North America: Arctic and Subarctic (Geographic Keyword)
151-168 (168 Records)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The transition between the end of the Archaic and the Intermediate Indian Period in the Eastern Subarctic of North America was marked by significant changes in just about all dimensions of Amerindian life—technology, raw material use, exchange networks, social organization, architecture, burial customs, settlement patterns, and subsistence strategies. These...
Subsistence Practices at Healy Lake Village Site (2018)
Healy Lake Village site (XBD-00020), an important multicomponent site with occupations spanning the terminal Pleistocene and Holocene, provides an important opportunity to address fundamental issues of sub-arctic hunter-gatherers economies as they changed through time. To date, there are a limited number of sites in former Beringia with preserved faunal remains. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) is an analytical method that can confirm the visual identifications of burned bone as...
Sugpiaq Foodways during the Russian Colonial Period: Zooarchaeological and Ethnographic Perspectives from Old Harbor, Alaska (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Coastal Environments in Archaeology: Ancient Life, Lore, and Landscapes" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Sugpiaq/Alutiiq peoples have millennia-long relationships with the coasts and waters of the Kodiak Archipelago, from which they harvest a variety of marine mammals, fish, shellfish, sea birds, and coastal plants. Harvesting and preparing these foods remain important ways of life in Sugpiaq/Alutiiq villages, such as...
Sugpiaq/Alutiiq History and Community Archaeology in Old Harbor, Kodiak Island, Alaska (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Russian colonial expansion into Alaska dramatically altered indigenous communities and landscapes. Motivated by valuable pelts and the desire to compete with other European powers, Russian fur traders crossed the North Pacific, constructing their first American settlement in 1784 near the modern village of Old Harbor on the Kodiak archipelago. Lacking the...
Tanana Chiefs Conference: CRM in a Tribal Consortium, 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. Tanana Chiefs Conference (TCC) is a tribal consortium of 37 federally recognized Tribes and five village associations across subarctic Interior Alaska. Based in Fairbanks, the agency represents tribal membership across most of the Yukon River basin and the Upper Kuskokwim river basin. TCC manages a self-governance compact with the Bureau of Indian Affairs...
Technological Choice and Human-Animal Relationships: A Bird's Eye View (2018)
New theoretical attitudes in zooarchaeology have begun exploring the social dimensions of human-animal relationships. As representative of both human-environment and human-material interactions, the dynamics between people and animals go well beyond household economics. This paper presents preliminary results of the analysis of avian remains from the Aleutian Islands as part of a study characterizing the complex relationship between the Unangan people and birds as it changes over time. Here,...
Technological Origins of the Denali Complex (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. Our understanding of the origins of early Alaskan assemblage variability is challenged by the co-occurrence or absence of two key lithic technologies—microblades and bifacial projectile points—and the variety of morphologies and production strategies within these categories. Alaskan archaeological complexes that existed prior to the...
Temporal Studies of Salmon Isotopes at Temyiq Tuyuryaq (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. This research is part of a larger collaboration with the Togiak community to excavate, analyze, and interpret the stable carbon and nitrogen isotope composition of archaeological salmon bones excavated from the Temyiq Tuyuryaq site. Sources of carbon, fueling the base of the food web and the trophic level of the salmon, are...
Terminal Pleistocene Human Occupations in the North Pacific Basin of Alaska: Results and Implications of Test Excavation at Nataeł Na’ (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. Nataeł Na’ is an ancient buried multicomponent site located in the northern Copper River Basin. During the 2017–2018 field seasons NPS Archaeologist Lee Reininghaus led test excavations at Nataeł Na’ revealing a combustion feature dating to ~12,200–11,400 cal BP. In 2019 a team from the Center for the Study of the First Americans at...
Traditional Cultural Practices in America’s Last Frontier: Conceptualizing Traditional Cultural Properties in Alaska (2018)
Within the boundaries of the United States’ largest state, 44 million acres of land are owned by Native corporations created under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) of 1971. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, approximately one in seven people (15.2% in 2016) in the state of Alaska are Native Alaskan or American Indian. With a significant amount of the Native population managing and utilizing lands their families have occupied for multiple generations, how is the concept of...
The Use of Aerial Drones to Map, Monitor, and Analyze Inuit Sites in Northern Labrador (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Arctic Pasts: Dimensions of Change" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A photogrammetric revolution has occurred in archaeology with the appearance of software that allows objects, features, sites, and landscapes to be finely rendered as automatically stitched photomosaics and navigable 3D models. The simultaneous emergence of reasonably priced remotely piloted aircraft (RPAs, or drones) that can produce suitably...
What's in a Name? Agency Coordination with ANCSA Corporations as Federally Recognized Tribes under Section 106 (2019)
This is an abstract from the "U.S. Army Corps of Engineers: A National Perspective on CRM, Research, and Consultation" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Consultation with Indian tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations is an integral part of the Section 106 process of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966. The Alaska District is unique among other districts within the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in that, per the regulations, village and...
What’s Hot in Beringia? Cooking during the Pleistocene–Holocene Transition in Central Alaska (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Hearths, Earth Ovens, and the Carbohydrate Revolution: Indigenous Subsistence Strategies and Cooking during the Terminal Pleistocene and Early Holocene in North America" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The subsistence traditions of the early Americans residing in Beringia have played a key role in debates surrounding the spread of people across the continent. Hunting and related technologies have garnered the most...
White Eye Traditional Knowledge Camp: Exploring Prehistoric Subsistence Behavior through Gwich’in Traditional Ways of Knowing (2018)
This study explores how indigenous archaeological methods can quantitatively assess prehistoric subsistence practices in interior Alaska. Archaeological sites in Alaska are among the oldest in the Americas, providing valuable information concerning human/animal interactions. Although there are substantial amounts of archaeological information present in the literature, there is a distinct lack of indigenous ecological knowledge. The goal of this project is to combine traditional indigenous ways...
Why Screen-Size Matters for Isotopic Analysis of Archaeological Faunal Remains: A Case Study from Norton Sound, Alaska (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Recent Advances in Zooarchaeological Methods" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Saffron cod (Eleginus gracilis) are small nearshore fish distributed throughout the Pacific and Arctic oceans and were a staple to preindustrial Indigenous fisheries of Western Alaska. Fish, mammal, and bird-bone were sampled for carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes from sites in Norton Sound, Alaska, spanning 2500 BCE–1850 CE. Comparing our...
You’re Building What Where?: Innovation with MOAs in the Far North (2019)
This is an abstract from the "U.S. Army Corps of Engineers: A National Perspective on CRM, Research, and Consultation" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), Alaska District conducts numerous undertakings in the Arctic regions of the United States. Many of these undertakings, such as coastal erosion protection and small navigation improvement projects, require Memorandums of Agreement (MOAs) among the USACE, the...
Yup’ik Tool Use at Temyiq Tuyuryak—Indigenous Approaches to Artifact Analysis (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. Tool analysis is a foundational component of archaeological research and site interpretation. Methods for analysis include a rigorous set of categories including, but not limited to, raw material type, tool type, use-wear, retouch, etc. Although these categories are informative, telling us about a specific set of criteria and...
Zooarchaeological Analysis of Alaskan Goldrush Sites (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The current accumulation of archaeological investigations at far-north Alaskan Goldrush sites either completely lack or severely underrepresent the zooarchaeological components at these sites. This data is vital and adds context to past and future archaeological investigations by enabling more accurate and inclusive interpretations of life in the...