Re-Dating Onion Portage: A High-Precision Chronology to Advance Archaeological Investigations in Northwestern Alaska

University Of Alaska Fairbanks Campus, Fairbanks AK

Investigators

Abstract

This project seeks to gain insight into one of the pivot-point sites of Alaskan prehistory, Onion Portage. The investigator will be re-dating samples from the original excavations, over 30 years ago, utilizing the more sophisticated AMS dating techniques that have developed over the last decades. The two traditions the research will focus on to investigate questions surrounding human-evironmental interaction and culture history are the Arctic Small Tool and Northern Archaic. This reassessment of the chronology represented in the Onion Portage site stratigraphy, supplemented with investigations into the paleo-environment at the site, will improve our understanding of middle Holocene prehistory in the North American Arctic and eastern Siberia, as well as provide new insights into Indian/Inuit culture history in the region.