Livescience.com 16 April 2015 by Owen Jarus

Bronze artifacts discovered in a 1,000-year-old house in Alaska suggest trade was occurring between East Asia and the New World centuries before the voyages of Columbus.

Archaeologists found the artifacts at the "Rising Whale" site at Cape Espenberg.

"When you're looking at the site from a little ways away, it looks like a bowhead [whale] coming to the surface," said Owen Mason, a research associate at the University of Colorado, who is part of a team excavating the site.

The new discoveries, combined with other finds made over the past 100 years, suggest trade items and ideas were reaching Alaska from East Asian civilizations well before Christopher Columbus arrived in the Caribbean Sea in 1492 archaeologists said. [See Images of the New Discoveries at the Rising Whale Site]

"We're seeing the interactions, indirect as they are, with these so-called 'high civilizations' of China, Korea or Yakutia," a region in Russia, Mason said.

Bronze and obsidian

The Rising Whale discoveries include two bronze artifacts, one of which may have originally been used as a buckle or fastener. It has a piece of leather on it thatradiocarbondates to around A.D. 600 (more tests will take place in the future). The other bronze artifact may have been used as a whistle.

Bronze-working had not been developed at this time in Alaska, so archaeologists think the artifacts would have been manufactured in China, Korea or Yakutia, and made their way to Alaska through trade routes.

Also inside that house, researchers found the remains of obsidian artifacts, which have a chemical signature that indicates the obsidian is from the Anadyr River valley in Russia.

Trade routes

The recent discoveries at the Rising Whale site add to over a century of research that indicates trade routes connected the Bering Strait (including the Alaskan side) with the civilizations that flourished in East Asia before Columbus' time. [Top 5 Misconceptions About Columbus]

In 1913, anthropologist Berthold Laufer published an analysis of texts and artifacts in the journal T'oung Pao in which he found that the Chinese had a great interest in obtaining ivory from narwhals and walruses, acquiring it from people who lived to the northeast of China. Some of the walrus ivory may have come from the Bering Strait, where the animals are found in abundance.

Additionally, a number of researchers have noted similarities in design between the plate armor worn by people in Alaska and that worn in China, Korea, Japan and eastern Mongolia.

For instance, in the 1930s, Smithsonian Institution archaeologist Henry Collins undertook excavations at St. Lawrence Island, off the west coast of Alaska. In his book "The Archaeology of St. Lawrence Island" (Smithsonian, 1937), he wrote that plate armor started appearing on the island around 1,000 years ago. It consisted of overlapping plates made of ivory, bones and sometimes iron.

Plate armor similar to this was developed in several areas of East Asia, including Manchuria (in China), eastern Mongolia and Japan, Collins wrote. The use of plate armor, he said, spread north from these areas, and was eventually introduced to Alaska from across the Bering Strait.

Genetic evidence

Recent genetic research also sheds light on interactions between people from East Asia and the New World.

Many scientists say that humans first arrived in the New World around 15,000 years ago by crossing a land bridge that had formed across the Bering Strait. This land bridge was flooded about 10,000 years ago.

However, a recent genetic study suggests there were also movements of people from East Asia to the New World at a later date. Those who lived at the Rising Whale site may be part of what scientists refer to as the "Birnirk" culture, a group of people who lived on both sides of the Bering Strait and used sophisticated skin boats and harpoons to hunt whales.

The genetic study indicates that people from the Birnirk culture are the ancestors of a people called the "Thule," who spread out across the North American arctic as far as Greenland. The Thule, in turn, are ancestors of the modern-day Inuit.

Long before Columbus

The Bering Strait wasn't the only area where interactions between people from the Old World and New World occurred before Columbus' arrival. By 1,000 years ago, the Vikings had explored parts of Canadaand had even established a short-lived settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland.

Research also indicates that, around this time, the Polynesians had reached South America, bringing sweet potatoes back to Polynesia and possibly bringing chickens to South America.

Many other hypotheses have been put forward suggesting that people reached the New World before Columbus. One idea that has received a lot of attention in popular media is that Chinese mariners sailed directly to the New World, although this idea lacks scholarly support.

Mason and his team will present their research on the Rising Whale site at the Canadian Archaeological Association annual meeting in St. John's Newfoundland, Canada, between April 28 and May 2.

Ancient Origins    17 APRIL, 2015 - 22:03 APRILHOLLOWAY

Ancient Bronze Artifacts in Alaska Reveals Trade with Asia Before Columbus Arrival

An incredible archaeological discovery in Alaska provided evidence that trade was occurring between Asia and the New World centuries before Christopher Columbus landed in the Americas in 1492. Researchers uncovered two bronze artifacts in a 1,000-year-old house in Alaska, which were manufactured in China, Korea, or Yakutia.

Live Science reports that the discovery was made at the "Rising Whale" site at Cape Espenberg, which lies on the Arctic Circle at the terminus of a 30 km long mainland attached beach ridge plain at the northern limit of Seward Peninsula, in western Alaska.

“Cape Espenberg has had an unbroken stream of cultural continuity for at least 1,000 years, the time when the Thule people and their descendants occupied the coast and adjacent interior regions of northwestern Alaska” report Darwent et al. (2013) in their paper ‘1000 Years of House Change at Cape Espenberg, Alaska’.

Barrier islands and lagoons at Cape Espenberg. (Public domain)

Archaeologists unearthed a bronze buckle with a piece of leather attached to it that was dated to 600 AD, as well as another ancient bronze relic, which appears to have been a whistle.  Bronze-working had not been developed at this time in Alaska, so it is thought the artifacts were manufactured in China, Korea or Yakutia, before making their way to Alaska through trade routes.

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“Though native copper and meteoritic iron, (i.e. naturally occurring pure metals), were hammered into a variety objects by late prehistoric inhabitants of arctic and subarctic North America, there is no evidence for the smelting, casting, or alloying of metals in the Western Hemisphere north of Mexico prior to the arrival of Europeans,” reports the research team on the website Arctic Research Consortium of the United States. “As a result, these two artifacts give the best and least ambiguous evidence to date that non-ferrous industrial smelted metals were arriving in Alaska via prehistoric trade across the Bering Strait.”

One of the bronze artifacts recovered from the 1,000-year-old Alaska house. (Photo by Jeremy Foin/University of California, Davis.)

The bronze artifacts are not the only evidence for trade between Alaska and other civilizations prior to the arrival of Columbus in the Americas. Researchers also found the remains of obsidian artifacts inside the house, which could be chemically traced to the Anadyr River valley in Russia.

In addition, “a number of researchers have noted similarities in design between the plate armor worn by people in Alaska and that worn in China, Korea, Japan and eastern Mongolia.”

Plate armor made of overlapping plates of ivory and bones began appearing in Alaska around 1,000 years ago.  A similar style of plate armor was also developed in several areas of East Asia, tracing back thousands of years.

Last year, archaeologists in Russia reported on the discovery of a suit of armor made entirely of bone, which belonged to an ancient Siberian knight who lived around four millennia ago. The armor consists of different plates made up of small fragments of bone that have been joined together.

Left: 4,000-year-old bone armor found in the Siberian city of Omsk (The Siberian Times). Right: Bone armor from North Alaskan at an exhibit in the Glenbow Museum, Calgary, Alberta, Canada. (Wikimedia Commons)

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It has long been known that Christopher Columbus was not the first to ‘discover’ the New World.

“By 1,000 years ago, the Vikings had explored parts of Canada and had even established a short-lived settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland,” writes Live Science. “Research also indicates that, around this time, the Polynesians had reached South America, bringing sweet potatoes back to Polynesia and possibly bringing chickens to South America.”

A more controversial hypothesis is that China discovered the Americas 70 years before Columbus.  However, this view put forward by amateur historian Gavin Menzies has been hugely debated.

Featured image: Archaeologists working in the 1,000-year-old house at the Rising Whale site at Cape Espenberg, Alaska. (Photo courtesy Jeremy Foin, UC Davis.)

By April Holloway