Mask is 3,000 years old, says professor
The partial mask was discovered earlier this month while the archaeologists were unearthing an ancient village, and it is, they say, about 2,000 years older than any known Aleut mask.
It was created around the time Homer was producing the Iliad and Odyssey.
The Earth had suddenly cooled, and ice surrounded the Aleutian Islands almost year-round, Rick Knecht, an archaeologist and University of Alaska Fairbanks professor, told the Anchorage Daily News.
Residents of the ancient site — a village marked by unprecedented stone houses and ivory carvings — ate polar bears, ice seals that no longer visited the island, and a type of whale that had never been documented in North American waters, Prof Knecht said.
The village in the city of Unalaska was occupied between 2,400 and 3,400 years ago, but materials found near the mask indicate it is 3,000 years old, he says.
The village has yielded several important discoveries, including the remains of dozens of homes which had stone walls and sub-floor heating ducts to spread heat through the premises.
Archaeologists have also found some well-preserved human remains from ceremonial burials and jewellery such as an ivory hair pin with decorative faces carved on both sides.
