The Upward Sun River site, or Xaasaa Na’, is a
Late Pleistocene archaeological site associated with the
Paleo-Arctic tradition
The Paleo-Arctic Tradition is the name given by archaeologists to the cultural tradition of the earliest well-documented human occupants of the North American Arctic, which date from the period 8000–5000 BC. The tradition covers Alaska and ex ...
, located in the Tanana River Valley, Alaska. Dated to around 11,500
BP, Upward Sun River is the site of the oldest human remains discovered on the American side of
Beringia. The site was first discovered in 2006.
The layer with the human remains at Upward Sun River is most similar to the level 6 layer from Ushki Lake,
Kamchatka
The Kamchatka Peninsula (russian: полуостров Камчатка, Poluostrov Kamchatka, ) is a peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of about . The Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk make up the peninsula's eastern and west ...
. Both sites are the only Beringian burials found so far from that period.
Etymology
The name of the site, Upward Sun River, is a direct translation of the
Middle Tanana name for the site, ''Xaasaa Na’''. The Middle Tanana name was recorded from the mother of a mother-daughter pair, two of the last remaining speakers of Middle Tanana, during an interview in the 1960s.
Human remains
The first excavation at Upward Sun River in 2010 yielded the
cremated
Cremation is a method of final disposition of a dead body through burning.
Cremation may serve as a funeral or post-funeral rite and as an alternative to burial. In some countries, including India and Nepal, cremation on an open-air pyre i ...
remains of a 3-year-old individual. The individual had been cremated inside a hearth, which was then filled in, with an abandonment of the site quickly afterwards. This individual was given the name ''Xaasaa Cheege Ts'eniin'' (Upward Sun River Mouth Child) by the local Healy Lake Tribe and is referred to by archaeologists as ''USR3''. Researchers were unable to recover DNA from this individual.
Infant burials
In a 2013 excavation of the site, researchers discovered the remains of two female infants in a layer directly underneath the cremated individual. The two individuals were covered in red
ochre and buried together in a pit burial with grave goods, including four decorated antler rods, two lithic dart points and
bifaces
A hand axe (or handaxe or Acheulean hand axe) is a prehistoric stone tool with two faces that is the longest-used tool in human history, yet there is no academic consensus on what they were used for. It is made from stone, usually flint or cher ...
.
The antler rods and dart points were likely part of a weapon system. The two individuals were given the names ''Xach'itee'aanenh t'eede gaay'' (Sunrise child-girl) and ''Yełkaanenh t'eede gaay'' (Dawn twilight child-girl) by the local people and are referred to by archaeologists as ''USR1'' and ''USR2'', respectively.
One of the individuals (''USR2'') was a prenatal, possibly stillborn 30-week-old fetus, while the other (''USR1'') was a 6- to 12-week-old infant. The prenatal individual is the only prenate and youngest
Late Pleistocene individual to be recovered in the Americas.
All three died during the summer. Their teeth show features most similar to those found in
Native Americans and Northeast Asians.
Archaeogenetics
In 2015, researchers were able to extract the entire mitochondrial genome from both individuals. In 2018, researchers successfully sequenced the nuclear DNA from the
petrous bone of both individuals, yielding around 17-fold
coverage
Coverage may refer to:
Filmmaking
* Coverage (lens), the size of the image a lens can produce
* Camera coverage, the amount of footage shot and different camera setups used in filming a scene
* Script coverage, a short summary of a script, wri ...
from ''USR1'' and low coverage from ''USR2''. Based on osteological analysis, the two infants were previously thought to be female; this assessment is corroborated by evidence from DNA analysis.
Comparisons with other populations
When compared with ancient populations, ''USR1'' and ''USR2'' show closest genetic affinity to ''Shuká Káa'' from
On Your Knees Cave. ''USR1'' shows extra genetic affinity for
Siberians
The Siberians, or Siberiaks, (russian: сибиряки, sibiryaki, ) are the majority inhabitants of Siberia, as well as the (sub)ethnic or ethnographic group of the Russians.
As demonym
The demonym ''Siberian'' can be restricted to either ...
and
East Asians
East Asian people (East Asians) are the people from East Asia, which consists of China, Taiwan, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, and South Korea. The total population of all countries within this region is estimated to be 1.677 billion and 21% of t ...
in a way that is not found in later ancient individuals from the Americas such as
Anzick-1
Anzick-1 is a Paleo-Indian male infant whose remains were found in south central Montana, United States, in 1968, and date to 13,000–12,850 years BP. The child was found with more than 115 tools made of stone and antlers and dusted with red ...
,
Kennewick Man
Kennewick Man and Ancient One are the names generally given to the skeletal remains of a prehistoric Paleoamerican man found on a bank of the Columbia River in Kennewick, Washington, on July 28, 1996. It is one of the most complete ancient ...
, or the woman from the
Lucy Islands dated to around 6,000 years ago. ''USR1'' belongs to a population that predates the hypothesized splitting of ancient Native American populations into the Northern Native American and Southern Native American branches and does not cluster genetically with either later population. ''USR1'' forms a distinct clade with the individual from Cave 2 of the
Trail Creek Caves on the
Seward Peninsula
The Seward Peninsula is a large peninsula on the western coast of the U.S. state of Alaska whose westernmost point is Cape Prince of Wales. The peninsula projects about into the Bering Sea between Norton Sound, the Bering Strait, the Chukchi ...
.
When compared with modern populations, ''USR1'' shows closest genetic affinity to modern Native Americans, then Siberians and East Asians. ''USR1'' does not cluster genetically with any modern Native American population. The genetic distance from ''USR1'' to
Mal'ta boy is the same as that from modern Native American populations to Mal'ta boy. ''USR1'' shows additional genetic affinity for
Denisovan
The Denisovans or Denisova hominins ) are an extinct species or subspecies of archaic human that ranged across Asia during the Lower and Middle Paleolithic. Denisovans are known from few physical remains and consequently, most of what is known ...
s that is not matched by modern Native Americans; this additional Denisovan affinity is likely due to
sampling variation from an ancient population with higher levels of heterogenous Denisovan admixture.
Kinship
Nuclear DNA analysis suggests that ''USR1'' and ''USR2'' are closely related, probably somewhere roughly in the range from half-siblings to first cousins. However, mtDNA analysis shows that the two infants are not maternally related. The two infants carry mtDNA lineages that are only found in the Americas. ''USR1'', the 6- to 12-week-old infant, comes from
C1b. The prenatal infant, ''USR2'', carries a basal lineage of
Haplogroup B2 that is also matched by the individual from Trial Creek Cave; this specific mtDNA lineage is different from the derived B2 lineage generally found in the Americas.
Both individuals represent the northernmost discovery of these mtDNA lineages and show that the mtDNA diversity in the ancient population is higher than in the modern, lending credence to the
Beringia Standstill Hypothesis.
Ancient Beringian
''USR1'' is thought to be representative of a hypothesized ancient population referred to as
Ancient Beringian
The Ancient Beringians (AB) is a specific archaeogenetic lineage, based on the genome of an infant found at the Upward Sun River site (dubbed USR1), dated to 11,500 years ago. The AB lineage diverged from the ''Ancestral Native American'' (ANA) l ...
. Ancient Beringian is now considered to be composed of three individuals: ''USR1'', ''USR2'' and the 9,000 year-old individual from Trail Creek Cave. This genetic clustering is matched by the archaeological evidence, as the Upper Sun River Site and Trail Creek Cave, despite being located over away from each other, both share similarities in artefact technology. Based on DNA analysis of ''USR1'', the Ancient Beringians are hypothesized to have split off from East Asians around 36,000 years ago, with continuous
gene flow occurring until around 25,000 years ago. The Ancient Beringians are also hypothesized to have diverged from the ancestors of Native Americans around 22,000 to 18,100 years ago.
Phenotypic analysis
Phenotypic analysis shows that ''USR1'' does not carry the derived
EDAR
Ectodysplasin A receptor (EDAR) is a protein that in humans is encoded by the EDAR gene. EDAR is a cell surface receptor for ectodysplasin A which plays an important role in the development of ectodermal tissues such as the skin. It is structura ...
allele commonly found in modern East Asians and Native Americans. However, ''USR1'' does carry the derived rs174570
FADS2
Fatty acid desaturase 2 (FADS2) is encoded by the ''FADS2'' gene, the associated enzyme is sometimes known as FADS2 as well. Its main associated enzyme is Delta 6 desaturase (D6D) however the human enzyme been shown to also catalyze some delta-8 a ...
allele that was targeted by a
selective sweep
In genetics, a selective sweep is the process through which a new beneficial mutation that increases its frequency and becomes fixed (i.e., reaches a frequency of 1) in the population leads to the reduction or elimination of genetic variation amon ...
.
Salmon
Around 300 bone fragments from salmonids were recovered at Upward Sun River, representing the earliest surviving evidence of salmon eating in North America. DNA analysis types the salmon remains as coming from ''Oncorhynchus keta'' (
chum salmon). Isotopic analysis shows that the salmon were
anadromous.
Other material remains
An obsidian flake discovered as part of the grave goods found in the infant burial was chemically identified as coming from the Hoodoo Mountain primary source site in
Kluane National Park
Kluane National Park and Reserve (; french: Parc national et réserve de parc national de Kluane) are two protected areas in the southwest corner of the territory of Yukon. The National Park Reserve was set aside in 1972 to become a national par ...
, Yukon, Canada, a location away from the Upward Sun River site.
See also
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Brooks Falls
References
Bibliography
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External links
Site: Upward Sun River(Dr. Ben A. Potter)
{{Pre-Columbian North America
Archaeological sites in Alaska
Native American history of Alaska
Prehistory of the Arctic
Oldest human remains in the Americas
Tanana Athabaskans