arctic (Other Keyword)
151-170 (170 Records)
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,...
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...
The Thermal and Transpirative Properties of Arctic Clothing Construction: A Women’s Adaptive Technology (2015)
The technical ability of women to engineer clothes as adaptation to the harsh arctic environment in Indigenous North America has not been extensively investigated. My research focuses on the analysis of the thermal and transpiration properties of Arctic clothing. The materials chosen for clothing have certain inherent properties that include species of animal selected, different tanning processes, patterning of the garments, seam construction, and tailoring. All these properties play into the...
Thinking through Dogs in the Arctic (2015)
Canids are among the most commonly encountered animals in archaeological assemblages worldwide. Using examples from the Arctic, I discuss some of the key ways that humans employ dogs to think about their relationships with other humans, animals, and the world around them. While dogs were often treated similar to human persons, they were also used to distance and distinguish "real people" from others. Ethnohistoric evidence suggests that a dynamic tension existed in the Arctic between humans and...
Thule Culture in South Greenland, 1500–1900 (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Climate and Heritage in the North Atlantic: Burning Libraries" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In collaboration with the NABO RESPONSE and Activating Arctic Heritage teams, Nunatta Katersugaasivia Allagaateqarfialu (Greenland National Museum and Archives) have intensively surveyed the Uunartoq Fjord, Igaliko Fjord, and Tunilliarfik Fjord, inner and outer fjord systems in South Greenland. The goal was to establish...
Tracing the Human Exploitation of Salmonids on the Pacific Coast of North America (2019)
This is an abstract from the "HumAnE Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Pacific salmonids (Oncorhynchus spp.) are important economic and subsistence resources for contemporary and past indigenous peoples of the Pacific coast of North America. The seven recognised Oncorhynchus species each occupy different ecological niches and exhibit diversity in seasonal spawning and migratory behaviours. Although salmonid remains are ubiquitous 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...
Transforming Marginality in Medieval Iceland: Landscape Reorganization on Hegranes, Skagafjörður (2018)
Eleventh century Iceland was a period of transition. The settlement of the island two centuries earlier set off cascading environmental and landscape changes whose agricultural consequences were then evident, including deforestation, erosion, and wetland alteration. Meanwhile, the rise of a wealthy landowning class altered the economic basis of society from primarily household production towards more centralized structures of rent extraction and tenancy. On Hegranes, a region in Skagafjörður,...
Two Valleys Archaeology in an Environmental Humanities Context (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Climate and Heritage in the North Atlantic: Burning Libraries" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This talk discusses the challenges of connecting the currently ongoing Two Valleys Project in Iceland to various scales of research on human ecodynamics of the past and global challenges we face in our time. This interdisciplinary project expands on previous research into human-nature interactions within various marine and...
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...
We Can’t Save Them All: Thoughts on Prioritization (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 are important sources of data on past human behavior and as valuable resources for paleoenvironmental reconstruction. They can also inform attempts to adapt to environmental change in a sustainable way. Equally importantly, they are part of the tangible cultural...
What Does a Fire Giant Eat? A Zooarchaeological Analysis of Surtshellir's Burnt Faunal Remains (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. In the ninth and tenth centuries CE, a very distinctive and unique site was established inside the cave of Surtshellir. This lava tube was reputed to be the home of the mythological fire giant, Surtur and has been studied over the course of several years by a team led by the...
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...
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...
"The White North Has Thy Bones": Sir John Franklin's 1845 Expedition and the Loss of HMS Erebus and HMS Terror (2016)
The hunt for Sir John Franklin's lost ships HMS Erebus and HMS Terror is arguably the longest shipwreck search in history. As a story the 1845 Franklin expedition seemingly has it all: two state-of-the-art ships and experienced Royal Navy men vanishing barely without a trace, a life and death struggle for survival in an unforgiving environment, cannibalism, dogged contemporary searches, and fascinating stories from indigenous Inuit who both witnessed the expedition's demise and went aboard and...
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 Data as a Building Block for Knowledge Building in the Past (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Zooarchaeological data is often looked at for what it can tell archaeologists about those utilizing the specimens in the past. However, these specimens (data) provided information to those utilizing the fauna themselves. In the maritime environment, the information transmitted by the fauna extracted was often one of the only sources of information available to...
Zooarchaeology of Marginality: An Investigation of Site Abandonment in Hegranes, North Iceland (2018)
The settlement of Iceland, a previously uninhabited landscape, began a series of human-induced environmental changes that have had lasting effects on not just the land but on social organization as well. As land claims were made for household farms, hierarchy developed and some were pushed to settle on the margins. In Hegranes, a region in Skagafjörður, northern Iceland, the sites that are on the margins are often much smaller than the others and may not have been farms at all but rather...