Origin: A Genetic History of the Americas

Small Tool tradition (in Alaska, it’s called the Denbigh Flint complex); this
tradition seems to have come from the Neolithic Bel’katchi in Siberia.
The Paleo-Inuit are classified in different ways according to geography.
In northern Alaska, the Denbigh Flint complex evolved into traditions
referred to successively as Choris, Norton, and Ipiutak; the Ipiutak
settlement at Nuvuk lasted from around 330–390 CE. In the Canadian
Arctic, Paleo-Inuit sites appear around 3200 BCE and are generally referred
to as Pre-Dorset, then successively Early Dorset, Middle Dorset, and Late
Dorset. In the northern Arctic archipelago and northern Greenland, Paleo-
Inuit sites appear around 2400 BCE, and are called Independence I. In the
rest of Greenland, they are referred to as Saqqaq, which appears around
2400 BCE.
There were important cultural, technological, and geographic differences
between these traditions. In northern Alaska, the Paleo-Inuit maintained
long-distance trading networks across the Bering Sea to Kamchatka, along
which they traded meteoric iron, chert from the Brooks Range, art, and
cultural traditions. They had a rich and complex pantheon of deities, many
related to the natural world. In addition to circular dwellings for their
families, they built communal structures called qargi, spaced out at
intervals along northwestern Alaska, which they may have used for
community gatherings, trade, and rituals. It is also possible that they made
and lived in snow houses, but this is difficult to confirm, as these structures
would not have lasted long.
The Pre-Dorset lived seasonally in small camps—likely made up of
hunting bands of several families during some parts of the year and in
individual nuclear families during other times. Their summer houses were
generally circular, tent-like structures that are visible today as round
arrangements of stones that were used to keep down the skin coverings.
They likely lived in different kinds of structures during the winter months,
possibly snow houses. Archaeologists have documented numerous changes
to the tool technologies, artistic traditions, and houses associated with the
Early Dorset through Late Dorset periods.
Saqqaq peoples also lived primarily in nuclear family units within
circular tent-like structures, which they anchored by double rows of stones
that are still visible today. In some cases, they surrounded their tents with a