Using Bone Collagen Stable Isotope Chemistry to Reconstruct Eastern Aleutian Paleo-Diets

University Of Utah, Salt Lake City UT

Investigators

Abstract

This project, PI Joan Coltrain, University of Utah, is an investigation of the broader issues of diet, environmental stress, and social structure through the analysis of pre-contact populations in the Aleutians, Alaska. The investigator will reconstruct the diets and subsistence practices of two regionally separated prehistoric populations in the Aleutians through isotopic analyses of faunal remains. The PI hopes to shed light not only on a long debate over the differences between these two populations but on larger questions of environment and social structure.