12 / 14
12
Early Settlers
2 Arctic People
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.