9781422283578

2 Arctic People

Early Settlers

S ome of the earliest humans, called Neanderthals, lived on the edges of the Arctic. They made stone tools, hunted large animals called mammoths, and used fires to keep themselves warm. About 20,000 years ago, more advanced people moved up from Eurasia and North America. Neither group was able to live all year in the Arctic. North America has a large tundra or treeless area stretching from Alaska across Canada to Greenland. To live in the tundra, people had to develop skills to survive the winter as well as the summer. Eurasia has only a narrow strip of tundra. In winter, people retreated into the forests for shelter. There was no reason for an Arctic culture to develop there.

The Dorset Culture The first settled Arctic people evolved in the Alaskan tundra about 5,000 to 2,500 years ago. They were the Dorset Culture and they used small stone tools only two to three inches long. Their remains have been found by archaeologists from Alaska to Greenland. Nobody knows how these people reached North America. They may have crossed the Bering Strait from Eurasia during one of the Ice Ages. The Bering Strait is very shallow. During an Ice Age all the water would have been frozen into ice caps. This would have left the Strait firm enough to walk over.

S eals provided food and oil for lamps. Clothing was made from their skins.

M usk-ox and the now extinct mammoth were hunted by the earliest people in the Arctic.

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