Alaskan dig turns up ancient ‘buckle’ [video]
A small prehistoric buckle-like object that likely originated in East Asia has been found in an ancient Eskimo dwelling in Alaska.
The artifact, the first ever found in Alaska, consists of two parts—a rectangular bar, connected to an apparently broken circular ring—and is about 2 inches by 1 inch and less than 1 inch thick.
It was found at a roughly 1,000-year-old house that had been dug into the side of a beach ridge by early Inupiat Eskimos at Cape Espenberg on the Seward Peninsula. Both sections of the artifact are beveled on one side and concave on the other side, indicating it was manufactured in a mold, says John Hoffecker, research associate at the University of Colorado-Boulder.
Full story at Futurity.
Photo credits: Jeremy Foin, University of California, Davis (top) / University of Colorado
