Maritime Adaptations and Arctic Ceramic Technology: Results of Residue Analysis

Summary

Archaeologists have put forth various hypotheses to explain the adoption of pottery technology by hunter-gatherer groups. These include the efficiency of ceramics over other container technology, rising population pressure and related increased need for storage, and a change in food processing practices. Food processing shifts could include diet breadth expansion, particularly increased use of aquatic resources. The late adoption of pottery technology in the North American Arctic between 2500 and 2800 years ago coincides with the development and spread of an increasingly specialized maritime economy. As such, arctic ceramic technologies present an excellent case study for further examining the correlation between hunter-gatherer adoption of pottery technology and aquatic resource use. In this paper we review the timing and distribution of early pottery in Alaska and explore the link between changing diet and culinary practices through residue analysis of pottery vessels from northwest Alaska. The results of this study suggest changes in diet over time, and identify a direct link between pottery use and processing of marine resources. Although the sample size is small, this analysis further suggests a diversification in marine resource use between 1000 and 500 cal BP.

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 of this presentation you may upload your paper, poster, presentation, or associated data (up to 3 files/30MB) for free. Please visit http://www.tdar.org/SAA2015 for instructions and more information.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• Current Problems in Arctic Research

Keywords

Spatial Coverage