Norton Tradition
The Norton Tradition refers to a significant prehistoric cultural framework that spanned regions from Bristol Bay and the Alaska Peninsula across the Bering Sea to Greenland, and down to the North Pacific coast. This tradition is characterized by the Choris, Norton, and Ipiutak cultures, which thrived from approximately 3000 BCE to 1200 CE, with a well-established presence by 500 BCE. The Norton culture itself is specifically noted to have flourished between 2500 BCE and 1000 CE, primarily around the Bering Sea before it transitioned to the Ipiutak culture, which existed from 100 to 700 CE.
Archaeological findings at sites like Point Hope reveal extensive underground housing and elaborate burial practices, indicating a rich cultural life. The Norton Tradition is also identified as a precursor to the Yupik culture, which has persisted into contemporary times. Additionally, the artifacts associated with these cultures, including intricate ivory carvings and flaked stone tools, suggest connections to earlier traditions like the Arctic Small Tool tradition and potentially to broader influences from regions such as Siberia and the Scythian tradition of Asia. Despite variations among different groups within the Norton Tradition, they collectively demonstrate adaptive strategies to their environments through hunting, fishing, and localized cultural practices.
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Norton Tradition
Related civilizations: Choris culture, Ipiutak culture.
Date: 500 b.c.e.-700 c.e.
Locale: Subarctic North America
Norton Tradition
The Norton tradition reached from Bristol Bay and the Alaska peninsula, north along the Bering Sea and east all the way to Greenland, and south to the north Pacific coast. It consisted of the Choris, Norton, and Ipiutak cultures. It persisted from 3000 b.c.e. to 1200 c.e. and was well established by 500 b.c.e. It was followed by the cultures that make up the Thule tradition, ancestral to the Ipiutak, whose remains are found at an excavation in the Point Hope area of Alaska, consisting of hundreds of underground houses and a cemetery in which lavish burials were performed. The dig yielded intricate ivory carvings that suggest origins in Siberia. Flaked stone artifacts indicate origins in the Arctic Small Tool tradition, which appeared around 4000 b.c.e., also called the Denbigh Flint complex. The tools are named after another site on Norton Sound.
Norton culture proper can be dated from 2500 b.c.e. to about 1000 c.e. around the Bering Sea. It continued south to the Pacific coast by 600 c.e. and was superseded by the Ipiutak culture. The Norton tradition was ancestral to the Yupik culture as well. The Ipiutak culture lasted from 100 to 700 c.e., and the Yupik began as early as 100 b.c.e. and continued into the present, although neither spread as far to the south.
Possible earlier cultures, also of the Thule tradition, the Okvik and Old Bering Sea, were found all across the Bering Strait, back to coastal Siberia, possibly even originating in the Scythian tradition of Asia. However, authorities differ, and some feel these cultures could have evolved from the Norton, though this view is supported mostly by conjecture. The groups of this tradition differed somewhat in the styles evident in their artifacts, cultural uses and practices in varied environments, evidence of pottery, and whether they depended primarily on hunting, fishing, or a combination of both in shaping their culture.
Bibliography
Dixon, E. James. Quest for the Origins of the First Americans. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1994.
Giddings, James Louis. The Archaeology of Cape Denbigh. Providence, R.I.: Brown University Press, 1964.