Tanana Athabaskans


The Tanana Athabaskans, Tanana Athabascans, or Tanana Athapaskans are an Alaskan Athabaskan people from 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 with a matrilineal system. Tanana Athabaskans were semi-nomadic and lived 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, as well as 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.
Their neighbors are other Athabaskan-speaking peoples: in Alaska, Koyukon, Gwich'in, Hän, Dena'ina, and Ahtna ; in Canada Hän and Northern and Southern Tutchone. The language of the Upper Kuskokwim people is more closely related to the Lower Tanana language, but not neighbor.

Bands

The homeland of the Tanana Athabaskan people can be generally divided into four distinct sections. 1) the Yukon Tanana upland draining to the Tanana River, 2) the Northway-Tanacross Lowlands, 3) the Eastern Alaskan range draining into the Tanana River, and 4) the Northern foothills.
The Goodpaster River, a 91-mile tributary of the Tanana River, is considered to be a natural break in the Tanana Athabaskan language area, separating upriver speakers of the Tanacross and Upper Tanana languages from the Lower Tanana speakers living farther downriver.
The Tanana Athabaskans have a system of matrilineal kinship. The Athabaskans loosely recognized membership in a larger bilateral group called the regional band, but the more important social unit was the local band. In the winter, the regional band might split up into smaller units, called local bands, each one made up of perhaps four nuclear families. The regional band might meet again at a predetermined place and time in mid-winter for a gathering ceremony called a potlatch and then split up again for beaver and muskrat trapping.
At the end of the 19th century there were twelve regional bands living in the Tanana Athabaskan homeland: six downriver bands and six upriver bands.

Lower Tanana

The Lower Tanana regional bands:
  • Minto band or Minto Flats band – inhabiting the Minto Flats and Old Minto area. Neighbors: Gwich'in people, Koyukon people, Nenana-Toklat band, Wood River band, Chena band.
  • Nenana-Toklat band – inhabiting the Nenana River, Nenana Valley and Toklat River area. Neighbors: Koyukon people, Dena'ina people, Minto band, Wood River band.
  • Wood River band – inhabiting the Wood River area. Neighbors: Dena'ina people, Nenana-Toklat band, Minto and Chena bands, Salcha band.
  • Chena band — inhabiting the Chena River and Chena Village area. Neighbors: Gwich'in people, Minto band, Salcha band.

    Middle Tanana

The Middle Tanana regional bands:
  • Salcha band – inhabiting the Salcha River area. Neighbors: Hän people, Ahtna people, Chena band, Wood River band, Delta-Goodpaster band.
  • Delta-Goodpaster band – inhabiting the Big Delta, Delta River and Goodpaster River area. Neighbors: Hän people, Ahtna people, Salcha band, Healy River-Joseph band.

    Tanacross

The Tanacross regional bands:
  • Healy River-Joseph band – inhabiting the formerly Joseph Village, Healy Lake, Lake George, Sam Lake area. Neighbors: Delta-Goodpaster band, Hän people, Ahtna people, Mansfeld-Kechumstuk band, Healy River-Joseph band.
  • Mansfeld-Kechumstuk band — inhabiting nowadays Tanacross and Dot Lake, formerly Ketchumsuk, Mosquito Fork, Lake Mansfield, Mansfield Hill, Old Mansfield Village, Mansfield Village, Robertson River, Tok River, Tok area. Neighbors: Healy River-Joseph band, Hän people, Ahtna people, Tetlin-Last Tetlin band.
  • * Dihthâad Xtʼeen Iin
  • * Yaadóg Xtʼeen Iin.

    Upper Tanana

The Upper Tanana regional bands:
  • Tetlin-Last Tetlin band – formerly inhabiting the Tetlin, Last Tetlin and Tetlin Lake area. Neighbors: Mansfeld-Kechumstuk band, Hän people, Ahtna people, Lower Nabesna band.
  • Lower Nabesna band — formerly inhabiting the Northway, Jol, Nabesna Village, Gardiner Creek, Nabesna River, Chisana River area. Neighbors: Tetlin-Last Tetlin band, Hän people, Ahtna people, Scottie Creek band.
  • Scottie Creek band — formerly inhabiting the Scottie Creek area. Neighbors: Lower Nabesna band, Hän people, Ahtna people, Northern Tutchone people of Canada.
  • Upper Nabesna-Upper Chisana/Upper Chisana-Upper Nabesna band – formerly inhabiting the Nabesna, Nabesna River, Chisana River, Cross Creek, Chisana area. Neighbors: Ahtna people, other Upper Tanana bands, Southern Tutchone people of Canada.

    Prehistory

s in Alaska are where some of the earliest evidence has been found of Paleo-Indians. Alaska Interior or Interior Alaska has been continuously inhabited for the last 14,000 ~ 12,000 years, and evidence of this continuum of human activity is preserved within and around Fort Wainwright's training lands. Interior Alaska's icefree status during the last glacial period provided a corridor connecting the Bering Land Bridge and northeastern Asia to North America. The earliest cultural remains in interior Alaska, as on the coast, are chipped stone blade complexes about 10,000 years old, with close relationships to Siberian materials. In February 2008, a proposal connecting Asiatic Yeniseian languages of central Siberia to American Na-Dené languages into a Dené–Yeniseian family was published and well received by a number of linguists. The homeland of the Athabaskan languages is northwestern Canada and southern/eastern Alaska.
After initial colonization, archaeologists generally divide Interior Alaska's prehistory into three broad archaeological themes:

Paleo-Arctic tradition

Paleo-Arctic tradition is a term now generally used by archaeologists to refer to the earliest settled people known from all over Alaska. In Interior Alaska, Paleo-Arctic tradition historically included two cultural divisions called the Nenana and Denali complexes.

Nenana complex

The Nenana complex was defined by W. R. Powers and John F. Hoffecker. The Nenana complex began approximately 11,000 years ago. It is widely regarded as part of the Palaeoindian tradition and a likely Beringian progenitor of the Clovis Complex. Many Nenana Complex archaeological sites are located in the Tanana Valley: Broken Mammoth, Chugwater, Donnelly Ridge, Healy Lake, Mead, and Swan Point.

Denali complex

The Denali complex, dated roughly to 10,500 to 8,000 years ago, was originally defined by F. H West. Some Denali Complex archaeological sites: Mt. Hayes, Swan Point, and Gerstle River. Both Nenana and Denali technology persist in central Alaska throughout the Holocene. The relationship between the proposed Nenana and Denali complexes is, as of yet, unresolved. The boreal forest in Interior Alaska was established 8,000 years ago.
Two ice-age infants discovered at an ancient residential campsite in Interior Alaska near the Tanana River east of Fairbanks are the oldest human remains ever found in the North American Arctic and Subarctic, and among the oldest discovered on the entire continent, according to researchers with the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Discovered in 2013, the remains of the two infants date from 11,500 years ago, near the end of the last ice age.

Northern Archaic tradition

The Northern Archaic tradition flourished 6,000–1,000 years ago. Site density increased again after about 6,000 years ago in Interior Alaska. This population increase coincides roughly with the Northern Archaic Tradition and the appearance of side-notched projectile points. Douglas D. Anderson originally defined the Northern Archaic Tradition to specifically address notched point-bearing stratigraphic horizons that did not contain microblades at the Onion Portage site in northern Alaska. Notched point assemblages occur in many sites in Interior Alaska, including over one dozen on the U.S. Army's Fort Wainwright lands. Several sites, including the excavated Banjo Lake site in Donnelly Training Area, have also produced middle Holocene dates from hearth charcoal. The 6,300- to 6,700-year-old dates from Banjo Lake were also associated with a microblade component.

Athabascan tradition

The Athabaskan tradition flourished 1,300–800 years ago. Linguistic evidence suggests that the Athabaskan culture may have appeared in the Tanana Valley as early as 2,500 years ago. Through ethnography, oral history, and a broad array of cultural items, much has been learned about Athabaskan culture and history in the region. Artifacts associated with the Athabaskan culture are exceptionally diverse and include bone and antler projectile points, fishhooks, beads, buttons, birch bark trays, and bone gaming pieces. In the Upper Tanana region, native copper was available and used in addition to the traditional material types to manufacture tools such as knives, projectile points, awls, ornaments, and axes. A late prehistoric Athabaskan occupation is recognized at several sites in and around U.S. Army Garrison, Fort Wainwright's training lands. The Athabaskan Tradition includes late prehistoric and proto-historic cultures generally believed to be the ancestors of Athabascan tribes who currently inhabit Interior Alaska. Excavated Athabaskan sites are rare, but the limited body of evidence allows for several generalizations. Athabascan settlement patterns depended greatly on the availability of subsistence resources, and Interior bands lived a nomadic lifestyle.