The Moose Hill Site: The Dynamic Interplay of Climate Change, Marine Productivity, Volcanism, and Cultural Transitions on the Kvichak River, Bristol Bay, Alaska.

Summary

The Moose Hill Site is a multi-component settlement along the Kvichak River in Bristol Bay Alaska. The site consists of ~40 semi-subterranean structures with archaeological assemblages representative of the Arctic Small Tool, Norton, Thule, and Koniag traditions. This research focuses on a late Norton tradition occupation at 840 +/- 30 BP and presents a refinement of the complex transition between the regional Norton and the Thule traditions. The timing and method of culture change during this period is marked by extreme fluctuations in population size, the adoption of new subsistence strategies, migrations, and increased competition for resources. These changes may have been in part due to a regional decline in marine productivity associated with the Medieval Warm Period (MWP), ca. 1100 BP to ca. 650 BP, and a decrease in availability of terrestrial resources resulting from a Katmai area eruption.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• Human-Environment Interactions & Human Ecology in Western Arctic Prehistory

Keywords

Spatial Coverage