A series of Arctic Alaska cultures, mainly coastal, dating from c 500 BC-1100 AD, with the first pottery of the region. The Choris culture, the earliest manifestation, has pottery that is Asiatic in origin, fiber-tempered with linear- and check-stamp decoration. Sometimes designated Paleo-Eskimo, the Norton tradition embraces the cultural continuum Choris-Norton-Ipiutak. The Norton aspect of this continuum is typically represented by the presence of poorly fired, check-stamped pottery and tools of crude appearance, made from basalt rather than chert. Polished slate implements and oil lamps appear as well as points, tips, side blades; discoidal scraper bits, broad flat labrets, and toggling harpoon heads. Cape Denbigh, Cape Krusenstern and Onion Portage for example, all have a Norton component. The extent to which the Norton tradition was ancestral to any of the Eskimos is open to interpretation, though the Yup'ik Eskimo are likely descendants of Norton people.