The study, published in Quaternary International, doesn’t “solve” the peopling of the Americas on its own, but it strengthens a key section of the chain: what was happening in Alaska in the centuries just before Clovis appears across much of mid-continental North America. For a debate often dominated by big routes and big dates, Holzman brings the story back to the intimate scale of daily work - processing ivory, shaping stone, and returning to the same landscape across generations.
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Late Pleistocene extent of glaciation at 14 and 13 ka (Dalton et al., 2020, 2023) with the Beringia landmass, and ancient archaeological sites >13 ka. Clovis sites from (Anderson and Miller, 2017).Ancient lakes at approximately 14 ka include Glacial Lake Atna at the 777 m asl level (Wiedmer et al., 2010) and in Beringia (Bond, 2019).
A 14,000-Year-Old Campsite in the Tanana Valley
The Holzman site sits in Alaska’s middle Tanana Valley, a region archaeologists consider especially important because it preserves deeply layered, well-dated traces of Late Pleistocene life. In the paper, the authors describe multiple occupation layers, with the oldest (Component 5b) dated to roughly 14,000 years ago and containing a nearly complete mammoth tusk along with evidence of hearths and stone-working debris.
Just above that, the team reports a later layer dated around 13,700 years ago that looks like a focused production episode: abundant quartz artifacts and a clear emphasis on mammoth ivory reduction. That layer also produced what the researchers describe as the earliest known ivory rod tools in the Americas, made with techniques that later become more visible in Clovis contexts, explains Phys.org.
Findings associated with the Holzman archaeological site. (Wygal et al. Quaternary International (2026)
This matters because it places people with a sophisticated organic-technology tradition (ivory working doesn’t preserve as readily as stone) in eastern Beringia earlier than or alongside the first big expansions south of the ice sheets. In other words, Alaska is not just “a corridor people passed through,” but a place where key technologies may have been refined before dispersal.
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Why Mammoth Ivory Tools Are the Real Clue
Stone tools are the durable headline, but mammoth ivory is the more surprising thread. At Holzman, the authors link clusters of quartz flakes and working areas to the carving and shaping of ivory into rods and blanks - materials that would have been valuable, portable, and useful for composite hunting tools.
Phys.org summarizes the connection the researchers are drawing: ivory rods made at Holzman (around 13,700 years ago) appear to use carving techniques later seen in Clovis contexts (around 13,000 years ago). That doesn’t mean “Clovis came from Alaska” in a simple, one-step way, but it does support the idea that some technological roots of later Paleoindian traditions could have been laid in the north during earlier movements through Beringia and Interior Alaska.
This is also where the Tanana Valley’s broader record becomes important. The region has yielded multiple stratified sites with early dates, so Holzman is being presented as part of a wider cultural landscape, one that can connect Siberian-Beringian adaptations to later expansions deeper into North America.
Beringia (the Bering Land Bridge region) once linked Asia and North America during lower sea levels. (NOAA/Public domain)
The Route South: Land Corridor, Coastline, or Both?
Migration into the Americas is not about a single “path,” but timing can still rule routes in or out. The Holzman evidence supports the idea of a southward movement of ancestral Clovis-era populations sometime between 14,000 and 13,000 years ago, after reaching and circulating within eastern Beringia.
That interior story intersects with the long-running “ice-free corridor” debate. Ancient Origins has previously reported research suggesting the ice-free corridor may not have been viable for the earliest migrations until relatively late (around 13,800 years ago for full opening, in that report), which would imply that initial entry into the Americas could have relied more heavily on coastal or other alternatives, with interior pathways becoming more usable later.
The Holzman paper itself emphasizes dispersal south of the continental ice sheets during the 14–13 ka window, but it also sits within a field where multiple routes - coastal, interior, and mixed strategies - are actively weighed against new archaeological and genetic data. Rather than closing the debate, Holzman adds weight to the idea that Interior Alaska was populated early enough to feed later expansions, at least once conditions allowed those movements.
Top image: Illustrative Alaska image, Columbia Glacier, Columbia Bay, Valdez, Alaska. Source: Frank Fichtmüller/Adobe Stock
By Gary Manners
References
Sahir, R., 2022. Ice Wall Blocked Americas Land Route Until 13,800 years Ago. Ancient Origins. Available at: /news-history-archaeology/ice-wall-0016560
Karasavvas, T. 2018. Ancient Infant DNA Rewrites the History of Humans Entering North America. Available at: /news-history-archaeology/ancient-infant-dna-rewrites-history-humans-entering-north-america-009383
Wygal, B. T., et al. 2026. Stone and mammoth ivory tool production, circulation, and human dispersals in the middle Tanana Valley, Alaska: Implications for the Pleistocene peopling of the Americas. Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1040618225004306?via%3Dihub
Arnold, P., 2026. Ancient Alaskan site may help explain how the first people arrived in North America. Available at: https://phys.org/news/2026-02-ancient-alaskan-site-people-north.html
