North America: Arctic and Subarctic (Geographic Keyword)
176-200 (225 Records)
This is an abstract from the "Posters on the Archaeology of the Southern Yukon-Alaska Borderlands" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Little John site (Borden #KdVo-6) holds a sequential record of human occupation from the Allerød through to the present day, including early and later expressions of the Chindadn complex, the Denali complex, the Northern Archaic tradition, the Late Prehistoric/Dene, the Contact Transitional of the nineteenth and...
Recent Archaeological Investigations of Wiki Peak and the Beaver Creek Drainage (2024)
This is an abstract from the "The Archaeology of the Southern Yukon-Alaska Borderlands" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The headwaters of Beaver Creek are located in the Nutzotin Mountains in northeastern Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve. Beaver Creek originates at Beaver Lake near the community of Chisana and flows east to the to the Alaska-Yukon border before heading north to join the White River. An important feature of the Beaver...
Regional Analysis in Perspective: An Epistemological Assessment for Paleo-Inuit Archaeology (2018)
The increasing accessibility of archaeological data from the Canadian Arctic has promoted a recent influx of macro-scale analyses. Drawing insights from our ongoing research project in the Foxe Basin region, we address some challenges regarding the synthesis of archaeological information, especially as it pertains to Paleo-Inuit studies. We discuss the importance of data quality and address issues of variability in occupation density, duration, and seasonality, both at the household and...
Remembering the People in Peopling Narratives: Landscape Learning as a Bridge between Traditional Knowledge and Archaeology (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeology and Landscape Learning for a Climate-Changing World" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The debate over the Peopling of the Americas is one of grand narratives and contested archaeological evidence. The Landscape Learning Framework provides a mechanism for approaching the archaeological record at a difference scale, allowing us to rehumanize the study of population expansions in the terminal Pleistocene....
Research Fatigue in South Greenland (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Current Research and Challenges in Arctic and Subarctic Cultural Heritage Studies" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Western views (mindsets), practices, and methodologies have dominated all scientific enquiries, including archaeology, which is inherently colonizing because they assume that Western knowledge is superior to Indigenous knowledge (Smith 1999). Such approaches have led “scientists” to merely take knowledge...
Restoring Relationships: Connecting Nunatsiavummiut to Their (In)tangible Cultural Heritage throughout the World (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Current Research and Challenges in Arctic and Subarctic Cultural Heritage Studies" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Settler colonialism is a disruption of Indigenous relationships. As a tool of settler colonialism, archaeology and collecting in particular have caused a disruption of relationships between Indigenous people, their land, their (in)tangible cultural heritage (Gray 2022), their Ancestors, and their pasts,...
Restructuring the Occupation of Near Ipiutak/Norton at Point Hope: Sedentism, Warfare, and Whaling at Point Hope? (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Current Research and Challenges in Arctic and Subarctic Cultural Heritage Studies" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological discourse can remain in thrall to classificatory and theoretical constructs. “Near Ipiutak” was framed by Larsen and Rainey in 1948 within the penumbra of the hundreds of Ipiutak ruins, <1 km distant, that resulted from an aceramic, non-whaling habitus and aestheticized mortuary practice....
Results from Test Excavations of NAB-00533: Apparent Nenana-Aged Occupation from the Northern Copper River Basin (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. NAB-533 is a buried multi-component prehistoric site located in the northern Copper River Basin. National Park Service archaeologists engaged in compliance testing originally recorded the site in 2016. During the 2017 and 2018 field seasons NPS Archaeologist Lee Reininghaus led a project to conduct test excavations at NAB-533. These excavations revealed a...
Revisiting and Extending the Kobuk River Tree-Ring Master Chronology: A Unique Record for Paleo-climate and Archaeology in Northwestern Alaska (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Arctic Pasts: Dimensions of Change" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The first and only millennial tree-ring chronology (AD 978–1941) in northwest Alaska was developed in the 1940s by archaeologist and dendrochronology pioneer J. L. Giddings. Constructed from living trees and archaeological samples from the Kobuk River valley, Giddings’s sequence established the chronology of the “Arctic Woodland Culture.” As Alaskan...
Salvaging Heritage and Data from Walakpa: A Case Study of the Walakpa Archaeological Salvage Project (WASP) (2018)
Walakpa is an iconic Arctic site with spectacular preservation. Sadly, the once stable site began eroding rapidly in 2013, with ongoing erosion outpacing attempts to obtain traditional funding for excavation. The loss of cultural heritage led to growing international volunteer efforts, starting in 2015, with support from the landowner (an Alaska Native village corporation) and many individuals. I will discuss both the success and challenges of this type of project. Walakpa is only one of many...
Searching for Submerged Salmon Streams (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Beringia is central (both physically and theoretically) to most out-of-Asia theories for how humans first came to the Americas. Understanding the chronology of the peopling of the Americas is complicated by the fact that roughly two million km2 of Beringia (an area larger than the modern US state of Alaska) was submerged over the course of the late...
Sewing Hope: Embracing Traditional Knowledge and Crafts Through Gut Sewing (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Gut-sewing technology was utilized by Inuit communities until the early 20th century. Despite gut-sewing being a successful and advantageous technology for thousands of years, it is scarcely practiced today. This is in part due to the availability of synthetic materials but also because these kinds of traditional practices have been lost over generations...
Shifting Bioarchaeological Perspectives in Alaska: Community-Centered Projects with Indigenous Partners and Project Participants from Descendant Communities (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Community Engaged Bioarchaeology: Centering Descendants" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This presentation is focused on highlighting the value of conducting bioarchaeological research that not only works with descendant communities, but is driven by the questions they want answered and adheres to their goals and management expectations surrounding their ancestors. Bioarchaeological projects that partner with Alaska...
Site Assemblage Insights from the Middle Tanana and Middle Susitna River Basins, Alaska: Understanding the Later Denali/Northern Archaic Transition (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper discusses and compares site assemblages dating to the Denali and Northern Archaic transition in central Alaska. This time period, ~10,000-6,000 cal BP, represents an understudied period in the region. The paper presents data from the Carpenter, Hollembaek, North Gerstle Point, and Swan Point assemblages. It further discusses apparent adaptive...
Site Damage and the Perception of Change in Northwest Greenland (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Accelerating Environmental Change Threats to Cultural Heritage: Serious Challenges, Promising Responses" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological sites in the Qaanaaq region of Northwest Greenland are under a variety of threats related to climate change. In addition to processes observed in other arctic contexts (increased coastal erosion and melting permafrost), the area has seen a dramatic surge in landslides...
Site Stratigraphy and Radiocarbon Dating at the Shég’ Xdaltth’í’ Site in Central 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. Shég’ Xdaltth’í’ is located approximately 55 km southeast of Fairbanks, Alaska, approximately 55 km northwest of the Broken Mammoth / Mead/Holzman / Swan Point complex of sites, and about 18 km northwest of Upward Sun River. Continuing excavations have provided tens of thousands of material remains, consisting mostly of lithic...
Sixty Years of Research at the Donnelly Ridge Site (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. In 1964, F. H. West investigated Donnelly Ridge, subsequently using material from there and a few other interior Alaskan sites to define what he termed the Denali complex. In later years, numerous archaeologists returned to Donnelly Ridge for monitoring and limited testing, but nothing substantial was done to synthesize all the data or...
Sowing the Seeds for a Relational Archaeology: Building Relationships in Queer Inuit Communities as a Settler Archaeologist (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Relationships form the foundation of every community archaeology project. By establishing relationships with communities whose cultural heritage is intertwined with the archaeological record, archaeologists not only ensure that their work is meaningful to all connected parties but also adhere to the ethical principles of accountability and public outreach...
A Spatial Analysis of Ceramics in Northwestern Alaska: Studying Pre-Contact Gendered Use of Space (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Activities and production among ethnographic Arctic peoples were primarily divided by gender. This research examines whether or not gendered division of labor extended to use of space in Birnirk and Thule era (1300-150 BP) houses through analysis of ceramic distribution patterns. We assumed that ceramics are an appropriate proxy for women’s activities within...
Spatial Arrangement of the Northern Archaic Component at the McDonald Creek Site, Central 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. McDonald Creek is a multicomponent campsite located in the central Tanana Valley south of Fairbanks, Alaska. In addition to late Pleistocene components, archaeological excavations at the site have uncovered a productive Northern Archaic occupation dating to the middle Holocene....
St. Pius X Mission Boarding School - An Archaeological Investigation (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Pius X Mission School, founded in 1918 in Skagway, Alaska, lies at the center of the archaeological investigation discussed in this presentation. Researchers at the University of Arizona, Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology aided in the assessment of cultural significance of the Pius X Mission Boarding School. Researchers collaborated directly...
A Statistical Analysis of Lower Component Lithic Data from the Holzman South Site, Shaw Creek Flats, Alaska (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeologists have long-recognized that post-depositional processes can affect site deposits and that these processes may introduce substantial biases in the interpretation of sites and assemblages. A frequent assumption is that, barring stratigraphic disturbances, thin, well-defined stratigraphic layers are discrete and meaningful archaeological units, but...
Stratigraphy and Radiocarbon Chronology at McDonald Creek: A Multicomponent Pleistocene-Holocene Site in Central 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. McDonald Creek, located in the Tanana Flats ~55 km south of Fairbanks, Alaska, rests on an isolated remnant of an ancient alluvial terrace of the Tanana River that hugs the southeast corner of a monadnock rising from the flats. While testing the site, we discovered a...
The Struggle Was Real: The End of the Archaic and the Onset of the Intermediate Indian Period in Eastern Subarctic North America (2019)
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...
A Study of the Free-Backing Bow-and-Arrow System’s Functions and Social Implications in Western Alaska (AD 600–Nineteenth Century) by the Use of a Morphometrical and Mechanical Methodology (2024)
This is an abstract from the "The Global “Impact” of Projectile Technologies: Updating Methods and Regional Overviews of the Invention and Transmission of the Spear-Thrower and the Bow and Arrow" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Around AD 600, cultural dynamics and a technology shift emerge among coastal Alaska Neo-Inuit people. Archaeological sites show evidence of the adoption, in a unique and innovative way, of a recurved or reflex bow of highly...