The Aleuts and Alutiiq

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that the group considered the Aleut people today are found mainly from the tip of the Alaska Peninsula all along the arc of the Aleutian Islands; however, the Alutiiq, are really more germane to the Kodiak Island area and its archipelago, known as the Kodiak area, lying about four hundred miles east of the Aleutians and on the mainland coasts from Chugach Bay to an area farther east. The author points out that nuclear mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) studies suggest an arrival time of about 30,000 years ago; they also suggest that migration is much more complex than previously thought and that multiple migrations and expansion of ancient peoples contributed to genetic diversity in all Siberian and Amerindian peoples, including the Aleut and Alutiiq. The paper reports that, in September 1998, an organization representing the Aleut people, the first indigenous one in more than 178 years, was formed to take care of the sociopolitical and business needs of the Aleut and Alutiiq.

From the Paper:

"Several researchers have advanced the theory that the peopling of the New World involved a northeasterly trending Siberial coastal drift along the continental shelf coast of the Seal of Okhotsk, the Kamchatka Peninsula and along the southern coast of the Bering land bridge. Those same researchers think that because of the glaciation still present in the area of the Aleutian chain, the settlement happened via interior settlement. In other words, those who migrated into the interior later trekked, clambered or boated amidst the pack ice to populate, eventually, the archipelagos, including the Aleutians. This same second migratory wave of Siberian peoples also settled the British Columbia coast, and later drifted further south toe southern California. The same researchers say that the dental morphology of the prehistoric California Indians is much like that of all other Indians of North and South America, and very unlike that of the Aleuts and Alutiiq, which is in opposition to earlier theories."

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