The Tanana Valley is a lowland region in central Alaska in the United States, on the north side of the Alaska Range, where the Tanana River emerges from the mountains. Traditional inhabitants of the valley are Tanana Athabaskans of Alaskan Athabaskans.
The region experiences great extremes of temperature during the year. During the winter months, the air is prone to stratification due to temperature inversions, leading to thick fogs. During the summer, the surrounding plains are generally boglike, and include much permafrost and many pingos.
The Tanana Valley is the most populated area of Alaska north of the Alaska Range. Its largest city is Fairbanks. Other communities include:
According to James Q. Jacobs, Tanana Valley has the earliest evidence of human occupation in Alaska.
"At least three distinct lithic complexes appear in the Alaskan archaeological record at approximately the same time, between 12,060 and 11,660 B.P. The earliest firm evidence of human occupation is in the Tanana Valley in Alaska. At the Broken Mammoth, Swan Point, Mead, and Healy Lake, Alaska sites, the oldest dates range between 12,060 BP and 11,410. [1] These sites contain cultural remains considered ancestral to today's Alaskan Native inhabitants. [2]
The oldest stratified sites in the Nenana Valley region date to from 11,820 to 11,010 BP. [3]
The Mesa complex in northern Alaska dates to 11,660 BP." [4] [5]
More recently, Tanana Valley sites have been dated to pre-Clovis period, or 13,000–14,000 cal yr BP. [6]
The Broken Mammoth site, the Swan Point Archaeological Site, and the Mead Archaeological Site are the earliest dated sites in Alaska. They are located along the Tanana River.
Interior Alaska is the central region of Alaska's territory, roughly bounded by the Alaska Range to the south and the Brooks Range to the north. It is largely wilderness. Mountains include Denali in the Alaska Range, the Wrangell Mountains, and the Ray Mountains. The native people of the interior are Alaskan Athabaskans. The largest city in the interior is Fairbanks, Alaska's second-largest city, in the Tanana Valley. Other towns include North Pole, just southeast of Fairbanks, Eagle, Tok, Glennallen, Delta Junction, Nenana, Anderson, Healy and Cantwell. The interior region has an estimated population of 113,154.
Moose Creek (Dena'ina: Chidaq'atnu) is a census-designated place (CDP) in Fairbanks North Star Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska. As of the 2010 census, the population of the CDP was 747, up from 542 in 2000. It is part of the 'Fairbanks, Alaska Metropolitan Statistical Area'. Moose Creek is located south of Fairbanks, Alaska along the Richardson Highway. Moose Creek is bordered by Eielson Air Force Base to the south, the Tanana River to the west, and the Chena River Flood Control Project to the north.
Nenana (Lower Tanana: Toghotili; is a home rule city in the Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area of the Unorganized Borough in the Interior of the U.S. state of Alaska. Nenana developed as a Lower Tanana community at the confluence where the tributary Nenana River enters the Tanana. The population was 378 at the 2010 census, down from 402 in 2000.
Tanacross is an endangered Athabaskan language spoken by fewer than 60 people in eastern Interior Alaska.
Athabaskan is a large family of indigenous languages of North America, located in western North America in three areal language groups: Northern, Pacific Coast and Southern. Kari and Potter (2010:10) place the total territory of the 53 Athabaskan languages at 4,022,000 square kilometres (1,553,000 sq mi).
The Tanana River is a 584-mile (940 km) tributary of the Yukon River in the U.S. state of Alaska. According to linguist and anthropologist William Bright, the name is from the Koyukon (Athabaskan) tene no, tenene, literally "trail river".
The Dene people are an indigenous group of First Nations who inhabit the northern boreal and Arctic regions of Canada. The Dene speak Northern Athabaskan languages. Dene is the common Athabaskan word for "people". The term "Dene" has two usages. More commonly, it is used narrowly to refer to the Athabaskan speakers of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut in Canada, especially including the Chipewyan (Denesuline), Tlicho (Dogrib), Yellowknives (T'atsaot'ine), Slavey, and Sahtu. However, it is sometimes also used to refer to all Northern Athabaskan speakers, who are spread in a wide range all across Alaska and northern Canada. The Southern Athabaskan speakers, however, also refer to themselves by similar words: Diné (Navajo) and Indé (Apache).
The Nenana River is a tributary of the Tanana River, approximately 140 miles (230 km) long, in central Alaska in the United States. It drains an area on the north slope of the Alaska Range on the south edge of the Tanana Valley southwest of Fairbanks.
Pioneer Park is a 44-acre (109-ha) city park in Fairbanks, Alaska, United States run by the Fairbanks North Star Borough Department of Parks and Recreation. The park commemorates early Alaskan history with multiple museums and historic displays on site. The park is located along the Chena River and is accessible from Peger and Airport Roads. A waterfront path connects the park to the Carlson Center, Growden Memorial Park and downtown Fairbanks. There is no admission fee to enter the park, though many of the museums and attractions do charge an entrance fee. Concessions are open from Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day, though the park is open year round and some events are held in the off-season. Free Wi-Fi is available.
Northern Athabaskan is a geographic sub-grouping of the Athabaskan language family spoken by indigenous peoples in the northern part of North America, particularly in Alaska, Yukon, and the Northwest Territories. The Northern Athabaskan languages consist of 31 languages that can be divided into seven geographic subgroups.
The Paleo-Arctic Tradition is the name given by archaeologists to the cultural tradition of the earliest well-documented human occupants of the North American Arctic, which date from the period 8000–5000 BC. The tradition covers Alaska and expands far into the east, west, and the Southwest Yukon Territory.
Upper Tanana is an endangered Athabaskan language spoken in eastern Interior Alaska, United States, mainly in the villages of Northway, Tetlin, and Tok, and adjacent areas of the Canadian territory of Yukon. In 2000 there were fewer than 100 speakers, and the language was no longer being acquired by children.
The Late Glacial Interstadial (LGI) c. 14,670 to c. 12,890 BP, also called the Bølling–Allerød interstadial, represents the first pronounced warming since the end of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Human populations, which had previously been forced into refuge areas, gradually begin to repopulate the Northern Hemisphere's Eurasian landmass.
The Dry Creek Archeological Site is an archaeological site not far outside Denali National Park and Preserve. It is a multi-component site, whose stratified remains have yielded evidence of human occupation as far back as 11,000 years ago. The site is located on the northern flanks of the Alaska Range, near Healy, Alaska, in the Nenana River watershed. There are four major components to the site, layered in an outwash terrace overlooking Dry Creek, with layers of loess separating them.
The 2008 Tanana Valley flood or the 2008 Fairbanks flood was a flood in late July and early August 2008 that affected several rivers in the central portion of the American state of Alaska. The city of Fairbanks, Alaska saw high water levels, while the towns of Nenana, Salcha, and Old Minto received heavy damage. The Salcha River and Tanana River reached their second-highest levels since record-keeping began, while the Chena River, which bisects Fairbanks, was kept below flood stage by the use of the Chena River Lakes Flood Control Project.
Broken Mammoth, Alaska is an archeological site located in the Tanana River Valley, Alaska, in the United States. The site was occupied approximately 11,000 B.P. to 12,000 B.P. making this one of the oldest known sites in Alaska. Charles E. Holmes discovered the site in 1989 and investigation of the site began in 1990 and excavations are ongoing to this day.
Nenana Valley is an archaeological site in the Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area of Alaska.
The Tanana Athabaskans, Tanana Athabascans or Tanana Athapaskans are an Alaskan Athabaskan peoples of the Athabaskan-speaking ethnolinguistic group. They are the original inhabitants of the Tanana River drainage basin in east-central Alaska Interior, United States and a little part lived in Yukon, Canada. Tanana River Athabaskan peoples are called in Lower Tanana and Koyukon language Ten Hʉt'ænæ, in Gwich'in language Tanan Gwich'in. In Alaska, where they are the oldest, there are three or four groups identified by the languages they speak. These are the Tanana proper or Lower Tanana and/or Middle Tanana, Tanacross or Tanana Crossing, and Upper Tanana. The Tanana Athabaskan culture is a hunter-gatherer culture and have a matrilineal system. Tanana Athabaskans were semi-nomadic and as living in semi-permanent settlements in the Tanana Valley lowlands. Traditional Athabaskan land use includes fall hunting of moose, caribou, Dall sheep, and small terrestrial animals, and also trapping. The Athabaskans did not have any formal tribal organization. Tanana Athabaskans were strictly territorial and used hunting and gathering practices in their semi-nomadic way of life and dispersed habitation patterns. Each small band of 20–40 people normally had a central winter camp with several seasonal hunting and fishing camps, and they moved cyclically, depending on the season and availability of resources.
The Upper Kuskokwim people or Upper Kuskokwim Athabaskans, Upper Kuskokwim Athabascans, and historically Kolchan, Goltsan, Tundra Kolosh, and McGrath Ingalik are an Alaskan Athabaskan people of the Athabaskan-speaking ethnolinguistic group. First delineation of this ethnolinguistic group was described by anthropologist Edward Howard Hosley in 1968, as Kolchan. According to Hosley, "Nevertheless, as a group possessing a history and a culture differing from those of its neighbours, the Kolchan deserve to be recognized as an independent group of Alaskan Athapaskans." They are the original inhabitants of the Upper Kuskokwim River villages of Nikolai, Telida, and McGrath, Alaska. About 25 of a total of 100 Upper Kuskokwim people still speak the language. They speak a distinct Athabaskan language more closely related to Lower Tanana language than to Deg Xinag language, spoken on the middle Kuskokwim. The term used by the Kolchan themselves is Dina'ena, but this is too similar to the adjacent Tanana and Tanaina for introduction into the literature. Nowadays, the term used by the Kolchan themselves is Dichinanek' Hwt'ana. Their neighbors also knew them by this name. In Tanaina they were Kenaniq' ht'an while the Koyukon people to the north referred to them as Dikinanek Hut'ana. The Upper Kuskokwim Athabaskan culture is a hunter-gatherer culture and have a matrilineal system. They were semi-nomadic and lived in semi-permanent settlements.
The Swan Point Archeological Site is located in eastern central Alaska, in the Tanana River watershed. It is one of a collection of sites in the area that have yielded the oldest evidence of human habitation in the state, in addition to megafauna no longer found in Alaska, such as wapiti (elk), bison, and woolly mammoth. Finds co-located with human artifacts at the site have given radiocarbon dates of 14,000 years, indicating the site was occupied around 12,000 BCE.
