ThePaleo-Arctic Tradition is the name given byarchaeologists to the cultural tradition of the earliest well-documented human occupants of theNorth AmericanArctic, which date from the period 8000–5000 BC. The tradition covers Alaska, and expands far into the east, west, and the SouthwestYukon Territory of Canada.^[1]

TheUpward Sun River site, aLate Pleistocene archaeological site associated with the Paleo-Arctic Tradition, located in theTanana Valley, Alaska has now been dated to around 11,500BP.^[2] Upward Sun River is the site of the oldest human remains discovered on the American side ofBeringia.^[3]

Around 8000 BC,Alaska was still connected toSiberia with thelandbridge, located in the currentBering Strait. People who inhabited this region in Alaska were of the Dyuktai tradition, originally located in Siberia. Eventually, the Dyuktai changed into the Sumnagin culture, a hunting/fishing group, whose culture was defined by possessing a new technology. Other cultures flourished as well, all being placed under the general category of the Paleo-Arctic tradition.

"The Paleo-Arctic tradition is still a shadowy entity, a patchwork of local EarlyHolocene cultural traditions that flourished over an enormous area of extreme northwestern North America for at least 4000 years, and longer in many places. Other terms such as the Northwest Microblade tradition, Denali Complex, and Beringian tradition have been used to describe these same general adaptations, but Paleo-Arctic is the most appropriate because it is the kind of general label that reflects a great variety of different human adaptations during a period of increasing environmental diversity and change".^[4]

The Paleo-Arctic is mostly known forlithic remains (stone technology). Some artifacts found includemicroblades, small wedge-shaped cores, some leaf-shapedbifaces,scrapers, and graving tools. The microblades were used as hunting weapons and were mounted in wood, antler, or bone points. Paleo-Arctic stone specialists also created bifaces that were used as tools and as cores for the production of large artifact blanks. Little evidence remains of the culture's settlement patterns, because many of the settlements were inundated by therising sea levels of theHolocene; however, remains of stone tools were discovered, giving indirect evidence of settlement sites.

The Nenana Complex is the oldest part of the Paleo-Arctic Tradition found in culturalstratigraphic layers dating from 11,800 to 11,000 BP. It has been found at the Dry Creek, Moose Creek, and Walker Road archaeological sites and is characterized by bifacially flaked, unfluted spear points. The complex also includes bifacially worked knives and unifacially retouched lithic flakes lacking microblades that generally resemble similar lithics found in sites of theKamchatka Peninsula inRussia, possibly due to migration and cultural exchange over theBering land bridge.^[5]

The Denali Complex denotes a more recent part of the Paleo-Arctic Tradition dated to 10,000 BP. Although it is found in similar sites to the Nenana Complex such as the Dry Creek archaeological site, it is distinguished stratigraphically and through the presence of microblades, wedge-shaped lithic cores, andburins.^[5]

• Paleo-Indians
• Archaeology of the Americas
• List of archaeological periods (North America)
• Upward Sun River site

• Archaeological cultures of North America
• Archaic period in North America
• Archaeology of the United States
• Archaeology of Canada
• Native American history of Alaska
• Prehistory of the Arctic
• Pre-Columbian cultures
• Stone Age

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