Bluefish caves

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Bluefish caves

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Location: Yukon , Canada
Geographic
location: 		64 ° 8 '7 "  N , 140 ° 31' 7"  W Coordinates: 64 ° 8 '7 "  N , 140 ° 31' 7"  W.
Bluefish Caves (Yukon)
Bluefish caves
Discovery: 1975
Particularities: Archaeological site

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The Bluefish Caves ( English Bluefish Caves ) are three caves 54 km southwest of Old Crow in the Canadian Yukon Territory . Archaeological research since the 1970s has established the presence of humans at least until 8000 BC. Prove. Older traces of settlement in the caves are controversial, but are occasionally discussed in connection with the earliest settlement in America . In addition, the caves brought numerous findings about the megafauna and the vegetation history of the region, which span around 25 millennia.

Together with the Vuntut Gwitchin , the Yukon government has placed the caves under protection.

location

The Bluefish Caves are close to the Alaska border , on the Bluefish River , a tributary of the Porcupine , at the end of the Keele Range. This mountain group is in turn on the edge of the Ogilvie Mountains in the center of the territory.

Discovery and Interpretation

The small caves of only 10 to 30 m³ in volume were discovered in 1975 and excavated from 1978 to 1987 under the direction of archaeologist at Canada's National Museum of History and Society Jacques Cinq-Mars . The Yukon Beringia Interpretive Center in Whitehorse exhibits the artifacts.

Stratigraphic studies showed that the caves were increasingly taking up remains of birch trees, an indication of a change in vegetation that occurred in the region around 12,000 to 11,500 BC. Occurred. Around 8000 BC Spruce followed as the predominant tree species. This sequence, which is typical for the region, also proves that the sediment layers were relatively undisturbed. After the last ice age, large lakes spread in the region, which are now called Old Crow and Bell . The surrounding landscape is hilly and is about 750 m above sea level.

Bird bones of at least 18 species are noticeable. Some of them show traces of processing, which only go back 8,000 years. There are also older bones of megafauna , more of woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius), steppe bison (Bison priscus, Eng. Steppe bison), horse (Equus lambei, including Yukon horse), Dall sheep (Ovis dalli), Caribou (Rangifer tarandus) Moose (Alces alces), red deer (Cervus elaphus), saiga (Saiga tatarica, a species that died out in the region around 13,000 years ago), musk ox (Ovibos moschatus), lion, bear, cougar (puma or mountain lion) and wolf. These remains were found to a much lesser extent in the upper layers, suggesting a decline in megafauna species during the period of human settlement. A horse from cave 1 could be dated to about 12,900 years, a mammoth to about 15,500 years.

No human remains have been found, but animal bones, some of which show signs of processing, indicate their presence. Such traces were mainly found in caves 1 and 2. A processed mammoth bone was dated 23,500 years ago, but it is not clear whether the bone was found and processed much later. The shin of a caribou also shows signs of wear; the bone itself has been dated to be about 24,820 years old. The director of the Cinq-Mars excavation assumed that the caves were used sporadically by hunting groups around 25,000 to 10,000 years ago.

Numerous microblades , tiny blades, cuts, burins were found, mainly as unfinished raw material, i.e. in a slightly processed state. Most of them were found in the entrance area of ​​cave 2. They can only be roughly traced back to about 10,000 to 8,000 BC based on the layers of deposits in the cave. To date. Few artifacts were found in cave 1. They can be dated to the phase marked by the dominant birch . In cave 3 there were a few tees.

Richard Morlan of the Canadian Museum of Civilization followed Cinq-Mars in 1991 in that the first humans lived in the region around 25,000 years ago. It would fit the assumption of Cinq-Mars that in eastern Siberia near the mouth of the Jana River, human traces around 30,000 years old were found, which would match the time of the interpretations of the finds in the three bluefish caves.

In 2008 Cinq-Mars received support from the Vuntut Gwitchin to carry out an excavation after excavations had failed for a long time due to a lack of funds and after he no longer worked as a curator himself . In addition, a documentation center or museum is to be built in Old Crow . The planned research company also includes Gwizi Cave, 60 km further north .

In 2016, more recent confirmations of the age of 24,000 years cal BP confirm the theory that the first humans on the American continent immigrated to Beringia at the height of the last glaciation. In combination with already known genetic data, it can be assumed that a small, genetically isolated population with only around 1000 to 2000 women lived in Alaska and immediately neighboring regions for several thousand years. It was only around 15,000 years cal BP that people would have spread southwards, with the ice-free corridor between the glaciated coastal mountains and the Laurentide ice sheet only being passable at around 13,000 cal BP. Expansion along the coast could have occurred earlier, perhaps by 16,000 cal BP

See also

literature

  • Jacques Cinq-Mars, Richard E. Morlan: Bluefish Caves and Old Crow Basin: A New Rapport . In: Robson Bonnichsen, Karen L. Turnmire (Eds.): Ice Age Peoples of North America . Oregon State University Press for the Center for the Study of the First Americans, Corvallis 1999, pp. 200–212, palanth.com ( Memento of October 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 1.3 MB)
  • Guy E. Gibbon, Kenneth M. Ames: Archeology of prehistoric native America: an encyclopedia . Taylor & Francis, 1998, p. 81 f.
  • A. Burke, Jacques Cinq-Mars: Dental characteristics of Late Pleistocene Equus lambei from Bluefish Caves, Yukon Territory, and their comparison with Eurasian horses . In: Géographie physique et Quaternaire 50/1 (1996) 81-93
  • Richard E. Morlan: Paleoecological implications of Late Pleistocene and holocene microtine rodents from the Bluefish Caves, northern Yukon Territory . In: Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences , 26 (1989).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dennis H. O'Rourke, Jennifer A. Raff: The Human Genetic History of the Americas: The Final Frontier. In: Current Biology , 20, R202-R207, February 23, 2010. doi: 10.1016 / j.cub.2009.11.051
  2. ↑ So Sharon Begley: The First Americans ( Memento April 8, 2010 in the Internet Archive ), Newsweek , Special Issue, Fall / Winter 1991, pp. 15-20.
  3. ↑ VV Pitulko et al .: The Yana RHS Site: Humans in the Arctic Before the Last Glacial Maximum . In: Science , 303 (5654), 2004, pp. 52-56.
  4. ↑ E.g. Alex Roslin: TIMELINE: From before the Ice Age . In: Canwest News Service, May 26, 2008 ( Memento of the original from June 16, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.canada.com
  5. ↑ Alex Roslin: Beringia: humans were here , The Gazette, May 17, 2008 ( Memento of the original from June 16, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www2.canada.com
  6. ↑ Lauriane Bourgeon, Ariane Burke, Thomas Higham : Earliest Human Presence in North America Dated to the Last Glacial Maximum: New Radiocarbon Dates from Bluefish Caves, Canada. In: Plos One , January 6, 2017 doi: 10.1371 / journal.pone.0169486