Tracking Human Movement through the Ice-Free Corridor with Early Obsidian Artifacts -

In this video, archaeologist Todd Kristensen shares lab results (lithic sourcing based on pXRF) from the oldest obsidian artifacts in Alberta and explores what they mean for human settlement of North America.
This Beringia Centre Science Talk (#BCST) was livestreamed on Zoom and Facebook on November 16, 2023.
About the Speaker
Todd Kristensen is an archaeologist with the Archaeological Survey of Alberta. He completed his MA in Newfoundland and his PhD in Alberta. He is married and is the happy father of a ten year old child whose forced knowledge of obsidian may come up later in therapy.
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[@paulfreeman23000]

Thank you for this great video, this information as an enthusiast from the Mid Atlantic is fantastic. Thumbs up and subscribed.

[@moshezorea5090]

very interesting thanks!

[@PlayNowWorkLater]

Nice to see actual physical data that shows a pre Clovis settling of North America. Where the oldest samples are at the southern most area of the corridor and then slowly making their way north. It’s amazing how prevalent the idea that the Clovis culture was the first people dominates still in non academic circles. Very interesting presentation.

[@slappy8941]

Clovis doesn't even bear a resemblance to anything found in Siberia, the inhabitants of which used a completely different technology in constructing their tools and weapons, with the vast majority of Clovis artifacts being found in the east.

[@PlayNowWorkLater]

@@slappy8941 any research that puts Clovis in the rear view mirror is away forward for really understanding human evolution

[@garybowler5946]

A 600 mile hike over bare rock, scraped clean by glaciers. Nothing growing, just rock and ice. How did they carry enough food for a 600 mile hike?

[@PlayNowWorkLater]

@@garybowler5946 it was pretty lush by the time it was passable. I live in that area. You have to remember that there was a LOT of meltwater in the area that was scraped by glaciers once the corridor opened. Which is why they are suggesting that people didn’t pass through when it initially opened. It would have been very wet, boggy and lots of kettle lakes. But after a couple of thousand years, and the water drained off, down the middle of the corridor is the Main artery removing water, the Yukon River, but also lots of tributary creeks and other rivers that made their way into the Yukon River. For the southern region a lot of the water made its way to the Mackenzie drainage basin. Anyways, it was quite passable with lots of fauna and flora that populated the area as soon as it was possible. Food was in abundance by the time they travelled the corridor. Also, they were nomadic people that prepared a lot of dried meat for long periods of travel. If they did encounter areas of ice scraped areas that were barren of life they could have travelled few hundred kilometres easily.

[@johnmaccallum7935]

If indeed people used the ice free corridor they would've found the land full of folks who came there many thousands of years prior. In fact I've yet to see any human relics that have been pulled from "Beringia". All of this is only conjecture with next to nothing to back it up.

[@user-yo1pk4ky4k]

I don't buy it that people who carried tool stone into Alberta from long distances were trading for items like hides and meat. It is not like there were no hides and meat in their homeland. I don't know how much a buffalo hide weighs, but packing it from Alberta back to, let's say Montana, which was totally infested with buffalo, is not good economy. Maybe a better speculation would be that they were trading for wives, slaves, specific breeds of dogs, etc. Trade goods that they would not have to carry, but that would have great value back in the homeland.