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January 26th, 2021, 6:00AM / BY Abigail Eisenstadt
These walrus ivory carvings were collected in the mid-1880s. They were featured in a catalogue for the exhibition "Looking Both Ways: Heritage and Identity of the Alutiiq People" at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in 2003. (Carl C. Hansen, Smithsonian)
After even one month of cold, snow and ice, the wintery landscape seems dreary and bleak. But appearances are deceptive — and no place is better proof of this fact than the Arctic, where people have lived for over 30,000 years.
"This is a unique part of the world because it’s the only place where you have such similar environments in animals, resources and cultures,” said Dr. William Fitzhugh, curator of North American archaeology and director of the Arctic Studies Center at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. "The rest of the world is divided by vast oceans which restricted communication until recent times.”