%0 Journal Article %T Terminal Pleistocene human occupation of the upper Copper River basin, southern Alaska: Results of test excavations at Nataeł Na’ %+ Center for the Study of the First Americans %+ Culture et Environnements, Préhistoire, Antiquité, Moyen-Age (CEPAM) %+ Department of Physical and Environmental Sciences %+ Wrangell-Saint Elias National Park and Preserve %+ Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve and Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve %A White, John %A Henry, Auréade %A Kuehn, Stephen %A Loso, Michael %A Rasic, Jeffrey %< avec comité de lecture %@ 1040-6182 %J Quaternary International %I Elsevier %8 2022-09 %D 2022 %R 10.1016/j.quaint.2022.08.012 %Z Humanities and Social Sciences/Archaeology and PrehistoryJournal articles %X After decades of debate, the homeland of the First Americans is now generally understood to be northeast Asia; however, the process of Late Pleistocene peopling remains unresolved. As more archaeological sites south of the continental ice sheets are discovered that predate the opening of the interior “ice-free” corridor, interest in a coastal Pacific dispersal route has grown, and previously overlooked regions proximal to the Pacific coast have become a central focus of exploration efforts. The Copper River basin of southern Alaska is one such region. Here we present the results of 2019 archaeological excavations at Nataeł Na’, a buried and stratified archaeological site situated along the upper Copper River. The site contains a robust occupation dating to the late Younger Dryas climate reversal as well as an earlier occupation dating to the late Allerød interstadial. This discovery demonstrates that Pleistocene hunter-gatherers inhabited the Pacific basin of southern Alaska during the same time Clovis peoples inhabited temperate North America. The occupations at Nataeł Na’ join a growing body of evidence suggesting that the early inhabitants of eastern Beringia were geographically more widely dispersed than previously documented. %G English %2 https://hal.science/hal-03780826/document %2 https://hal.science/hal-03780826/file/1-s2.0-S1040618222002749-main.pdf %L hal-03780826 %U https://hal.science/hal-03780826 %~ SHS %~ UNICE %~ CNRS %~ CEPAM %~ FRANTIQ %~ UNIV-COTEDAZUR