North Pacific Prehistory 2

Abstract

Continental Shelves, Sea Levels, and Early Maritime Adaptations

in the North Pacific Region

ACKERMAN, Robert

Movement into the Americas from Beringia via a North Pacific coastal sea route has been hypothesized by a number of archaeologists concerned with the early prehistory of the Northwest Coast. The position of archaeological sites relative to sea level along the North Pacific coast of North America is complex due to variable rates of sea level rise and land emergence during the late Pleistocene and early Holocene. The location of elevated and submerged archaeological sites indicate that the process of sea level rise and land emergence was not uniform nor consistent from one part of the North Pacific coast to another. Geomorphological relationships of sites and associated cultural assemblages are similarly inconsistent. It is also evident that the earliest North Pacific coastal site assemblages (c. 10,000 BP) are similar to those of land based hunters in Siberia (Diuktai Culture) and Alaska (Paleoarctic or Beringian tradition). The North Pacific coastal complexes are thus either derivative or they represent an early but parallel adaptation by peoples who occupied the once emergent coasts of Northeast Asia and Northwest North America.