Archaeology of the Upper Yukon River Canyon Riparian Zone: Alaska and Yukon Territory

Summary

This is an abstract from the "The Archaeology of the Southern Yukon-Alaska Borderlands" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The Upper Yukon River Canyon traverses the international border between Alaska and the Yukon Territory. We consolidate over 60 radiocarbon dates among numerous sites and develop a first-approximation model spanning the Chindadn to Dene Traditions in Eastern Beringia. The radiocarbon date series is ordered temporally in ten discrete Bayesian probability density plots. Consolidation of available radiocarbon dates among over 40 components, associated lithics, and the geomorphology of the Yukon River contexualize cultural patterns in a geographic area that is underrepresented in the archaeological literature. Observed cultural patterns include dated components with sourced obsidian from geographic areas peripheral to the UYRC that span a broad geographic range. Two dated early Holocene Denali microlithic components support the hypothesized movement of microblade technology from central Interior Alaska to the central and southern Yukon Territory. A relatively large number of radiocarbon dated components in the late Holocene span the two regional White River volcanic eruptions that differentially blanketed the UYRC study area with tephra. A novel assemblage of southern sourced obsidian with the initial dated copper at the time of the eastern lobe of the White River eruption suggests an expanded social network following the volcanic event.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)   •
• The Archaeology of the Southern Yukon-Alaska Borderlands

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39685.0