North America - NW Coast/Alaska (Geographic Keyword)
101-125 (301 Records)
For people who rely on the ocean, changes in sea-level can have a profound effect on daily lives, connections to place, and identity. When we study sea-level from a broader or regional scale, we do not require the time and space specificity that is necessary to examine the effect of highly local sea-level change in a particular time and place. Thus, the regional sea-level curves that have been well-refined and developed, may not answer (or allow us) to understand and appreciate what this change...
Food or Fur: Dog Butchery on Kodiak Island, Alaska (2017)
Archaeological evidence suggests that domesticated dogs (Canis familiaris) have been in the Kodiak Archipelago of Alaska for at least 7000 years. Despite their lengthy presence, little is known about their relationship with Kodiak’s human inhabitants. Based on both western assumption and the limited ethnohistoric record for this region, it is commonly assumed that people simply kept dogs as pets. However, previous studies of dog remains from the Uyak site on Kodiak Island note the presence of...
Forgotten World War II Landscapes: Data Gaps in the Documentation of Fort J.H. Smith and Fort Tidball, Kodiak Island, Alaska (2017)
Coastal Alaska played an important role in U.S. defenses for the Pacific Theater during World War II. Many resources on Kodiak Island have been listed on the National Register of Historic Places. These include the Kodiak Naval Operations Base, Fort Greely, and Fort Abercrombie which are listed together as a National Historic Landmark. Two other installations within the military command structure on Kodiak Island include Fort Tidball and Fort J.H. Smith. These two installations and the batteries...
A geoarchaeological approach to the interpretation of incomplete spatial data (2015)
As in all archaeology, geoarchaeologists sample discrete loci and use those data to make generalizations about broad areas. When interpolating and extrapolating from known data points, errors may be introduced which can bias interpretation. Here, examples from CRM illustrate some of the challenges of analyzing discontinuous or otherwise incomplete spatial data. SAA 2015 abstracts made available in tDAR courtesy of the Society for American Archaeology and Center for Digital Antiquity...
Geoarchaeology of the Bear Creek Paleoindian Site, King County, Washington: The Stratigraphic Framework (2015)
The Bear Creek site (45KI839) in Redmond, Washington, has yielded important information about Native American settlement, subsistence, and technology in the Puget Lowlands during the Late Pleistocene-Holocene transition (LPH). The depositional sequence within the site represents a well-preserved stratigraphic and archaeological record extending from the postglacial and early Holocene, and is characterized by several clearly expressed shifts in depositional environments. The high amount of...
Geochronology of the Tse-whit-zen Project (2015)
The use of high precision dates provides a chronological framework for reconstructing environmental conditions at the Tse-whit-zen site (45CA523) in Washington state. The geochronology of the site in is derived from high-precision radiocarbon dates taken from finely excavated deposits, with ages spanning the time period from ca. 2000 BP to contact. We have added 36 high precision AMS dates from short lived organic material, recovered from intact contexts, to the 52 original dates reported in...
A Geography of Foodways in the Salish Sea, Pacific Northwest Coast (2015)
This paper examines past foodways within the southern Strait of Georgia, Pacific Northwest Coast at a number of geographic scales. It also addresses the extent and nature of temporal shifts in the social landscape of the region. Seasonal use of the landscape is revealed through an understanding of place in the Salish Sea. Zooarchaeological analysis of a regional sample of thirty sites suggests that while extensive variation was characteristic of southern Strait of Georgia settlement from 3200 BC...
Geological Hazards, Climate Change, and Human Resilience in the Islands of the Four Mountains of Alaska: Preliminary Archaeological Findings (2015)
Archaeologists with the NSF-funded research project "Geological Hazards, Climate Change, and Human Resilience in the Islands of the Four Mountains" conducted their first season of fieldwork on Chuginadak and Carlisle Islands, Aleutian Islands, Alaska, in 2014. Preliminary results identified multiple component village sites. These include the Ulyagan site on Carlisle, with a Russian period and one or more prehistoric period occupation. Large, rectangular houses and metal artifacts represent the...
Geophysical investigation of the Slaven’s Roadhouse Site, Yukon-Charley National Preserve, Alaska (2015)
The Slaven’s Roadhouse Site in the Yukon-Charley National Preserve, Alaska, is a multi-component archaeological site with historic age buildings and a prehistoric record dating to at least 4,000 B.P. The site is located on a deep, stratified river terrace along the Yukon River. Work conducted in 2008 revealed a mid-Holocene age cultural component at a depth of 0.5 m, however, the stratified deposits extend as deep as 6 m and have good potential to contain significant archaeological deposits...
Geophysical Survey Meets Cultural Resource Management at Brooks River NHL (2016)
The Brooks River Archaeological District National Historic Landmark (XMK-050) in Katmai National Park, Alaska, includes sites that date from 2500 BC to the historic period--a cultural record that spans nearly 4500 years. While this district has already yielded data of great scientific importance--including the greatest concentration of Arctic Small Tool tradition dwelling sites in Alaska, and possibly in North America--it is suspected that as much as 90% of the cultural resources remain...
Getting Burned: Fire, Politics, and Cultural Landscapes in the American West (2015)
The National Historic Landmark town of Jacksonville, Oregon is celebrated for its nineteenth century past. While saloons, hotels, and shops survive as testament to the days of the Oregon gold rush, the selective preservation of the built environment has created a romanticized frontier landscape. A sleepy park now covers the once bustling Chinese Quarter, which burned to the ground in 1888. Recent public archaeology excavations revealed the remains of a burned building, and led to a fruitful...
The Giddings’ Legacy of Beach Ridge Archaeology in Alaska: A Proxy Record of Late Holocene Climate (2016)
Beach ridge archaeology developed as a relative-age archaeological survey method in the late 1950s within Kotzebue Sound. Giddings’ breakthrough collaboration with geologists David Hopkins and George Moore focused on Cape Krusenstern, defining 5,000 years of prehistory from the Denbigh complex to Thule tradition, dated mostly by reference to the type site at Onion Portage and 14C ages mostly on Old Whaling and Ipiutak and Thule occupations, but none on Norton or Denbigh. The onset of beach ridge...
GIS Predictive Modeling to Identify Archeological Vulnerability to Climate Change Along the Coasts of Western Arctic National Parklands in Alaska (2016)
A GIS-based predictive model helps guide archeological inventories and mitigation measures by identifying areas of archaeological interest subject to climate change threats. This multi-year large-scale inventory and vulnerability assessment of coastal archeological resources at Bering Land Bridge National Preserve and Cape Krusenstern National Monument is designed to rectify the lack of basic inventory knowledge and complete a vulnerability assessment. The remote 1600 km-long coastal areas of...
The Gitga’at – Simon Fraser University (GSAHP) Archaeology and Heritage Project: Developing Community-based Heritage Management Strategies in Gitga’ata Territory (2017)
The Gitga’at First Nation, traditionally known as the Gitga’ata, of the Tsymsyen peoples on the Northwest Coast of British Columbia is facing major marine developments in their ancestral territory, most notably tanker traffic related to several crude oil and liquefied natural gas export projects. While the Gitga’ata hold extensive oral knowledge about their history and past landscape use, until recently, little was known about the territory archaeologically. To address this knowledge gap, in...
Glass Beads and Evidence for Early "Pre-Contact" Trade in Northwestern Alaska (2017)
Exploring early contact between native peoples of Alaska and Eurasian cultures provides important information on the movement of people and materials throughout greater Beringia. Glass trade beads are particularly well suited to explore these relationships, as they were not made locally and high-precision chemical analyses can provide string evidence to the production origins of the beads. Glass beads were recovered from excavation of a site dating from the late 1700s to early 1800s, just before...
Ground Stone Disk Bead Distribution and Frequency in Katzie Territory, British Columbia (2017)
Inquiries into ground stone disk beads in the Salish Sea region have focused on frequency counts at one particular archaeological site, regional syntheses of distribution, or the use of beads as a means to explore Coast Salish expressions of wealth and status. Although these studies provide important information relating to the social role of these beads, they are either too broad in focus or ignore the interplay of beads between neighbouring sites. This presentation examines the inter site...
Habitat Change Versus Human Impact: Size and Frequency Trends in Multiple Taxa of Marine Invertebrates at Tse-whit-zen Village (2017)
Tectonic activity along coastlines can subtly or radically alter the substrate and elevation of the intertidal zone, thus affecting benthic marine invertebrates; however, there is no single signature for impacts. Research following mega-earthquakes in the last decade shows that the nature of the effects varies widely across taxa and locations. Analysis of the Tse-whit-zen village invertebrate fauna shows that mean sizes of bivalves of the genera Macoma, Leukoma, Saxidomus, and Tresus, and also...
Head for the Hills: Resource Specialization in the Prehistoric Portland Basin (2017)
In the Portland Basin north of the Columbia River, the oldest sites (5,000 years BP and older) tend to be larger than younger sites, have a more diverse array of artifacts, and lie in upland areas. Sites post-dating 5,000 years BP vary in size, tend to have specialized artifact types, and are found at a wide range of elevations. We hypothesize that the lack of older sites at lower elevations is due to changes in subsistence strategies, rather than differential preservation of older materials. We...
Hebrew Inscription Preservation in a Jewish Cemetery (2017)
Inscription preservation and study is an important part of heritage and historical archaeology. Particular to Jewish cemeteries and their communities is the presence of Hebrew inscriptions such as blessings, or the deceased’s Hebrew name. Our project focused specifically on comparing rates of weathering between Hebrew and English, and we hypothesized that Hebrew inscriptions decayed faster than English ones. We estimated that Hebrew inscription would decay faster because of the curvature of the...
A HISTORY OF HOUSEHOLD ARCHAEOLOGY AT PRINCE RUPERT HARBOUR (2017)
The practice of household archaeology has a long history in the Prince Rupert area, owing in large part to the remarkable preservation of sites in the region including the existence of house depression features on the ground surface of many village sites. Approaches to investigating these house features have shifted over the years as new theoretical paradigms have arisen to replace older ones. Issues of chronology and culture history dominated early investigations, but more recently questions...
Holocene Site Assemblage Structure and Economic Organization In Admiralty Inlet and Puget Sound, Washington (2015)
We compare 80 site components in Admiralty Inlet and Puget Sound, Washington, using component age, deposit thickness and complexity, feature type and diversity, portable artifact functional classes, and assemblage diversity to study the range of functional site types and diversification of tool kits through time. We previously (2011) analyzed 75 components using Thompson’s (1978) 20-functional class system to code portable artifacts. We noted that most inland riverine and prairie sites did not...
The Holzman Site: Faunal Remains from a Late Pleistocene Occupation in the Tanana Valley, Alaska (2017)
The earliest archaeological sites in eastern Beringia occur at the gateway of the ice free corridor in interior Alaska. The Holzman site was discovered in 2015 along Shaw Creek in the Tanana Valley and dates to the late Pleistocene. Bison and caribou remains as well as mammoth ivory in the lowest components of the site demonstrate the importance of big game hunting during the colonization of Beringia and the interaction of humans with mammoths during the last phase of their extinction in...
Hood Canal, WA: a Geoarchaeological Examination of Land Use (2017)
Hood Canal in Washington State contains a variety of archaeological sites, dating from at least 3,330 years ago to historic times. These sites include shell middens, villages, individual settlements, petroglyphs, logging activity traits, and hydroelectric features, to name a few. The area has undergone significant land movement due to seismic activity, landslides, and, possibly, sand blows. This presentation examines Hood Canal’s prehistoric and historic land use with respect to the region’s...
Housepit 54 at Bridge River: Seventeen Anthropogenic Floors in Time and Space (2017)
The Bridge River Archaeological Project initiated excavations of Housepit 54 in 2012 with the goal of developing an understanding of household history during the period of ca. 1000-1500 years ago. Excavations at Housepit 54 have revealed a remarkable sequence of 17 anthropogenic floors, 16 of which pre-date 1000 years ago and reflect periods of rapid growth and stability. The earliest three floors derive from small (estimated 4-6 m diameter) oval structures followed by a seven floor sequence...
Houses, Territory, and Tenure: An Archaeological Case Study of Territoriality in the Salish Sea (2017)
The multi-family, above-ground, post-and-beam plankhouse looms large in our understanding of ancestral Coast Salish households that populated the coastal regions of southwestern British Columbia and northwestern Washington State. In addition to their practical role as shelters, plankhouses were both social fields of daily practice and ceremonialism, and imposing physical structures that communicated presence and the territorial and tenurial interests of the household. In this presentation, I...