This article explores uses of peat bogs and associated plants and other resources by drawing on the published ethnobotanical and archeological literature pertaining to Indigenous groups that lived ...and continue to live on the Northwest Coast, the Interior/Plateau Regions, Northwestern Canada, the Central and Western Arctic, and the Far Northeast. We examine bog plants used as food and medicine, the relationships between people and bogs as documented through traditional ecological knowledge, and archeological evidence for bogs having been used as places to live and as sources of peat for use as building material. The aim is to bring attention to the fact that peat bogs were, and still are, very much a part of Indigenous cultural landscapes in North America. We suggest that greater attention should be paid to bogs and that a reassessment of their perceived marginality may be necessary to achieve a fuller understanding of past and present human-environment interactions in northern North America.
Eiderdown has long been an important resource for northern cultures in the past but is overlooked in archaeology. Down, presumed to be from Eider ducks, has only been identified from a handful of ...high-status burials in Scandinavia. In order to test whether an archaeoentomological indicator for eiderdown production could be established, a survey of insects from two eiderdown productions sites in Iceland was conducted. The results identified over 500 duck fleas Ceratophyllus garei Rothschild and several beetle species from raw eiderdown and processing residue, as well as from pitfall traps placed in the floor of buildings where the down was stored and processed. It is argued that despite the fact that bird fleas parasitic on Eider ducks are not host-specific, their life history and microhabitat requirements, as well as the method employed to collect eiderdown, makes duck fleas a reliable indicator for eiderdown harvesting in archaeology.
•The importance of eiderdown as a trade and prestige item in northern Europe is discussed.•Results of a survey of modern insects from eiderdown production sites are presented.•Duck fleas are recognized as reliable indicators of eiderdown production.
Transatlantic exploration took place centuries before the crossing of Columbus. Physical evidence for early European presence in the Americas can be found in Newfoundland, Canada
. However, it has ...thus far not been possible to determine when this activity took place
. Here we provide evidence that the Vikings were present in Newfoundland in AD 1021. We overcome the imprecision of previous age estimates by making use of the cosmic-ray-induced upsurge in atmospheric radiocarbon concentrations in AD 993 (ref.
). Our new date lays down a marker for European cognisance of the Americas, and represents the first known point at which humans encircled the globe. It also provides a definitive tie point for future research into the initial consequences of transatlantic activity, such as the transference of knowledge, and the potential exchange of genetic information, biota and pathologies
.
New horizons at L’Anse aux Meadows Ledger, Paul M.; Girdland-Flink, Linus; Forbes, Véronique
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS,
07/2019, Letnik:
116, Številka:
31
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
The UNESCO World Heritage site of L’Anse aux Meadows (LAM) in northern Newfoundland is the only undisputed site of pre-1492 presence of Europeans in the Americas. In August 2018, we undertook ...fieldwork at LAM to sample the peat bog 30 m east of the Norse ruins for a multiproxy paleoenvironmental assessment of Norse settlement. Instead, we encountered a new cultural horizon. Here we report our fieldwork at this iconic site and a Bayesian analysis of legacy radiocarbon data, which nuance previous conclusions and suggest Norse activity at LAM may have endured for a century. In light of these findings, we reflect on how the cultural horizon, containing nonnative ecofacts, may relate to indigenous or Norse activities.
There is myriad evidence that global warming is exerting a profoundly disruptive influence on the lifeways of modern native (Yup'ik) communities living in the Yukon-Kuskokwim (Y-K) delta of ...southwestern Alaska. Yup'ik subsistence is intimately tied to seasonal change and the ability to accurately predict the availability of plant and animal resources. It therefore seems reasonable to suggest that periods of climatic instability such as the Little Ice Age (LIA) may have had a deleterious effect on Yup'ik communities in the past. However, at present there are no palaeotemperature records that document the localised climatic changes of the last millennium in the Y-K Delta region. This lack of data hinders our understanding of the archaeological record from the site of Nunalleq, which is situated at the heart of the delta and was occupied during the LIA. To address this oversight, this paper presents the results of a Coleoptera (beetle) based climate reconstruction from a peat profile in the vicinity of Nunalleq to investigate the magnitude of Late Holocene climatic changes. Using the Mutual Climatic Range (MCR) method, we reconstruct mean summer and winter temperatures from the mid-15th to late-19th centuries. The results indicate that the past environments of Nunalleq were characterised by a climate significantly cooler than the present. The earliest definitive evidence for Little Ice Age cooling dates from the late 16th century, when mean summer temperatures were at least 1.2ᵒC below the modern mean. Temperatures appear to have remained lower than modern until the early 19th century. The coolest Nunalleq record – 1.3ᵒC below the modern mean summer temperatures – is centred on AD 1815, after which there is evidence for climatic amelioration. These data present differences with observations from other regions of Alaska and underline the importance of more local palaeoclimate reconstructions, particularly when interrogating the relationships between past climatic and social change.
This article presents the results of a program of radiocarbon dating and Bayesian modeling from the precontact Yup'ik site of Nunalleq (GDN-248) in subarctic southwestern Alaska. Nunalleq is deeply ...stratified, presenting a robust relative chronological framework of well-defined individual house floors abundant in ecofacts suitable for radiocarbon dating. Capitalizing on this potential, we present the results of one of the first applications of Bayesian statistical modeling of radiocarbon data from an archaeological site in the North American Arctic. Using these methods, we demonstrate that it is possible to generate robust, high-resolution chronological models from Arctic archaeology. Radiocarbon dates, procured prior to the program of dating and modeling presented here, suggested an approximately three-century duration of occupation at the site. The results of Bayesian modeling nuance this interpretation. While it is possible that there may have been activity for almost three centuries (beginning in the late fourteenth century), occupation of the dwelling complex, which dominates the site, was more likely to have endured for no more than a century. The results presented here suggest that the occupation of Nunalleq likely encompassed three generations beginning cal AD 1570–1630 before being curtailed by conflict around cal AD 1645–1675. En este artículo se presentan los resultados de un programa de datación radiocarbónica y modelización bayesiana del sitio de Nunalleq, un yacimiento Yup'ik pre-contacto en el sudoeste sub-ártico de Alaska. Nunalleq es un yacimiento fuertemente estratificado que presenta una secuencia ocupacional compleja consistente en una serie de pisos de habitación individualizados, todos ellos contenientes abundantes ecofactos susceptibles de ser datados por radiocarbono. Explotando ese potencial, presentamos los resultados de una de las primeras aplicaciones de la modelización estadística bayesiana sobre datos radiocarbónicos para un yacimiento arqueológico del Ártico norteamericano. A través del uso de estos métodos demostramos que es posible generar modelos cronológicos consistentes y de alta resolución a partir de la arqueología del Ártico. Datos radiocarbónicos anteriores sugerían una duración de aproximadamente tres siglos para la ocupación del yacimiento. Los resultados de la modelización bayesiana matizan esta interpretación. Si bien es posible que haya habido actividad durante casi tres siglos (comenzando a finales del siglo catorce), parece más probable que la ocupación del complejo habitacional, mismo que domina el yacimiento, no haya durado más de un siglo. Los resultados expuestos en este trabajo sugieren que la ocupación de Nunalleq probablemente haya abarcado tres generaciones, comenzando en 1570–1630 cal dC y siendo truncada por un episodio bélico en torno a 1645–1675 cal dC.
At Nunalleq, a pre-contact Yup'ik Eskimo village site in Alaska (14th-17th century AD), abundant insect remains from highly organic substrates preserved within permafrost offer a unique opportunity ...to investigate past ecological and living conditions. This paper presents the preliminary results obtained from the analysis of two samples collected from floor layers in sod houses. The numerous and diverse insect remains highlight the exciting potential of archaeoentomology for reconstructing past ecological conditions, resource exploitation and the use of space at northern hunter-gatherer sites and have permitted the development of a strategy for the future collection of archaeoentomological data at permafrost-preserved sites in Alaska and elsewhere.
This paper presents the results of a survey of beetles conducted in the vicinity of the archaeological site of Nunalleq, a pre-contact (16
-17
century AD) indigenous forager settlement located near ...the modern Yup'ik village of Quinhagak, in the Yukon-Kuskokwim delta, southwestern Alaska. Records and habitat data are reported for 74 beetle taxa collected in tundra, riparian, aquatic and anthropogenic environments from a region of Alaska that has been poorly studied by entomologists. This includes the first mainland Alaskan record for the byrrhid
(Sturm). Beyond improving our knowledge of the local beetle fauna's diversity and ecology, this survey provides the basis for comparisons between modern and sub-fossil beetle assemblages from Nunalleq and Quinhagak.
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