Navajo rugs, blankets and weavings
First Americans - Native American history - page 2

Today Alaska Natives represent approximately 16 percent of Alaska's residents, and are a significant segment of the population in over 200 rural villages and communities. The record in Alaska suggests that humans did not cross the Bering Land Bridge and enter North America much before 12,000 years ago. One hypothesis concerning the Paleoindian appearance in mid-continent North America is: sometime after the western Beringian immigrants arrived in eastern Beringia, some of them began to move south toward temperate North America, a journey that may have required 1000 years to complete. During this journey, these people were separated from the Old World western Beringian technological and cultural influence. By the time 30 or 40 generations had lived and died on the road, these ancient immigrants reached the High Plains of North America. Over the course of their travels, their stone tool manufacturing technology had altered to the extent that their lithic industry retained few Old World Beringian characteristics, and it was these people who produced the classic Paleoindian artifact types.

In 1926, the first North American discovery of stone tools in direct association with the skeletal remains of extinct Ice-Age animals was made near Folsom, New Mexico. This discovery indicated that the antiquity of humans in the New World was greater than previously believed. For the next 40 years archaeologists wondered why evidence of the earliest North Americans was found in the heartland of the continent, rather than near the ancient land bridge in eastern Beringia. It was not until the mid-1960s that two lithic industries of Paleoindian age, American Paleoarctic and Denali, were first reported from Alaska, another decade before the Nenana Complex was described, and the Mesa site in the late 1970s.

The Mesa is a sliver of igneous rock which was emplaced in the softer sedimentary country rock during the mountain-building event that created the Brooks Range about 125 million years ago. As part of the oil and gas exploration activities in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska during the late 1970s, the Mesa was examined for the presence of archaeological remains when it was considered as a source for hard-rock rip-rap and crushed stone to cap the runway of a nearby petroleum test-well air strip. The site was found because some stone tools and chips were visible on the exposed soil as the result of wind erosion of the sparse Arctic vegetation. The type and style of these surface artifacts suggested they might have been produced by an ancient people called Paleoindians, and that the Mesa site might represent a cultural manifestation quite different from anything that had been previously found above the Arctic Circle in North America or Asia. The discovery and evaluation of the Mesa site by Bureau of Land Management archaeologists prior to the onset of construction activities averted the destruction of what has proven to be one of the most significant North American archaeological sites to have been found in the last 50 years.

Today in Alaska, many Alaska Natives have retained their customs, language, hunting and fishing practices and ways of living. Alaska's Native people are divided into eleven distinct cultures, speaking twenty different languages. This diverse population, is organized based on five cultural groupings, which draw upon cultural similarities or geographic proximity:

• Athabascans,
• Yup'ik and Cup'ik,
• Inupiaq and St. Lawrence Island Yupik people,
• Aleut and Alutiiq peoples,
• Eyak, Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian people.

Native American history - page 1

Taos Trading Post is an online store, offering a tasteful variety of authentic Native American Indian rugs. We have been buying rugs for over 20 years, are family owned and operated, and committed to providing our customers with quality rugs, coupled with unsurpassed service. Our store sells only those weavings that meet our superior standards; and will therefore provide you, the customer, with years of pleasure. We stock a choice selection of contemporary Native American rugs, including Navajo, Mexican Zapotec and Indian rugs. We offer an attractive selection of authentic hand spun Navajo wool rugs in regional rug styles, including the popular Ganado, Storm, Two Grey Hills, and Teec Nos Pos designs, and our pledge of authenticity. Whether you prefer an authentic Navajo weaving or replica, our Southwest rugs will introduce the Native American Indian atmosphere to your home. Navajo, Indian, Mexican Zapotec and Southwest rugs, blankets and weavings for sale online. Native American Indian and Southwest rug art.