The site, called Shégˊ Xdaltthˊíˊ ("They Were There" in the Alaska Native Athabascan language), is located about 34 miles southeast of Fairbanks in eastern Beringia, the region that connected northeast Asia and northwest North America during the last ice age. Excavations have revealed an encampment used intermittently over a millennium by some of the first people to settle North America.
"I expected we'd find hunting tools and knapping debris surrounding a hearth or two, but I had no idea that we'd stumble into a base camp with tens of thousands of artifacts," said study first author Kelly E. Graf, an archaeologist at the University of Kansas.
The discovery includes what researchers describe as the oldest dwelling structure in the Western Hemisphere, offering a rare glimpse into the domestic lives of early Americans. Also found were bone needles that are the earliest known in the region, and canine remains that may represent the earliest evidence of dog domestication in the Americas.
The artifacts and fossils point to a base camp that supported repeated occupation, rather than a temporary hunting stop. Stone tools recovered at the site show technological similarities to artifacts found elsewhere in Beringia, suggesting cultural connections across the land bridge.
The ancestors of today's Indigenous Americans are believed to have entered the continent around 21,000 years ago, but Beringian sites are often small and scattered, making each new discovery significant for understanding early migration and settlement patterns.