arctic (Other Keyword)
26-50 (170 Records)
Modern humans have been living in the Arctic for over 30,000 years and their ability to adapt to the ecological limitations and challenges is relevant to questions of human adaptation and evolution. However, we know very little about the actual technologies and nutritional implications that were necessary to develop in the northern latitudes. Here we focus on two aspects of Arctic dietary practices that are little understood in the literature and yet would have been essential to successful...
Bone Artifacts from Summer Bay, Unalaska (2018)
Situated in Alaska’s eastern Aleutian Islands on Unalaska Island, the Summer Bay site dates to 2,000 years BP. Over 700 osseous objects representing various manufacture and use stages have been recovered. Among these are harpoons, fish hooks, labrets, points, wedges, awls, and needles. These are primarily made from sea mammals and avifauna. Although Summer Bay represents one of the most secure dates of the Amaknak Phase (3,000 to 1,000 years BP), minimal research has been done to better...
The Book Antler on the Sea and Community Perspectives from Sireniki, Anna’s Home Village in Chukotka, Russia (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Celebrating Anna Kerttula's Contributions to Northern Research" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Nearly three decades after her dissertation fieldwork in the village of Sireniki, which she conducted in the late Soviet period, anthropologist Anna Kerttula de Echave continues to be closely entangled within the life and social relationships of the community. In many Sireniki households, Anna’s book 'Antler on the Sea: the...
Building a Database to Understand the Architecture of Arctic Wooden House Remains (2018)
Western Arctic archaeological sites hold the remains of wooden houses occupied during the second millennium AD by ancestors of the present Inuit people. Although the permafrost helps to maintain these features in excellent condition, the giant puzzle resulting from the collapse of the frame makes it hard to understand their original architecture. During the ArcticCHAR project, we excavated a house at Kuukpak (Northwest Territories, Canada) in 2014 and 2016. Facing the complexity of this feature,...
Centering Alluitsoq: The Potential for an Indigenous Archaeology in Greenland (2018)
Postcolonial and Indigenous archaeologies have changed the theoretical, methodological, and political landscapes of our discipline’s engagement with regions and peoples once conceptualized as peripheral to the European core. However, some regions, and the subjects that move within them, still occupy the conceptual margins. This paper considers the position of archaeological praxes in Greenland, a constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark, and the late arrival of the postcolonial critique to...
Clearing the Fog: Contributions to Central Aleutian Island Archaeology (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Celebrating Anna Kerttula's Contributions to Northern Research" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological survey and excavation on Adak Island, Aleutian archipelago, Alaska were funded by NSF through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The chance NSF and Anna Kerttula took on a small project in a remote location with a small crew had an unexpected and significant effect on the understanding of...
Climate and Heritage in the Arctic: Environmental Monitoring and a New European Standard (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. To respond to climate change impacts as well as other societal and environmental impacts to archaeological preservation, Norway has been applying environmental monitoring of archaeological deposits and sites since the 1990s. To standardize monitoring methods, tools, and evaluations, a Norwegian Standard was implemented in...
Climate Change and the Rapid Loss of Organic Deposits in West Greenland (2018)
The REMAINS (REsearch and Management of Archaeological sites IN a changing environment and Society) of Greenland project has explored a number of factors that currently threaten Greenland’s archaeological landscape in the coming decades. This paper reviews recent work as well as the problems and threats to coastal and inland middens along the country’s West coast and adjacent inner fjord systems. Information gathered in recent years provides a baseline for "ground-truthing" predictive models of...
Climate Change, Capacity-Building and Local Engagement: Report on the 2018 Arctic Viking Field School, Vatnahverfi, South 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. The Eastern Arctic is currently observed to be undergoing significant environmental change as a direct consequence of global warming. For archaeologists working in Greenland, this means the rapid and complete loss of cultural remains due to changing soil conditions. As annual...
Coastal Geocatastrophes as Agents of Change on Multiple Time Scales: A Case Study from the Shetland Islands, UK (2018)
The coasts of northernmost Britain and neighboring North Sea countries offer numerous examples of sand environments that have been both settled and completely abandoned by humans at various times. These areas' rich archaeological records reveal many examples of once-thriving human settlements that were challenged and eventually terminated by burial in aeolian sand over periods ranging from days to decades. The origins and socio-ecological dynamics of these geocatastrophes may reflect important...
Colonial Households and Homes: Changes in Kalaallit Architecture, 1750–1900 (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. From the initial colonization of Kalaallit Nunaat, houses and housing have been a contested subject. The Danish Trade wanted Kalaallit Inuit to live traditionally as before missionization, spread out and following the animals, thus increasing the economic return. However, the Mission wanted Kalaallit Inuit close to the colonies because it would ease...
Community, Co-design, and Climate: Case Studies in Designing Public Outreach for Arctic Archaeology (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. Archaeological visualization—the task of picturing the past in the present—exists at the intersections of data collection, interpretation, local perspectives, and artfully crafted storytelling. This type of science communication and public engagement work forms a core dimension of archaeology today, particularly for projects...
Community-Based and Collaborative Archaeology in South Greenland: Past, Present, Future (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Celebrating Anna Kerttula's Contributions to Northern Research" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeologists are increasingly engaging in community-based and collaborative approaches to develop frameworks for co-production of knowledge and its dissemination. Encouraging collaborative frameworks and community engagement has been a key element of the NSF Arctic Social Sciences Program under Anna Kerttula's leadership....
A Comparative Ethnoarchaeological Approach to Gender and Landscape: Livelihood and Viewshed (2018)
The sexual division of labor in many societies situates women and men in livelihood activities which differ markedly in their locations, facilities, and relationship to other features in both the built and non-built environment. The repeated juxtaposition of these behaviors and elements over time result in rather distinctive female and male viewsheds or vistas and, ultimately, gendered perceptions and interpretations of the landscape. Consider the perceptual field of a woman scraping hides on...
Comparing Archaeology and Oral Tradition at the Tlákw.aan (Old Town) Site, Yakutat Bay, Alaska (2018)
Southeast Alaskan oral narratives describe the epic migration of an Ahtna Raven clan from its interior Copper River territory over montane glaciers to the Pacific coast at Yakutat Bay, where the group founded the village of Tlákw.aan (Old Town) and intermarried with Eyak and Tlingit lineages. The multi-cultural origins of the residents are reflected in architecture and artifacts excavated at the site by Frederica de Laguna in the 1950s and during collaborative Smithsonian investigations in 2014....
Comparing Lithic Procurement and Use Within the Foxe Basin, Nunavut (2018)
This paper presents a systematic review and update on the nature of stone tool use in the Foxe Basin region throughout the Paleo-Inuit period (2,500 BCE-1,600CE). The Foxe Basin was previously thought to have been a core area of ecological stability/predictability that supported an uninterrupted occupation throughout the Paleo-Inuit timespan. Given the untenability of the core area model and that populations fluctuated over time and space, a reevaluation of lithic technologies and their change...
The Connections within Togiak: An Attempt to Further Understand Colonial Impacts on a Multigenerational Village (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. The purpose of this project is to explore the collaborative arch within the project's spider work framework. Everything in life is interwoven: where one is born has lasting effects on cultural norms, education, healthcare, socio-economic status, social-status, support networks, as well as physical environment. Creating a united...
Croxton Site Faunal Assemblage: Pre- and Post-Deposition Disturbance Analysis (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The pre- and post-depositional processes that impacted the faunal assemblage associated with the Ipiutak component at the Croxton site, Alaska, have not been adequately studied/documented (see Gerlach 1989). This study focuses not only on the pre- and post-depositional disturbances that may have occurred, but also on how the burial environment may have played...
Cultural and Ecological Relationships between the Unangax̂ and Seabirds on Sanak Island, AK (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Seabirds were, and continue to be, an important resource for the Unangax̂ living in the Aleutian Archipelago, AK. In addition to food, birds were used as raw material for everyday and ceremonial clothing, tools, and objects. They also play an important role in Unangan ontologies, appearing in transformative processes. Sanak Island, the easternmost island...
Cultural Identity, Subsistence, and the Potential for Epigenetic Research in Togiak, Alaska (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. The contemporary village of Togiak, and the old village site, Temyiq Tuyuryaq (Old Togiak), together represent a multigenerational Yup’ik village in northern Bristol Bay, Alaska (K. Barnett 2018). Cultural identity has been, and continues to be, heavily influenced by subsistence. Throughout the past 1300 years the region has...
Culture, Community, and Collaboration: Lessons from the Nome Archaeology Camp (2019)
This is an abstract from the "NPS Archeology: Engaging the Public through Education and Recreation" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Since 2015, the Nome Archaeology Camp has hosted over 40 Alaskan high school students in four, week-long explorations of Northwest Alaska's rich cultural heritage. A partnership between federal agencies, regional tribal consortiums, non-profit organizations, and local experts, the annual summer camp engages students in...
Data Sovereignty for Indigenous Communities in the Arctic: Ensuring Ethical Control of Information and Knowledge for Indigenous Partners through Digital Tools (2018)
The Exchange for Local Observations and Knowledge of the Arctic (ELOKA, eloka-arctic.org) partners with Indigenous communities in the Arctic to create online products that facilitate the collection, preservation, exchange, and use of local observations and Indigenous Knowledge of the Arctic. ELOKA has created numerous digital products guided by Indigenous partners, ranging from atlases preserving and visualizing Indigenous Knowledge and information, to online databases allowing for Arctic...
Dating Tukuto Lake Hunting Architecture (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Caribou drive systems are often noted peripherally to important archaeology sites in the Alaska Arctic and are generally assumed to result from late Precontact and early Postcontact hunting strategies. However, little research has been conducted that attempts to date these hunting features. This poster outlines preliminary dating results from a recent...
Diachronic Patterns in Subsistence at Swan Point, Tanana Valley, Alaska (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Approximately 1000 years ago, the archaeological record of Southcentral and interior Alaska shows a shift toward the increased use of fish caches, semi-subterranean houses, permanent year-round villages, and the appearance of ranked societies. Ultimately, the highly mobile big game hunter-gatherer way of life was supplanted by more intensive resource...
Diverging Harvesting Strategies of Atlantic Walruses: An Intercontinental Comparison (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this paper, we compare historic Atlantic walrus commercial and subsistence exploitation in Svalbard (Norway) and Foxe Basin (Arctic Canada), respectively. Data are drawn from osteometric analysis of zooarchaeological surface remains at harvest locales (examined both in situ and in museum collections). In studying harvest strategies of the same species...