Definition:
Denali is the term used by archaeologists to define a Paleoarctic tradition of microblade tools typical of the Alaska interior and the Yukon Territory. It dates between 10,500 and 8000 BC and it seems to have replaced the Nenana complex, since in many archaeological sites it has been often found above these deposits. It takes its name from the Denali mountain (McKinley Mountain), which in the Athabaskan language means “the high one”.
The Denali complex includes microblades and microblade cores, scrapers, flakes, burins and bifacial points and knives. These microblades are very similar to the Dyuktai complex of Siberia, from which it seems to have originated. Denali assemblages are widespread along the North Pacific coast and the Bering sea and in the Alaska Range.
Sites containing Denali complex artifacts include: Dry Creek, Healy Lake Village site, Donnelly Ridge site, Teklanika River sites.
Sources
p>This glossary entry is a part of the About.com guide to North American Archaeology, and the Dictionary of Archaeology.Ames Kenneth M. and Herbert D.G. Maschner, 1999, Peoples of the Northwest Coast. Their Archaeology and Prehistory, Thames and Hudson, London
West, Frederick H., 1975, Dating the Denali Complex, Arctic Anthropology, Vol. 12, No. 1, pp. 76-81