Animal Fats and Ancient Pyro Technologies in the North American Arctic: Contextualized Analysis of Lipids in Archaeological Sediments, Combustion Features, and Ceramics

Summary

Processing and combustion of animal products including bone, fat, and oil for food and fuel was critical for human occupation of far northern latitudes. Remnant fats from these activities preserve exceptionally well in many Alaskan sites and various sources can be identified using standard techniques of lipid analysis. Combining lipid analysis with ethnographically informed experiments and high-resolution analysis of archaeological sediments, combustion features and ceramics, could help trace the use and processing of various animal products for food and fuel in Alaskan prehistory. Interpretive highlights of several recent studies will be discussed, as will directions for future analysis.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• The Science of Organic Residue Analysis and the Art of Cultural Interpretation I

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 15983