Reconstructing Subsistence, Diet Breadth, and Paleoclimate in Interior Alaska during Social and Climatic Transitions

This project involves a collaborative team of experts working to deepen understanding of the historical relationship between Dene/Interior Alaska Natives and their environment. Archaeologists can use information both from things left behind and from living communities that continue to practice traditional relationships with their land. In Alaska, these complementary sources of information are used to investigate what plants and animals people used as resources in the past. Archaeologists have, until recently, seen the role of smaller animals, like birds and fish, and plants as relatively small in the daily lives of past Interior Alaskans. Today, there is a range of new techniques (fatty acid isotope chemistry, GPR, ZooMS) that have shown these resources were much more important than archaeologists had previously assumed. The hope is to better understand and share the cunning and resilience of past Alaskans by reconstructing the social and natural environments of the past using new techniques on existing collections of artifacts and newly excavated material.

Visit Researcher Bree Doering’s website to learn more.