Exploring intrasite variability at Upward Sun River (Xaasaa Na'), a terminal Pleistocene site in central Alaska: foraging behaviors and paleoenvironmental contexts.

University Of Alaska Fairbanks Campus, Fairbanks AK

Investigators

Abstract

This project consists of exploration of Upward Sun River (USR) (Xaasaa Na'), a deeply buried site in central Alaska, associated with the earliest human remains and residential structure in the Arctic or Subarctic of North America (~11,500 years old). This exploration will focus on understanding technology and subsistence economy (of both plants and animals) at the transition from the last Ice Age to the modern interglacial. The research team will explore how both technology and subsistence are conditioned by site structure and organization, social organization, seasonality, and paleoenvironmental contexts. These contextual controls will be analyzed within a multi-disciplinary framework, incorporating stone tools, fauna, plant macrofossils, phytoliths, and stable isotope analyses. Results will also inform us on adaptive strategies associated with the initial colonization of the New World through Beringia. Additional questions involve the extent to which adaptive strategies remained constant or changed under changing climatic conditions at the end of the last Ice Age. Given the importance of the USR site to local and regional Alaska Native communities, the project has a robust education component, including support for Alaska Native participation. This research has the potential to contribute transformative data to our understanding of this important time period in the Western Hemisphere.