Eurasian Metals Discovered in Alaska from Centuries Before the Arrival of Europeans to the New World

A new study of two bronze objects discovered in northwest Alaska shows that they provide the first known evidence of the presence of metals from Eurasia in prehistoric North America. The artifacts apparently came to the Americas several centuries before the first official contact with Europeans occurred.

“This is not a surprise, based on oral history and other archaeological finds it was just a matter of time before we had a good example of Eurasian metal that had been traded. We believe these alloys were made somewhere in Eurasia and marketed in Siberia, then crossed the Bering Strait, where they were acquired by the predecessors of the Inuit, also known as the Thule culture in Alaska.” Explained Kory H. Cooper, member of the scientific team and Purdue University, in remarks published by the new portal Noticias de la Ciencia.

The Thule were the ancestors of the Canadian Inuit who came through Alaska around 500 AD and settled in the current Canadian territory around the year 1000. In addition, a group of them populated Greenland in the 13th century. In fact, this group’s name comes from Thule (now Qaanaaq), a town located in northwest Greenland, where they found the first archaeological remains belonging to this culture.