DIGG Proposal: Terminal Pleistocene and Early Holocene Geoarchaeology and Terrestrial Paleoecology in the Lowlands of the Middle Tanana Valley, Subarctic Alaska

University Of Arizona, Tucson AZ

Investigators

Abstract

This project supports the dissertation research by Co PI Joshua Reuther. The research supported will complete laboratory analyses on aeolian geologic records of dune formation and deflation in the Tanana river basin in order to reconstruct the terrestrial paleoenvironment during the end of the Pleistocene and early Holocene. This research is particularly important in light of the 11,500 yo child creation found at the renamed Upward Sun River site in the Tanana Valley in 2010. The reconstruction of the paleoenvironment will give the archeologist working in this region a better sense of the social and cultural adaptations that they are uncovering for this time period. In addition, the research is important because it will give a more complete picture of how the environment was changing during this critical period of human migration into North America.