14 DAY TRIAL // During the Ice Age these islands could have formed a bridge from Asia to America and this is how the first Americans entered North America about 15,000 years ago. But modern native inhabitants, the Aleutians, are not related to those early Americans: they come more recently from Asia and are related to the Eskimals.
Now archaeologists have found in the islands a whalebone mask, probably broken during an Aleut funeral 3,000 years ago. "The mask is about 2,000 years older than any other to have been found. Only the upper half of the mask was found and it had old cracks in it," Mike Yarborough, who heads the dig on Unalaska Island in the Aleutians, told The Anchorage Daily News.
Archaeologists started the dig because a new bridge is to be constructed there, replacing an old wooden-decked one. The dig was planned just for a month, but it has been prolonged as the site has appeared to contain much more remains than previously thought.
3,000 years ago, the Aleutians experienced a much colder clime and the archipelago was surrounded by ice year-round. The inhabitants built stone houses with under-floor air spaces for heating. A similar 1,000-year-old mask was discovered on the nearby Alaskan peninsula. Denise Rankin, vice president of the tribal corporation on Unalaska, said the eyes and other facial traits resemble those of the modern Aleutians.
"They look just like an Aleut face," said Rankin.
Aleutians are famous for their mummies (till now 50 have been found in a cave), most of them 250 years old. The mummies were mummified following a complex process.
Their organs were removed and the abdominal cavity was stuffed with dry grass. Next the body was laid in a stream and the running water dissolved the body's fat, leaving only lean tissues. Then the body was tied in a squatting position and put to dry in the open air. The dry mummy was covered in layers of waterproof leather and woven clothing and protected in a warm cave, either hung from the ceiling or placed on a platform to keep it away from the wet floor.