The Tanana Valley is a lowland region in central

Alaska Alaska ( ) is a non-contiguous U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. Part of the Western United States region, it is one of the two non-contiguous U.S. states, alongside Hawaii. Alaska is also considered to be the north ...

in the United States, on the north side of the

Alaska Range The Alaska Range is a relatively narrow, mountain range in the Southcentral Alaska, southcentral region of the U.S. state of Alaska, from Lake Clark at its southwest endSources differ as to the exact delineation of the Alaska Range. ThBoard on G ...

, where the Tanana River emerges from the mountains. Traditional inhabitants of the valley are Tanana Athabaskans of Alaskan Athabaskans.

Climate

The region experiences great extremes of temperature during the year. During the winter months, the air is prone to stratification due to temperature inversions, leading to thick fogs. At the same time, a

katabatic wind A katabatic wind (named ) is a downslope wind caused by the flow of an elevated, high-density air mass into a lower-density air mass below under the force of gravity. The spelling catabatic is also used. Since air density is strongly dependent o ...

called the "Tanana Valley Jet" can form, blowing from the southeast to the northwest. During the summer, the surrounding plains are generally boglike, and include much

permafrost Permafrost () is soil or underwater sediment which continuously remains below for two years or more; the oldest permafrost has been continuously frozen for around 700,000 years. Whilst the shallowest permafrost has a vertical extent of below ...

and many pingos.

Communities

The Tanana Valley is the most populated area of Alaska north of the Alaska Range. Its largest city is Fairbanks. Other communities include: *

College A college (Latin: ''collegium'') may be a tertiary educational institution (sometimes awarding degrees), part of a collegiate university, an institution offering vocational education, a further education institution, or a secondary sc ...

* Chena Hot Springs * Eielson AFB *

Ester In chemistry, an ester is a compound derived from an acid (either organic or inorganic) in which the hydrogen atom (H) of at least one acidic hydroxyl group () of that acid is replaced by an organyl group (R). These compounds contain a distin ...

* Fort Wainwright * Fox * Manley Hot Springs * Nenana *

North Pole The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is the point in the Northern Hemisphere where the Earth's rotation, Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. It is called the True North Pole to distingu ...

* Tok * Two Rivers * Pleasant Valley * Salcha

Archaeology

According to James Q. Jacobs, Tanana Valley has the earliest evidence of human occupation in Alaska.

"At least three distinct lithic complexes appear in the Alaskan archaeological record at approximately the same time, between 12,060 and 11,660 B.P. The earliest firm evidence of human occupation is in the Tanana Valley in Alaska. At the Broken Mammoth, Swan Point, Mead, and Healy Lake, Alaska sites, the oldest dates range between 12,060 BP and 11,410. These sites contain cultural remains considered ancestral to today's Alaskan Native inhabitants. The oldest stratified sites in the Nenana Valley region date to from 11,820 to 11,010 BP. The Mesa complex in northern Alaska dates to 11,660 BP."

More recently, Tanana Valley sites have been dated to pre-Clovis period, or 13,000–14,000 cal yr BP.Tanana River Valley Archaeology circa 14,000 to 9000 B.P.
Charles E. Holmes. ''Arctic Anthropology''. Vol. 38, No. 2, Between Two Worlds: Late Pleistocene Cultural and Technological Diversity in Eastern Beringia (2001), pp. 154–170

Sites

The Broken Mammoth site, the

Swan Point Archaeological Site The Swan Point Archeological Site is located in eastern central Alaska, in the Tanana River watershed. It is one of a collection of sites in the area that have yielded the oldest evidence of human habitation in the state, in addition to megafaun ...

, and the Mead Archaeological Site are the earliest dated sites in Alaska. They are located along the Tanana River.

Notes

External links