A team of researchers led by the University of Colorado Boulder
has discovered the first prehistoric bronze artifact made from a
cast ever found in Alaska, a small, buckle-like object found in
an ancient Eskimo dwelling and which likely originated in East
Asia. The artifact consists of two parts -- a rectangular bar,
connected to an apparently broken circular ring, said CU-Boulder
Research Associate John Hoffecker, who is leading the excavation
project. The object, about 2 inches by 1 inch and less than 1
inch thick, was found in August by a team excavating a roughly
1,000-year-old house that had been dug into the side of a beach
ridge by early Inupiat Eskimos at Cape Espenberg on the Seward
Peninsula, which lies within the Bering Land Bridge National
Preserve. Both sections of the artifact are beveled on one side
and concave on the other side, indicating it was manufactured in
a mold, said Hoffecker, a fellow at CU-Boulder's Institute of
Arctic and Alpine Research. A small piece of leather found
wrapped arou