While ancient Alaskan residents were known to hunt large game, the newly discovered site shows they also foraged for fish, birds and small mammals, he explained. “Here we know there were young children and females. So, this is a whole piece of the settlement system that we had virtually no record of.”

The site of the discovery, Upper Sun River, is in the forest of the Tanana lowlands in central Alaska, Potter and his colleagues report.

Potter said the find, which included evidence of what appeared to be a seasonal house and the cremated remains of the child, “is truly spectacular in all senses of the word.”

“Before this find, we knew people were hunting large game like bison or elk with sophisticated weapons, but most of sites we had to study were hunting camps,” Potter said.

Now they have the remains of the residence, which they say was occupied in summer, based on the evidence of bones from salmon and immature ground squirrels.

The cremated human bones are the “first evidence for behavior associated with the death of an individual,” Potter said. “This was a living, breathing human being that lived and died,” he said.

Based on its teeth, the child was about 3 years old, according to archaeologist Joel Irish, also of the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

While the researchers were not able to determine the sex of the child from the bones, Potter said they hope to obtain a DNA sample that might give them the answer.

The child has been named Xaasaa Cheege Ts’eniin (or Upward Sun River Mouth Child) by the local Native community, the Healy Lake Tribe.

In addition to the human and animal bones at the site, the researchers also found stone tools used for cutting.

William Fitzhugh, director of Arctic studies at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, agreed that “this is definitely a unique and important site.”

He said the most interesting aspects were the very early, well-dated home site and its broad range of small animal food remains, stone tools, hearth pit and a possible ritual cremation site, “all with strong associations to Siberia. Indeed, a great documentation of one of America’s first families,” said Fitzhugh, who was not part of the research team.

While these bones represent the earliest human remains in the U.S. Arctic, there is evidence people had passed through Alaska earlier. Indeed, human DNA has been extracted from dried excrement deposited in caves in Oregon some 14,300 years ago and the well-known Clovis Culture flourished in parts of the United States 13,000 years ago.

The new find adds to knowledge of the pioneering people of Beringia, the region extending from eastern Siberia into Alaska, which was connected by a land-bridge across the Bering Strait thousands of years ago, aiding the movement of people from Asia into North America.

The researchers said the stone artifacts, house structure and the types of animal remains more closely resemble items found at Siberia’s Ushki Lake than to anything from the U.S.’s lower 48 states.

While Potter reported that the child probably died before being cremated, Michael Kunz, an archaeologist with the Bureau of Land Management in Fairbanks, suggested another possibility: “I don’t think that there is any more evidence that the burned remains of the child indicate a cremation than they indicate that the child may have been cooked and eaten.”

The body was found buried in the fire pit, Kunz noted via e-mail, and “the bones that are missing are the bones that have the most flesh on them and would most likely be used for food.”

“Cannibalism among humans is not new news,” added Kunz, who was not part of Potter’s team.

Potter said he disagreed, because it appeared soft tissue remained when the child was burned.

And Irish said the child had been laid out with knees drawn up and hands placed to one side in a relatively peaceful position. Missing bones, he said, could simply have been destroyed by the fire.

Kunz did agree with the researchers that it is a unique find, commenting: “This is also, to my knowledge, the earliest known example of a formal dwelling in Eastern Beringia.”

And, he added, “it bolsters evidence from other sites in the Tanana Valley the Paleo-Indians in the region were not just big game hunters, but foraged widely.”

The research was funded by the National Science Foundation.

——

Online: http://www.sciencemag.org

“Our findings, which provide the first data ever on microbial activity from a deepwater dispersed oil plume, suggest” a great potential for bacteria to help dispose of oil plumes in the deep-sea, Hazen said in a statement.

Environmentalists have raised concerns about the giant oil spill and the underwater plume of dispersed oil, particularly its potential effects on sea life. A report just last week described a 22-mile long underwater mist of tiny oil droplets.

“Our findings show that the influx of oil profoundly altered the microbial community by significantly stimulating deep-sea” cold temperature bacteria that are closely related to known petroleum-degrading microbes, Hazen reported.

Their findings are based on more than 200 samples collected from 17 deepwater sites between May 25 and June 2. They found that the dominant microbe in the oil plume is a new species, closely related to members of Oceanospirillales.

This microbe thrives in cold water, with temperatures in the deep recorded at 5 degrees Celsius (41 Fahrenheit).

Hazen suggested that the bacteria may have adapted over time due to periodic leaks and natural seeps of oil in the Gulf.

Scientists also had been concerned that oil-eating activity by microbes would consume large amounts of oxygen in the water, creating a “dead zone” dangerous to other life. But the new study found that oxygen saturation outside the oil plume was 67-percent while within the plume it was 59-percent.

The research was supported by an existing grant with the Energy Biosciences Institute, a partnership led by the University of California Berkeley and the University of Illinois that is funded by a $500 million, 10-year grant from BP. Other support came from the U.S. Department of Energy and the University of Oklahoma Research Foundation.

Sciencexpress is the online edition of the journal Science.

——

Online: http://www.sciencexpress.org.

The post office lost $3.8 billion last year, despite cutting 40,000 full-time positions and making other reductions, and Kearney said it is facing a $7 billion loss for this year and the same for fiscal 2011, which begins in October. The rate increase would bring in $2.5 billion, meaning there still would be a large loss for next year.

The post office, though part of the government, does not receive a tax subsidy for its operations.

While the cost of a first-class stamp would go up, people who bought Forever stamps at the current 44 cents or at lower prices would still be able to use them without paying the difference.

Officials also said they plan a new design for Forever stamps, which currently have am image of the Liberty Bell. New Forever stamps will have images of evergreen trees. All Forever stamps would remain valid.

Under the proposed increases, in addition to the 46-cent rate for the first ounce, the cost for each additional ounce would go up a penny to 18 cents. The cost to mail a post card would go up 2 cents to 30 cents.

The price to send periodicals would go up about 8 percent, and other rates for advertising mail, parcels and services would rise by varying amounts.

The current 44-cent first-class rate took effect May 11, 2009.

The rate increases proposed Tuesday now go to the independent Postal Rate Commission, which has 90 days to respond. If approved the new prices would take effect Jan. 2, Kearney said. Besides the first-class increase, postage costs would rise an average of 5 percent.

After going more than three years without an increase, the post office has raised stamp prices annually since 2006.

The latest increase is part of a series of deficit-fighting plans, announced in March, that include reducing mail deliveries to five days a week, closing offices and making other cuts in expenses. Congress would have to agree to eliminating deliveries on Saturdays.

The weak economy has sharply reduced mail volume as companies cut their advertising. At the same time there has been a significant drop in lucrative first-class mail, with more and more people turning to the Internet to communicate with each other as well as to receive and pay bills.

The proposal drew a quick complaint from the mailing industry.

“This proposed rate increase amounts to another tax imposed on Americans at a time when the economy can least afford it,” said Tony Conway, executive director of the Alliance of Nonprofit Mailers, a group representing charities and other organizations.

“Consumers everywhere will pay more for the letters and packages they need to send; businesses — large and small — will suffer, and even more jobs will be lost,” complained Conway, who was designated spokesman for the Affordable Mail Alliance, a coalition of businesses, charities and other mailers formed to oppose the increase.

Post office finances are complicated by a requirement that the agency make annual payments of more than $5 billion to fund future health benefits for retirees, something not required of other government agencies. The post office avoided financial disaster last year only after Congress allowed it to delay $4 billion of that payment.

The postal inspector general also contends that the Postal Service has been overcharged billions of dollars for retirement benefits for employees who worked for the old Post Office Department before it was converted to the Postal Service in 1970.

——

Online: http://www.usps.com