Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Ecological Boundaries and Cultural Frontiers in the Later Holocene Prehistory of the Central Alaska Peninsula

University Of Illinois At Urbana-Champaign, Urbana IL

Investigators

Abstract

ABSTRACT OPP-0116325 This dissertation project examines the effects of volcanism and other paleoenvironmental factors on the movement, boundary behavior, and settlement pattern and chronology of Late Holocene human populations on the Alaska Peninsula. Geologic sections on the Alaska Peninsula will be sampled and analyzed for both paleoenvironmental reconstruction and comparison of compositions of historic and prehistoric pyroclastic flows. A 4.5m geologic profile on the Pacific coast of the Aniakchak National Monument and Preserve will be sampled for pollen, microfossils, and other organics to reconstruct how Holocene vegetation reacted to both periodic and catastrophic volcanism. One focus here will be on the rate at which vegetation recolonized the 3400 B.P. Aniakchak pyroclastic flow, allowing the eventual cultural reoccupation of the region. Pollen and other samples will be taken at least every 5cm through much of the 4.5m profile, with sampling every centimeter after major volcanic events. Samples will be recovered from the 3400 B.P. Aniakchak pyroclastic flow and from the Katmai pyroclastic flow in the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes. Comparison of variables between these two flows will determine the utility of using the Katmai PF as a historic revegetation analog for the Aniakchak flow. Surface testing and both surface and subsurface samples will be taken from the pyroclastic flow exposures, with samples compared for percent of silica, abrasiveness, and other variables. The research will contribute to the understanding of volcanism's effects on human paleogeography in other northern and maritime regions of the globe.