Norton Hunters and Fisherfolk

By the late centuries B.C., occupations assigned to Norton people are reported from a southern point on the Alaska Peninsula, then north and eastward along coastal areas to a point east of the present border with Canada. The relatively uniform material culture suggests origin from the north and west (pottery from Asia, chipped-stone artifacts from predecessors in northern Alaska), as well as from the south and east (lip ornaments or labrets, and pecked-stone lamps burning sea-mammal oil). In early centuries A.D., Norton people north and east of Bering Strait yielded to Asian-influenced peoples more strongly focused on coastal resources, while those south of the Strait collected in sites along salmon-rich streams where they developed with increasing sedentarism until about A.D. 1000, when final Thule-related expansion along coasts from the north displaced or incorporated Norton remnants.