Learning about a Place through Time: Kilusiktok Lake, North Slope, Alaska

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Archaeology and Landscape Learning for a Climate-Changing World" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This paper examines landscape learning through the lens of a particular landform near Kilusiktok Lake. The landform has been used by humans for at least 2,000 years, as evidenced by radiocarbon dates on a burnt bone layer, right up to the present, based on coffee cans, meat packages from the local store with expiration dates, and 2022 Facebook posts. We look at how people with contrasting backgrounds (Iñupiat hunters of various ages who had been raised in the area, archaeologist who was raised in very different environment) first learned about the place. We also consider recent changes in the landscape, and how people are leaning about and adapting to them and to the downstream effects on travel and prey (primarily caribou) behavior, as well a possible material correlates of this adaptation. We then consider how these examples may be applied to past movement into and use of this and similar landscapes.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)   •
• Archaeology and Landscape Learning for a Climate-Changing World

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36895.0