The Arctic Small Tool tradition (ASTt) was a broad cultural entity that developed along the Alaska Peninsula, around Bristol Bay, and on the eastern shores of the Bering Strait around 2500 BC.
Typically tool types include scrapers, burins and side and end blades used in composite arrows or spears made of other materials, such as bone or antler.
ASTt camps are often found along coasts and streams, to take advantage of seal or salmon populations.
While some of the groups were fairly nomadic, more permanent, sod-roofed homes have also been identified from Arctic Small Tool tradition sites.
According to Pavel Flegontov, the ASTt may have originated in East Siberia about 5,000 years ago, a view supported by an ancient DNA study:[2] The earliest form of the Norton tradition of Alaska is known as the Choris Stage (ca.