Published Oct 4, 2023 by https://www.kucb.org/people/sofia-stuart-rasi Archaeologists found brown and polar bear bones – some over 5,000 years old – at two dig sites on Unalaska and Amaknak Islands in the Aleutians during the early 2000s. Since then, the bones have puzzled scientists. There are no bears on either island today and no historical records of bears ever living there.
Lilly Parker and Kaylee Tatum, researchers from the University of Oklahoma, spent two weeks in Unalaska this summer. They shared their research findings with the community and asked for any information about bears that was passed down through generations. Tatum said Unangax̂ knowledge could help fill in the gaps left by scientific data.
According to carbon dating, the polar bear bones are about 5,500 years old and the brown bear bones are about 3,000 to 5,500 years old.
Parker said the bones were found at two different midden sites, which are historical dump sites used by Unangax̂ people thousands of years ago.
While the elders were largely unsure of how the bones got there, one story suggested that people thousands of years ago may have transported bear meat by sea from the neighboring island of Unimak, which has a population of bears. Oral tradition has been passed down that says locals may have eaten bear when other food was scarce, such as during a particularly long and cold winter.
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