Archaeologists Discover 11,000-Year-Old Infant Remains in Alaska: Bones Could Reveal More About Ancient Hunter-Gatherers [Pics]

A 2013 excavation in central Alaska unearthed the remains of two infants buried over 11,000 years ago.

According to University of Alaska Fairbanks, the uncovered bones -- one set belonging to a child who survived birth by a few weeks and another who died in the womb -- represent the youngest human remains ever found in North America and may shed new light onto ancient funeral practices as well as the stresses and survival methods of a hunter/gatherer society at the end of the last great Ice Age.

According to a paper just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the area of the excavation contained artifacts and grave offerings, such as shaped stonepoints and decorated antler foreshafts, which could be some of the oldest examples of compound weapons in North America.

The dig was led by Dr. Ben Potter, an anthropological archaeologist and researcher at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

The remains were found at the Paleolithic Upward Sun River site near the Tanana River, 15 inches beneath the hearth of a cremated 3-year old child that was discovered in 2010.

The radiocarbon dates of the unearthed infants are identical to those of the previous find.

Examining dental and skeletal remains to determine the age and sex of the infants at their time of death, the international group of researchers saw evidence that the buried were part of a highly mobile group of foragers facing food shortage in a time that, due to the presence of salmon-like fish and ground squirrels in the burial pit, was likely between June and August.

Of his findings, which were funded by the National Science Foundation, Potter notes that collectively, "these burials and cremation reflect complex behaviors related to death among the early inhabits of North America."

An UAF press release about the find expresses the researchers’ conceit that a discovery of this scale is valuable to science because “there is little direct evidence about social organization and mortuary practices of such early human cultures, which had no written language."