arctic (Other Keyword)
51-75 (170 Records)
This is an abstract from the "Social Archaeology in the North and North Atlantic (SANNA 3.0): Investigating the Social Lives of Northern Things" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Iceland was settled by the Norse in the late ninth century and Greenland was settled from Iceland around AD 1000. Although these countries are quite dissimilar in landscape and geology, they have a similar flora in which the only forest-forming tree is birch. Birch alone...
E-Week: Youth Collaboration within an Indigenous Framework (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Temyiq Tuyuryaq: Collaborative Archaeology the Yup’iit Way" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Community driven approaches to archaeological research have provided the discipline with new and creative opportunities for engagement and dialogue. This poster explores the benefits of community engagement in the context of the k-12 classroom as part of a the NSF funded research,Temyiq Tuyuryaq; a collaborative archaeology the...
EAGERs and RAPIDs – Small Grants with Big Outcomes at Surtshellir Cave, Iceland (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Celebrating Anna Kerttula's Contributions to Northern Research" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Anna Kerttula's stewardship of NSF's Arctic Social Sciences program not only expanded opportunities for large-scale collaborative research projects in the North, but also increased opportunities for supporting smaller "high risk" and "time-sensitive" projects through the EAGER and RAPID programs. These smaller projects,...
Early Thule Inuit Architecture in the Arctic: An Anchor in Migration and Movement (2019)
This is an abstract from the "More Than Shelter from the Storm: Hunter-Gatherer Houses and the Built Environment" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. During and for a few hundred years after the Thule Inuit migration around AD 1200, early Thule groups in the North American Arctic established village sites in new locations where they maintained a similarity in ceremonial architecture, house form, and division of space, despite the variability of...
The Effects of Thermal Processing on Alaskan King Salmon (2016)
This study considers the effect of thermal and non-thermal processing techniques (cooking and fermentation) on carbon and nitrogen isotopes in wild caught King Salmon from Alaska's Interior in order to determine isotopic profiles for both processed and unprocessed tissues. This study is relevant to the study of past diet and particularly past cooking techniques employed in the Far North throughout prehistory. The data presented here will serve as a reference for future studies of prehistoric...
Ellmig Qukaq. She is the Center: Indigenous Archaeology of Temyiq Tuyuryaq (2018)
Ashmore and others have taken the time to observe and discuss the inherently gendered ‘nature’ of the landscape. As an indigenous scholar this discussion directs me toward concepts of "nature" and specifically, our mother earth, our peoples, and our celestial beings. Mother earth is impregnated with our past, cradling our lives and our ancestors in her womb, from which they once came, and returning (for matters within our discipline) to us in "archaeological context", if you will. I argue that...
The Environmental Context of the Dorset-Thule Transition: Evidence from Stable Isotope Analysis of Archaeofauna (2018)
Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analyses of fauna from archaeological sites in the Central Canadian Arctic Archipelago were performed to examine the environmental context of the Dorset-Thule transition. Isotopic data from a large number of ringed seals demonstrate that there was a reduction in the importance of primary production derived from sea ice-associated algae during the Thule occupation relative to the earlier Dorset occupation; these data are consistent with an increase in open water...
Environmental Variation and the Sustainability of Farms: Investigating Effects of Erosion in Northern Iceland (2018)
The initial colonization of Iceland in the late 9th century had a profound impact on the fragile environment of the North Atlantic island. Settlement and the introduction of livestock resulted in widespread erosion and the replacement of woodlands with meadows and heaths. Changes in the environment are assumed to have played a role in determining settlement patterning and subsistence strategies. While marginal highland areas were most seriously affected, resulting in farmstead abandonment, the...
Ersersaaneq Project: Creating Knowledge Through Images (2018)
In 2016, the Ersersaaneq project was instigated by three students from the University of Greenland to create an online repository of 3D models of the Gustav Holm collection. In Greenlandic the word ersersaaneq captures the idea of producing knowledge through the creation of visual images. The goal is to digitally re-unify parts of the collection and develop coherency within a global context. Project partners include Greenland National Museum, The Smithsonian Institution and The National Museum...
Ethnoarchaeological Exploration of the Western Brooks Range, Alaska (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeology of Alaska, the Gateway to the Americas" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The western Alaska Brooks Range contains a diverse arctic ecosystem, scenic landscapes, and deep cultural roots. The foothills of the western Brooks Range crosses BLM, NPS, State, and Tribal lands, and it spans Iñupiaq and Koyukon Athabsacan homelands. Archaeological research from the region is minimal and remains relatively unexplored....
Expanding Archaeological Research in Mývatnssveit: Conservation, Politics, and Modernity (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Celebrating Anna Kerttula's Contributions to Northern Research" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological research in the Mývatn region of northern Iceland contributed the first regional-scale interdisciplinary archaeological program to Icelandic archaeology (e.g. Lucas 2009, McGovern et al. 2007). Until recently the regional project focused chiefly on the settlement period (beginning in the late 9th century)...
An Experimental Study of Arctic Ceramic Cooking Vessel Performance (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ceramic vessels from the Norton (2800–1500 BP) and Thule (1350–250 BP) traditions often differ in wall thickness and the proportion and type of temper, suggesting they may have performed differently for cooking. This experimental study explores how technological choices (wall thickness, temper, and surface treatments) affected physical characteristics...
Exploring the Antiquity of the Dene Potlatch in Interior Alaska (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Pickupsticks site in the Shaw Creek Flats of the Middle Tanana Valley region of interior Alaska represents a short-term ceremonial occupation site of the early Dene tradition (~930 rcybp). In 2010, the remains of a large structural feature were identified there. Intermittent excavations over the following decade confirmed the structural remains were...
Exploring the Cause of the Athabaskan Migration through Isotopic and Geospatial Evidence (2018)
Linguistic and archaeological evidence suggests that Athabaskan-speaking peoples rapidly spread south from present-day Central Alaska and Northwest Canada into the Great Plains region around 1000 years ago. Historically, explanations of this important event have centered on relatively small geographic regions and traditional methodologies. This paper offers an alternative view at both a much larger scale and using distinct methods. I argue that this significant migration event was driven by the...
Exploring Toolstone Provisioning on the Nenana Valley Lithic Landscape (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Beringian record is critical to understanding human dispersals and adaptive behaviors of the earliest peoples in the Americas. Late Pleistocene and Holocene peoples subsisted on a dynamic and changing landscape that undoubtedly influenced technological organization, including toolstone procurement and selection patterns. The interior Alaskan record is...
Food, Fuel, or Fluke? The Interpretive Potential of Microbotanical Remains Recovered from Burnt Residues on Koniag Pottery from the Malriik Site (KOD-405), Kodiak Island, Alaska (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. On Kodiak Island, Alaska many aspects of life changed during the Koniag Phase (650–200 BP): houses became larger and side-rooms were built to store food, social status and labret wearing intensified, community buildings known as qasgit ("men's houses") were built, and people began to use pottery. Zooarchaeological evidence demonstrates that marine mammals,...
Foxes and Humans at the Late Holocene Uyak Site, Kodiak, Alaska (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Do Good Things Come in Small Packages? Human Behavioral Ecology and Small Game Exploitation" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The red fox (Vulpes vulpes) is a generalist, omnivorous predator that is often drawn to human environments, exploiting anthropogenic refuse. Foxes may bear little or significant economic importance to prehistoric human foragers, depending on the environmental, economic, and cultural context. Here...
Foxy Ladies: investigating human-animal interactions at Agvik, Banks Island (2017)
Outstanding organic preservation at many Arctic sites gives archaeologists access to large artifactual and faunal assemblages through which to examine human-animal interactions. However, much of the research focused on these interactions conceives them not only in ecological/economic terms, but also examines them at the level of entire communities (e.g. zooarchaeological studies of subsistence) or focuses on the predominantly male realm of hunting. The Arctic ethnographic record reflects a...
Friends in High Places. An Integrated Examination of the Long-Term Relationship between Humans and Dogs in Arctic Prehistory (2018)
Dogs are arguably the most significant domestic species in the circumpolar North, in both their universal importance to life-ways and their near-uniqueness as a regional domesticate. The Arctic was the gateway for at least 4 independent waves of migration of dogs into the Americas, beginning as early as ~17,500-13,000 years ago, making this region particularly important for investigating not only the cultural and technological functions of Arctic dogs, but also the impact of successive...
From Medieval Wool Tunics to Bone Powder: Rapid Degradation of Norse Middens in Southwest Greenland (2018)
This presentation is one of the products of a series of ongoing inter-connected, international, interdisciplinary fieldwork projects coordinated by the North Atlantic Biocultural Organization (NABO) research cooperative since 2005 in Greenland. The projects drew upon more than a century of prior field research, where four generations of archaeologists described and assessed organic preservation conditions at their sites in several regions of the Norse Eastern Settlement. This created a unique...
From Omajuk to NiKik: The Variable Transformation of Animals into Social Things among the Historic Period Labrador Inuit (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Social Archaeology in the North and North Atlantic (SANNA 3.0): Investigating the Social Lives of Northern Things" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological studies have conventionally regarded Inuit relationships to animals in terms of subsistence and food-getting, from seasonality and hunting strategies to calories of meat, fat, and marrow consumed. Inuit oral traditions and ethnographic sources, however, offer...
Gardens in the Aleutian Islands: Landscape Management by Unangan/Unangas Ancestors (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Prehistoric large village midden sites in the Aleutian Islands provide soil chemistry and drainage environments optimal for the growth of plants that feature prominently in Unangan/Unangas traditional subsistence. Previous interpretations view this as fortuitous and non-deliberate. We argue that evidence suggests instead that plants useful in subsistence and...
Genetic and ZooMS Identification of Marine Mammal Bone from Norse Sites in Iceland and Greenland: Insights into Historic Ecology and Norse Economies (2018)
Evidence from Arctic and North Atlantic archaeological sites shows marine mammals were frequently used by Norse settlers in Greenland, Iceland and the Faroe Islands. Archaeofaunal assemblages often yield a wealth of complete bones, however, species-level identification is not possible for heavily fragmented specimens. Therefore, specific details about marine mammal utilization are often unquantified and marine species identification largely remains unverified. This paper reveals utility of ZooMS...
Geochemical Characterization and Raw Material Procurement at McDonald Creek, Alaska (2021)
This is an abstract from the "McDonald Creek and Blair Lakes: Late Pleistocene-Holocene Human Activity in the Tanana Flats of Central Alaska" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Around 14,000 years ago, modern humans dispersed into eastern Beringia. McDonald Creek, located in the Tanana Valley, central Alaska, is a significant part of characterizing this dispersal as one of the earliest known sites in eastern Beringia. This site posesses three cultural...
Geophysical Investigations of Archaeological Sites in Alaska’s National Parks and Preserves: 2016 Field Season (2017)
Alaska’s National Parks and Preserves have seen increased use of geophysical methods for cultural resource management and archeological research in the past several years. Here we describe the results of geophysical surveys conducted at several of Alaska’s National Parks and Preserves in the summer of 2016 as part of an ongoing effort that has span several field seasons and has now included eight parks and preserves. Examples from 2016 include research at Gates of the Arctic National Park and...