CAPE ESPENBERG, ALASKA—Western Digs reports that metal artifacts unearthed in an ancestral Inuit house dating to between A.D. 1100 and 1300 were made in Asia. The objects, which include a bronze belt buckle, an iron bead, and a copper fishhook, likely made their way to the New World via trade networks that were active long before European contact. Purdue University archaeologist H. Kory Cooper led a team that used X-ray fluorescence to analyze the buckle and bead, and found they were made of leaded alloy that was smelted in medieval Asia. “We believe these smelted alloys were made somewhere in Eurasia and traded to Siberia and then traded across the Bering Strait to ancestral Inuit people,” says Cooper. Though the objects cannot be radiocarbon dated, the buckle was attached to a leather strap that is between 500 and 800 years old. To read more about archaeology in Alaska, go to "Cultural Revival."
