Researchers from Alaska and Washington state have found the earliest known evidence that Ice Age humans in North America used salmon as a food source, according to a paper published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Brian Kemp, a WSU anthropologist with extensive experience studying ancient DNA, led the genetic study using techniques developed at WSU to identify the remains to the species level. The age of the remains made studying them particularly difficult, he said: “There are few laboratories in the world that could successfully conduct such a study.
“Challenges aside, the antiquity of the remains reveal the earliest evidence of salmon exploitation by Native Americans,” he said. “The combined genetic and isotopic data demonstrate that predictable chum salmon runs were occurring from the Pacific Ocean to the far interior of Alaska by at least 11,500 years ago.”