begun.
Some of the earliest evidence of human settlement comes from the D´uktai Cave in the Middle Aldan Valley. There¸ Russian archaeologist Yuri Mochanov found 14¸000– to 12¸000–year–old mammoth and musk ox bones associated with flaked–stone spear points¸ burins¸ mirocblades¸and other Upper Paleolithic tools. The earliest securely dated D´uktai–like site is Verkhene–Trotiskaya¸ also on the Aldan River¸ which has been radiocarbon dated to about 18¸000 years ago. Subsequently¸ mirocblades and characteristics wedge–shaped cores have been found over a wide area of northeast Asia– across the Bering Strait in Alaska– and as far south as British Colombia.
With its microblades and wedge–shaped cores¸ the D´uktai culture has plausible links with widespread microblade culture to the south¸ in China. A case can be made¸ then¸ for linking D´uktai cultural traditions with northern China¸ where Sinodonts have been found¸ as well as with microblade finds in Alaska and British Colombia. Where the D´uktai people thus the first Americans? Almost certainly not´ for recent discoveries in Alaska have shown that foragers without microlithic tool kits flourished in the far north of North America just after the end of the Ice Age. D´uktai–style mircoliths appear late¸ by about 9¸000 B.C.E.
When D´uktai people or even earlier settlers first crossed the windy¸ steppe–tundra–covered land bridge that joined Alaska to Siberia remains a mystery. We do not even know how they subsisted¸ except for a likelihood that they preyed on all kinds of arctic game. They may also have hunted sea mammals and taken ocean fish. Unfortunately¸ their settlements are deep beneath the waters of the Bering Strait.
