It is a pattern that has defined the subsistence strategies of Athabascan communities in the Tanana Valley for as long as those communities have been in the region.

And the salmon bones at Upward Sun River document that this pattern extends back at least 11,500 years — to the very beginning of the well-documented human occupation of the site.

The implications are significant on several levels.

They demonstrate that the people of the ancient site were not simply passing through, not explorers in the sense of people encountering an unfamiliar landscape for the first time.

They were people who knew this landscape — who knew when the salmon would arrive, where the best fishing spots were, how to process and preserve the catch.