This new study began with a comprehensive review of all Interior Alaska archaeological sites 7,000 years old and older. The scientists found fish bones at seven sites. The team of archaeologists, anthropologists and fisheries biologists analyzed the bones to determine their age and species.The bones were found inside homes and hearths and tended to be associated with base camps, rather than short-term hunting camps. They also were far from lakes and streams, so it's unlikely that predators moved them. The absence of fishhooks or spears at the sites suggests that the early Alaskans likely used nets and perhaps weirs to harvest the fish.

 

Scientists have documented humans in Alaska as far back as about 14,000 years ago. The heaviest use of freshwater fish by those early Alaskans appears to be between 13,000 and 11,500 years ago during the Younger Dryas, a period with cold and dry conditions in the midst of an overall warming trend at the end of the last ice age.Until the beginning of the Younger Dryas, people relied more on waterfowl to augment large game like bison and elk. When temperatures started dropping around 13,000 years ago, that changed. Bones found at archaeological sites indicate they began to exploit multiple species of freshwater fish.