The ancestors of modern Inuit, Yupik, and Aleut peoples came from Siberia, crossing into North America through the Bering Strait region thousands of years ago. Their story isn’t a single migration but a series of population movements spanning millennia, with the most recent major wave arriving in Greenland less than 1,000 years ago.
A note on terminology: “Eskimo” is an older umbrella term that groups together several distinct Indigenous peoples of the Arctic. In Canada and Greenland, the preferred term is Inuit. In Alaska, some groups (particularly Yupik peoples) still use “Eskimo” because “Inuit” doesn’t accurately describe them. These are related but culturally and linguistically separate peoples with different histories.
Siberian Roots and the Bering Strait
Genetic and linguistic evidence points to southwestern Alaska and the Bering Strait as the staging ground for Arctic cultures. The language family shared by all these groups, called Inuit-Aleut, traces its homeland to this region. But the deeper roots go back to Siberia. Genomic studies have found that several Siberian populations, including the Kets, Nganasans, Selkups, and Yukaghirs, form a cluster of peoples most closely related to the earliest Arctic migrants (known archaeologically as Paleo-Eskimos). These Siberian groups also share ancestry with ancient populations from the Altai region of south-central Siberia, suggesting a deep common origin in interior Northeast Asia before some groups moved toward the coast and eventually across the strait.
The Aleut branch split off early. Proto-Aleut populations mixed with speakers of Dene languages in southwestern Alaska roughly 4,800 to 3,700 years ago, then spread across the Alaska Peninsula, Kodiak Island, and the Kenai Peninsula. This contact reshaped their language and culture, making Aleut quite different from its Inuit and Yupik relatives. About 1,000 years ago, southward-expanding Yupik speakers replaced or absorbed many of these Proto-Aleut communities.
The First Wave: Paleo-Eskimos
The earliest Arctic inhabitants in North America are called Paleo-Eskimos by archaeologists. They crossed from Siberia into Alaska and eventually spread eastward across the Canadian Arctic. One of their most well-known cultures is the Dorset, which occupied the Eastern Arctic for thousands of years. The Dorset people were skilled hunters adapted to sea ice environments, but they were not the direct ancestors of today’s Inuit. Genetic studies have confirmed that the Paleo-Eskimo and later Inuit lineages are largely distinct, meaning the Inuit descend from a separate, later migration wave rather than from the Dorset people already living in the region.
The Thule Migration: Ancestors of Modern Inuit
The culture that gave rise to today’s Inuit is called the Thule tradition. It developed along coastal Alaska, likely growing out of an earlier Alaskan tradition called Norton, and dates from roughly 1 AD to 1500 AD. Around 1000 AD, Thule peoples began a rapid eastward expansion from the Bering Strait region, spreading across the entire North American Arctic. They reached Canada and ultimately Greenland, covering an enormous stretch of coastline in a remarkably short period.
What made this expansion possible was sophisticated maritime technology. Thule culture was built around hunting large sea mammals, particularly bowhead whales. They used skin boats capable of open-water travel, toggling harpoons designed for whale hunting, and dog sleds for overland and ice travel. This toolkit gave them a decisive advantage in exploiting Arctic resources and moving quickly across vast distances.
Climate played a role too. Archaeologists have identified the Medieval Warm Period as a likely driver of population movements in the Arctic. Warmer temperatures reduced sea ice, opening coastal routes and shifting the range of bowhead whales eastward. This may have pulled Thule hunters along with their prey, effectively creating a corridor for migration from Alaska through the Canadian archipelago to Greenland.
What Happened to the Dorset People
When the Thule Inuit arrived in the Eastern Arctic during the mid-thirteenth century, they encountered the Dorset people who had lived there for centuries. Radiocarbon dating confirms that the Dorset persisted in parts of the Eastern Arctic until the first half of the fourteenth century, meaning the two cultures overlapped in the region for at least 50 and possibly up to 100 years. Despite this overlap, there is very little direct evidence that the two groups interacted much. Archaeologists describe this as an “avoidance” model: the Dorset and Thule likely knew of each other but mostly kept their distance. Within a few generations of Inuit arrival, the Dorset disappeared from the archaeological record entirely.
Greenland: The Final Frontier
Inuit ancestors entered northwestern Greenland from Arctic Canada less than 1,000 years ago, then migrated south along the west coast and north again following the east coast. This population went through an extreme genetic bottleneck, more severe than any recorded European population, including historically isolated groups like Icelanders and Finns. A bottleneck happens when a population shrinks drastically, and only a small number of individuals pass on their genes to future generations. In Greenland’s case, this means the founding Inuit population was very small, and that genetic signature is still visible today. Greenlandic Inuit have fewer genetic variants overall, but the variants they do carry tend to be more common within the population.
This isolation also made certain genetic adaptations more prominent. Greenlandic Inuit carry distinctive genetic variants related to fat metabolism, reflecting thousands of years of adaptation to a diet dominated by marine mammals and fish. These aren’t just historical curiosities; they actively influence how the body processes nutrients and are a direct biological record of Arctic life.
Putting the Timeline Together
The full picture spans at least 5,000 years. Proto-Inuit-Aleut speakers occupied the Bering Strait and southwestern Alaska region, with roots tracing to Siberian populations genetically linked to ancient peoples of the Altai. The Aleut branch separated roughly 4,000 to 5,000 years ago. Paleo-Eskimo cultures spread across the Arctic thousands of years before the Thule, but represent a largely separate population. The Thule expansion began around 1000 AD from coastal Alaska, reached the Eastern Arctic by the mid-1200s, displaced the Dorset by the early 1300s, and established the communities in Greenland that persist today. Modern Inuit, Yupik, and Aleut peoples are the living descendants of these migrations, each with distinct languages, cultures, and histories shaped by the specific routes their ancestors took out of the Bering Strait region.