Abstract Warfare, whaling, and participation in long distance trade intensified in the Bering Strait region 600–1000 A.D. The development of complex social organization involved the control of resource hot spots from coastal promontories and access to iron from distant East Asian centers. Stylistic similarities, recognized as early as the 1920's, provide the basis to recognize peer polity interaction. Despite >800 excavated burials from Point Hope, St. Lawrence Island and East Cape (Siberia), only a variable data base is available for establishing contemporaneity, the extent of interaction, the functioning of societies and the intensity of warfare. Burials do show pronounced internal status differences at Point Hope and Ekven/Uelen at East Cape. Radiocarbon ages reveal a disjunct pattern in settlement histories; Cape Krusenstern settled most densely at 400–650 A.D., Point Hope at 400–900 A.D., while Ekven peaked between 800–1200 A.D. and at NW Cape, St. Lawrence Island, population was greatest between 1000 and 1200 A.D. The relationship of East Cape to Point Hope suggests a close alliance that dominated the Bering Strait region and controlled access to metal and technological innovations from East Asia. Physical evidence of warfare in burials is greater in the NW Cape area, but the extent and contemporaneity of conflict is uncertain. The Birnirk culture controlled only marginal locations, often in very close proximity to Ipiutak sites. The development of whaling is sporadically documented but appears associated with technological innovations in Old Bering Sea and Birnirk polities while the influence of Ipiutak was achieved without a reliance on whaling.