Aleut - History and Cultural Relations

Archaeological evidence is clear that Aleuts have lived in the Aleutian archipelago for at least the last four thousand years. Although the oldest archaeological site in the Aleutians dates to eight thousand years ago, it is not certain that the cultural, biological, and linguistic affiliations of its occupants were Aleut. Very few sites are known from between eight thousand and four thousand years ago. Because of their Residence in a geographic cul-de-sac, Aleuts had only infrequent and largely inconsequential contact with other peoples Except their Eskimo neighbors to the east on the Alaska Peninsula and Kodiak Island, with whom Aleuts both traded and fought.