Alaska (Other Keyword)
1-25 (42 Records)
The archaeological record of Eastern Beringia plays an important role in understanding global human dispersals and settlement, and is a proving ground for testing ideas about high latitude hunter-gatherer land use, technology, and socioeconomic interaction. Obsidian provenance studies provide an excellent means to address these issues. Since 2006 we have compiled, organized and generated new obsidian geochemical analyses for more than 11,000 artifacts from 1200 sites across Alaska and Yukon...
2 Cool 4 School: An Alaskan Archaeology HipHop Tale (2015)
What fun is historical archaeology when it seldom reaches outside academia and into the public spheres? This presentation is a tale about a HipHop Archaeologist in Alaska finding her way outside her boundaries of African American Archaeologies and Burial Ground Studies. Burnt out from academic studies and school, Ms. Mahogany Bones and Lady Plup set out on an unofficial archaeological investigation to the Old Knik Townsite Museum. They have no preconceptions or a premise for their research other...
611th Air Support Group Resources
Project metadata for resources within the 611th Air Support Group cultural heritage resources collection.
Alaskan Game Drives: An Architectural Assessment (2017)
Ethnographic accounts of communal hunting activities in Alaska are abundant, yet archaeological evidence of this practice is scarce. The inuksuit--elaborate stacked rock cairns--that demarcate many game drives in Alaska provide evidence of these important traditional subsistence strategies. Improved documentation of these features will facilitate a better understanding of not only their function but their meaning to the original builders and implementers of game drive systems. Comprehensive...
Aleutian Microtechnology in Anangula Times (9000 - 4000 BP) (2015)
Since its discovery more than 50 years ago, the Anangula phase has been recognized as the first known occupation in the eastern Aleutian Islands. The initial discovery of the Anangula Blade Site near Umnak Island, and the more recent find of Hog Island in the Unalaska District revealed assemblages in many ways characteristic of highly mobile terrestrial hunter-gatherers with only minimal evidence of a maritime economy. This seeming paradox of island dwellers heavily invested in terrestrial...
Archaeology of the Terminal Pleistocene McDonald Creek Site, Central Alaska (2015)
In 2014 archaeologists from Texas A&M University and Colorado State University began a long-term excavation of the McDonald Creek site (FAI-2043), located in the Tanana valley of central Alaska. In this paper we present our initial results. At least two terminal Pleistocene cultural components with preserved living floors, lithic artifacts, faunal and floral remains have been unearthed, respectively dating to about 14,000 and 12,600 cal BP. At the end of the 2014 field season, a probe unearthed...
The caribou didn't come back: Modelling human migration variations through local ecological changes (2015)
The objective of this paper is to model the effect that the presence/absence of specific ecological variables has on the passive movement of raw materials from their point of origin to their point of deposition in the archaeological record. This study takes place in the Talkeetna Mountains of Southcentral Alaska. The model was built using ArcGIS, informed through ethnographic, historic, and modern ecological and archaeological data, and structured using a theoretical framework from Human...
Community archaeology on the south west coast of Alaska:TAPP (2016)
The Togiak archaeology and Paleo archaeology project is a combined effort between the Togiak community and the University of Montana to renegotiate the pre-colonial and historic understanding of the Old Togiak site in Southwest Alaska. Preliminary results from the first field season challenge our current understanding of the site incorporating community driven research and knowledge. This paper serves to expand our knowledge and understanding of the region in propose a new baseline in...
Dam It! Manipulating Water in the Tolovana Mining District, Alaska (2016)
Obtaining adequate water for mining operations has always been a problem in Livengood, Alaska. To make mining feasible on small creeks in the area, ditches were excavated from the earliest days of the strike in 1915. As the character of mining evolved throughout the first half of the 20th century, corporate interests formed to create even larger water conveyance systems, most notably the Hess Creek Dam, a sizable earthen dam built on permafrost. This poster presents an overview of the water...
Drawings Bar-1 Distant Early Warning System Line Radar Station (1996)
Aerial drawings of the BAR-1 Distant Early Warning (DEW) Radar Station.
The Earliest Catch: The Origins of Salmon Fishing in the Alaskan Interior (2015)
Ethnographic records indicate that salmon fishing was a primary activity for Athabaskan people living in Alaska’s interior. Evidence of fish use in antiquity is difficult to assess due to the highly degradable nature of delicate fish bones. Fishing in the archaeological record is identified by fishing tools in addition to faunal remains. This poster will discuss the antiquity of salmon fishing in Alaska's interior through a GIS-based comparison of anadromous fish streams and evidence of fishing...
Effective Public-Centered Approach to Compliance work- Case study of the Angoon Airport Project, Alaska (2015)
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is preparing an environmental impact statement (EIS) in response to a request from the Alaska Department of Transportation for funding and other approvals for a new land-based airport near the community of Angoon in Southeast Alaska. With multiple SAA 2015 abstracts made available in tDAR courtesy of the Society for American Archaeology and Center for Digital Antiquity Collaborative Program to improve digital data in archaeology. If you are the author...
Fish Traps, Kayak Surveys, Culture Camps – NHPA in Alaska National Forests (2016)
In an effort to meet the spirit of the NHPA, USDA Forest Service Alaska Region has a long history of collaboration and partnering with a wide variety of tribal, state, federal, not-for-profit, and educational entities, institutions, agencies, and volunteers throughout the state and beyond. The Alaska Region consists of the two largest national forests in the system, totaling 21.9 million acres. Over the last 18 years the Ketchikan-Misty Fiords Ranger District (KMRD), located on the Tongass...
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...
Geophysical Investigations of Archaeological Sites in Alaska’s National Parks and Preserves: 2016 Field Season (2017)
Alaska’s National Parks and Preserves have seen increased use of geophysical methods for cultural resource management and archeological research in the past several years. Here we describe the results of geophysical surveys conducted at several of Alaska’s National Parks and Preserves in the summer of 2016 as part of an ongoing effort that has span several field seasons and has now included eight parks and preserves. Examples from 2016 include research at Gates of the Arctic National Park and...
An Inadvertent Endowment: Giddings’ contribution to resource preservation in northwest Alaska (2016)
James Louis Giddings was not only a pioneer in Arctic archaeology but he also contributed significantly to the protection of areas of archaeological importance, enabling the continued research of subsequent generations. I explore his direct and indirect roles in establishing federal protection for Alaskan archaeological sites and related lands during and after his life. His research and writings contributed to the establishment of four National Historic Landmarks (NHL), one National Monument,...
Integrated Cultural Resources Management Plan (2004-2009) Aircraft Control and Warning Installations, Alaska (2004)
The following document is an Integrated Cultural Resources Management Plan (ICRMP) for Aircraft Control and Warning (AC&W) System installations. The Integrated Cultural Resources Management Plan (ICRMP) is a planning document used to manage an installation's cultural resources management program. The document identifies cultural resource activities such as surveys and building inventories, that have taken place on an installation. It also identifies and describes historic resources within...
Integrated Cultural Resources Management Plan Distant Early Warning (DEW) System, Alaska (2006) (2006)
The following document is an Integrated Cultural Resources Management Plan (ICRMP) for Distant Early Warning (DEW) System installations located at Barter Island Long Range Radar Site (LRRS), Bullen Point Short Range Radar Site (SRRS), Cold Bay Long Range Radar Site, Oliktok Long Range Radar Site, Point Barrow Long Range Radar Site, Point Lay Long Range Radar Site, Point Lonely Short Range radar Site, Wainwright Short Range Radar. The Integrated Cultural Resources Management Plan (ICRMP) is...
Invasive or endemic? Management implications of archaeological data in the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge (2015)
The Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge maintains more than 2000 islands, where invasive species management and eradication are the focus of conservation and landscape reconstruction efforts. While written records from the Russian and American eras document the introduction of many species, including red fox (Vulpes vulpes), arctic fox (Alopex lagopus), and cattle (Bos taurus), little is known about the introduction and dispersal of the arctic ground squirrel (Spermophilus paryii) in this...
Investigating a Late Holocene Subsistence Transition North of the Alaska Range: Compelling Results from Two Archaeological Sites (2017)
Geospatial analyses on dated sites across central Alaska suggest important subsistence changes occurred in the region between 4000-2000 years ago. A significant shift from a general foraging strategy to a targeted collecting strategy appears to have occurred during this time, and recent investigations at two archaeological sites dating to this period have begun to shed light on the timing and extent of this subsistence shift in a specific region of central Alaska.
Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene Alaska: Placing Archaeological Data on Projected Paleoecological Landscapes (2017)
Understanding ecological responses to climate change are essential before inferences can be made regarding past culture change and human adaptation to the environment. This study focuses on modeling the paleoecology of central Alaska at the Pleistocene-Holocene Transition using predictive modeling. Quadratic Discriminant Analysis is used to determine which modern climate variables, including minimum and maximum temperature and precipitation, as well as topographic data, best predict modern...
Learning to Listen: Quinhagak Voices Teaching about Gender (2016)
This presentation describes how archaeologists are using the knowledge of community stakeholders from the Yup'ik village of Quinhagak, Alaska to analyze gender dynamics at Nunalleq (GDN-248), a pre-contact village site located on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta. During the summer of 2015, Quinhagak residents were invited to participate in semi-structured interviews about gender roles and activities in Yup'ik society and about the relevance of gender to stakeholder questions about the past. Interview...
The lessons of J.L. Giddings' early attempt at geophysical surveying in the western Arctic (2016)
Archaeologist J. Louis Giddings is known widely for his excavations of major sites in the western arctic from the 1940s until his untimely death in 1964. Giddings was also a notable innovator in archaeological science, integrating new techniques into his research almost immediately after they were developed. Very early on in his career, for example, Giddings made use of dendrochronology, establishing some of the earliest tree-ring chronologies in Alaska. This was immediately after dendro was...
Management and Mitigation Along the Iditarod National Historic Trail (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Reflections, Practice, and Ethics in Historical Archaeology" session, at the 2019 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Long linear resources like National Historic Trails are a challenge in terms of assessing and mitigating effects under Section 106. NHTs present an additional challenge in terms of the common disparity between the congressionally designated corridor and the physical cultural resources on the ground. This paper discusses...
Overview of Archaeological Research in the NPS Alaska Region (2015)
Human occupation of the 54 million acres of land managed by the National Park Service (NPS) has spanned millennia from early use of the ice-free corridors, later migrations and adaptation of tool kits to meet changing needs, and contact with explorers, fur traders, and others from distant lands. Research conducted each year along coasts, in and around mountainous terrain, small towns, and places in between aids efforts to inventory park land for archaeological resources, understand past human...