Bones of Bering, Straits Explorer, Found on Island
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COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Four Danes have unearthed the remains of 18th-Century explorer Vitus Bering, discoverer of the straits between Siberia and Alaska, an archeologist said Wednesday.
The discovery was made on a windswept beach on Bering Island, off the Kamchatka Peninsula in eastern Siberia, where the Danish explorer died in 1741.
“Bering perished on the remote island which now bears his name after his ship sank on its return from its last voyage to Alaska,” said historian Ole Schioerring, head of the local museum in Horsens, Denmark, where the explorer was born.
He said the size of the skeleton made him sure it was Bering’s.
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