Archaeologists uncover remains of children from Ice Age

The remains, which were buried more than 11,000 years ago and date to the Pleistocene epoch, are the youngest human remains ever found in the North American Arctic.

Archaeologists discovered the remains during a 2013 excavation at the Upward Sun River site, near the Tanana River in central Alaska. The findings are described in a new paper in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Ben Potter, lead author of the paper and a researcher at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, told Phys.org that the findings could give new insight into the inhabitants' funeral practices. The infant bones were found cremated in a pit beneath a residential hearth.

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The archaeologists also found grave offerings including decorated antlers, which would have been used as weapons, as well as stone points. They also found remains of fish and squirrels in the burial pit, suggesting that hunter-gatherers lived at the site.