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Crossroads of Continents: Cultures of Siberia and Alaska.
... Амур был почти не заселён. Торговые маршруты, плотно покрывавшие Аляску, Чукотку, Алеутские острова, не касались Амура (Fitzhugh, Crowell, 1988). ...
... Рис. 1. Расселение народов по территории российского Дальнего Востока в 18-м в. (Fitzhugh, Crowell, 1988) Fig. 1. Indigenous nations distribution within Russian Far East territory in the 18 th century (Fitzhugh, Crowell, 1988) Запруды и запоры с вставленными в них корзинами-вентерями были известны по всему побережью Тихого океана, в том числе и народам Амура (Окладников, Деревянко, 1973; Золотухин, 2002). ...
... Рис. 1. Расселение народов по территории российского Дальнего Востока в 18-м в. (Fitzhugh, Crowell, 1988) Fig. 1. Indigenous nations distribution within Russian Far East territory in the 18 th century (Fitzhugh, Crowell, 1988) Запруды и запоры с вставленными в них корзинами-вентерями были известны по всему побережью Тихого океана, в том числе и народам Амура (Окладников, Деревянко, 1973; Золотухин, 2002). Р.И. ...
All indigenous nations of the Amur River basin, except the Nivkh, are originated from Tungus nomadic reindeer herders, known now as the Evenks. Their coming to the Amur coincided in time with arrival of Russian pioneers. These peoples began to live sedentary only from the beginning of the 20th century. Fish was not the main food for them, they hunted on marine mammals accidentally and were almost not familiar with the seafood, their trade was a simple exchange of goods. At present time the aboriginal people of the Amur River have a right to catch fish without any permits, quotas, or leasing of fishing area, that does not concern to policy of fish resources managing. For optimization of the legislation, two remarks to the Russian Federation Law «On Fisheries…» would be enough: the term «subsistence fishing» should be introduced and the concept of «traditional way of life» should be defined more precisely.
... En cuanto al área de las islas Aleutianas, éstas han sido ocupadas desde a lo menos 8.000 años atrás. La fase temprana Anangula de la tradición aleutiana, ocurrió entre el 9.000 y 7.000 AP., en donde los sitios correspondientes a dicha fase han sido encontrados en las islas aleutianas orientales (Arutiunov y Fitzhugh 1988, Crowell 1988, Justice 2007. El primer sitio bien documentado con fechas de 8.000 -8.500 AP. es Anangula, el cual está localizado en una pequeña isla cerca de la isla Umnak. ...
... Ya en el Holoceno Medio, en la costa pacífica de la península de Alaska, se ubica la tradición Ocean Bay hace aproximadamente 6.000 años atrás. Alrededor del 5.500 AP., la tradición aleutiana comenzó su fase tardía en el este, cuyos sitios se asemejan a los de la tradición Ocean Bay en las islas Kodiak y la región del pacífico (Crowell 1988). Los sitios están caracterizados por instrumentos bifaciales e instrumentos en hueso como cabezas de arpón, antiastil, anzuelos, entre otros. ...
... Hacia los 4.500 años atrás, los sitios de conchales aparecen en casi todo el archipiélago, posiblemente reflejando una mayor disponibilidad de invertebrados marinos, en donde estos sitios del Holoceno Medio son vinculados a la Tradición Aleutiana. Los individuos de esta tradición (4.500 -200 AP.) desarrollaron un patrón básico adaptativo que prevaleció en todo el archipiélago, a excepción de la isla Unimak (la isla más oriental) y la península de Alaska (Crowell 1988, McCartney y Veltre 1999. ...
En base a los datos genéticos, arqueológicos y paleoambientales, se analizan y discuten las distintas rutas de poblamiento que sucedieron entre el extremo oriental de Asia - Siberia y Beringia - sector septentrional de Norteamérica (Groenlandia inclusive) desde 30.000 años atrás aproximadamente hasta 1.000 años atrás.
... This ornamentation of the weapons constitutes the hunter's way of asking for the gift of the animal to the spirit beings, that are the animal donors. This contrasts with the totemic systems of Australian hunter-gatherers where, they having no such reciprocal ties to donor animals, the ornamentation of weapons is absent (Fitzhugh 1988;Ingold 2000). This last situation is verified particularly in the case of study where the hunting and fishing equipment, made fundamentally on bone and antler, does not present figurative decoration; and only exceptionally minimal abstract decoration is reported. ...
The pre-Hispanic art of the Lowlands of Paraná comprises very realistic to extremely simplified ceramic figurines made by complex hunter-gatherer groups during the Late Holocene. In particular, the article seeks to discuss the differences found between parrot and raptor figures, which are the most frequent motifs. Alternative styles of representation were involved in the visual symbolism of the two groups of birds with well-differentiated morphological and behavioural attributes. Whereas parrot images were elaborated with greater naturalism in sites mostly located in the middle Paraná, birds of prey exhibit a higher degree of stylization and schematization, especially in the lower Paraná. It is proposed that the differences in the artistic modalities used to represent these groups of birds could be related to the positioning of these animals within different metaphorical domains and opposable conceptual categories. It is also suggested that this iconography could be specifically linked to a totemic ontology, which implies a particular attitude towards nature. This study attempts to contribute to broadening our knowledge about the symbolic relationships between humans and animals in pre-Columbian America.
... 6. With the addition of blue vivianite which is evidenced in ethnographic examples (see examples from Ray and Blaker 1967;Fitzhugh and Crowell 1988). ...
In 2017, the Nunalleq Project initiated the co-design of a digital educational resource for schoolchildren in the Yukon-Kuskokwim region that curates the story of the archaeological excavations in a way which engages with Yup’ik ways of knowing and traditional oral storytelling. Here, we present an account of an archaeological outreach project which creatively unites science and history with traditional knowledge and contemporary engagements. Co-creation of the Nunalleq educational resource revealed the diverse ways in which people connect to the past, sometimes expected, sometimes surprising. In particular, the project made space for a younger generation of Yup’ik who are forging new relationships with their heritage inspired by the archaeology from Nunalleq through traditional dance, art and shared experience. Ultimately, this article explores co-design as a means to illuminate the processes of interpretation from varied perspectives and worldviews with the aim of better understanding how the methods we use frame the knowledge we create.
... The Northwest coast of North America is a region dominated by landscape and land-sea 'edges' (Turner 2007), due to a complex coastline broken by a plethora of rivers, lagoons, inlets, and fjords, and with a sharp gradient to high coastal mountains (Biogeoclimatic Zones of British Columbia 2013). This diversity in landscapes, combined with the high productivity of North Pacific coastal waters (Fitzhugh and Crowell 1988), correlates with high biological and cultural diversity in the study area (Turner et al. 2003;Loh and Harmon 2005;Berkes and Davidson-Hunt 2006;Turner 2007;Brandt et al. 2014;Thornton 2017). ...
We investigate the perceptions and impacts of climate change on 11 Indigenous communities in Northern British Columbia and Southeast Alaska. This coastal region constitutes an extremely dynamic and resilient social-ecological system where Indigenous Peoples have been adjusting to changing climate and biodiversity for millennia. The region is a bellwether for biodiversity changes in coastal, forest, and montane environments that link the arctic to more southerly latitudes on the Pacific coast. Ninety-six Elders and resource users were interviewed to record Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) and observations regarding weather, landscape, and resource changes, especially as concerns what we term Cultural Keystone Indicator Species (CKIS), which provide a unique lens into the effects of environmental change. Our findings show that Indigenous residents of these communities are aware of significant environmental changes over their lifetimes, and an acceleration in changes over the last 15–20 years, not only in weather patterns, but also in the behaviour, distributions, and availability of important plants and animals. Within a broader ecological and social context of dwelling, we suggest ways this knowledge can assist communities in responding to future environmental changes using a range of place-based adaptation modes.
... It is important to keep in mind that the indigenous Arctic has long been a place of mobility and interconnection, even as North-South ties remained non-existent, weak or contested (see Dodds and Nuttall, 2015;and McGhee, 2006 for a circumpolar discussion). Historical interconnections in the Bering Strait are an interesting example of this (Fitzhugh and Crowell, 1988). While the Cold War period made the expanse of Arctic seas separating Alaska and Chuktoka seem like an insurmountable geopolitical distance, the Bering Sea had, for indigenous communities, been no obstacle. ...
... Subsistence harvests by the dozens of predominantly Alaska Native communities on the coast and islands of the Bering Sea produce up to hundreds of kilograms of food per capita, using a wide variety of species, and benefiting nearly all of the residents of most coastal communities (Fall et al. 2013). These harvests were the sole source of food for local inhabitants for millennia (e.g., Dumond andDamas 1984, Fitzhugh andCrowell 1988), and today, remain important sources of nutrition and cultural well-being (e.g., Wolfe 2004). ...
Human-environment connections are the subject of much study, and the details of those connections are crucial factors in effective environmental management. In a large, interdisciplinary study of the eastern Bering Sea ecosystem involving disciplines from physical oceanography to anthropology, one of the research teams examined commercial fisheries and another looked at subsistence harvests by Alaska Natives. Commercial fisheries and subsistence harvests are extensive, demonstrating strong connections between the ecosystem and the humans who use it. At the same time, however, both research teams concluded that the influence of ecosystem conditions on the outcomes of human activities was weaker than anticipated. Likely explanations of this apparently loose coupling include the ability of fishers and hunters to adjust to variable conditions, and the role of social systems and management in moderating the direct effects of changes in the ecosystem. We propose a new conceptual model for future studies that incorporates a greater range of social factors and their dynamics, in addition to similarly detailed examinations of the ecosystem itself.
... 269) in the Holocene. These similarities have been noted since Boas's late nineteenth-century Jessup North Expedition (Fitzhugh and Crowell 1988). ...
This chapter explores the antiquity and evolution of Subarctic maritime traditions in the
Beringian North Pacific—precursors of maritime cultures that ultimately pushed north
and east across the Canadian and Greenlandic Arctic. Boat-based, maritime economies
and settlement show up by the Pleistocene-Holocene transition in the relatively warm
Subarctic Northeast Pacific (Gulf of Alaska and Aleutians) but appear delayed by 5,000 or
more years in the Northwest Pacific and Bering and Chukchi seas. Potential biases of
preservation and research histories are examined and dismissed, and two environmental
models are proposed to explain the delay (or disruption) of maritime settlement in the
seasonally frozen Okhotsk, Bering, and Chukchi seas. Late Holocene maritime traditions
intensify and converge in all regions of the Subarctic and Arctic Pacific over the past
2,000–3,000 years, forging a common ecological, economic, technological, and social
orientation, where none had previously existed.
... Seaweed, leafy greens, roots, and berries would have also been important despite their poor archaeological preservation (Krasheninnikov, 1972). This diet is common to traditional hunter-gatherer cultures around the North Pacific Rim (Fitzhugh and Crowell, 1988). ...
Living in remote places can strain the adaptive capacities of human settlers. It can also protect communities from external social, political and economic forces. In this paper, we present an archaeological population history of the Kuril Islands. This string of small volcanic islands on the margins of the Northwest Pacific was occupied by maritime hunting, fishing and gathering communities from the mid-Holocene to recent centuries. We bring together (1) 380 new and previously published archaeological radiocarbon dates, (2) a new paleodemographic model based on a radiocarbon-timestamped temporal frequency distribution of archaeological deposits, (3) recently published paleoclimate trends, and (4) recently published archaeological proxy evidence for changes in the extent of social networks. We demonstrate that, over the last two millennia, inhabitants of the Kuril Islands underwent dramatic demographic fluctuations. Explanations of these fluctuations are considered in the context of environmental hazards, social networks and the emergence of an East Asian “World System”, elucidating the tension between local and external adaptive strategies to social and ecological uncertainty. Results suggest that population resilience to local climate and environmental variability was achieved by virtue of social networks that maintained non-local support in times of crisis. Conversely, the expansion of the East Asian political economy into neighboring regions of the southern margin of the Kuril Islands perhaps in conjunction with exposure to epidemic diseases appears to have undermined the adaptive strategies, resulting in an increase in the vulnerability of Kuril populations to environmental fluctuations.
... The problem is that we are presently unable to distinguish "real" gaps in the archaeological record from interpretive disagreements resulting from inadequate age control and sampling. Until we recognize that chronology is still a major problem, impassioned arguments about diffusion and independent invention or parallel and convergent evolution will continue to drive interpretations of culture contact and change in the western Arctic (Campbell 1976:2; see the various papers in Fitzhugh and Crowell 1988). The available radiocarbon data are presented below to establish the temporal relationship among Old Bering Sea/Okvik, Punuk, Ipiutak, and Birnirk in the time range between 2331-460 b.p. (Table 1). ...
The cultural chronology of Northwest Alaska and Chukotka is uncertain. Some 127 radiocarbon dates from the unpublished and published literature are calibrated and reported in this study. The study area extends from north of Norton Sound in Alaska to the Kolyma River in Chukotka on the west, and to the Mackenzie River in Canada on the east. Without disputing the taxonomic designations of the original investigators, we find that Old Bering Sea/Okvik, Punuk, Ipiutak, and Birnirk were contemporaneous, with major occupations between 1600 and 1200 cal BP. Ipiutak occurs earliest and lasts the longest in the Interior Brooks Range. The partial contemporaneity of these archaeological cultures implies that distinctive artifact and ornamentation styles may be viewed as social boundary markers, rather than as the result of the unilinear descent of one from the other. -from Authors
... The use of bird skins for clothing is well documented in the ethnographic literature (see, e.g., Black 1982;Fitzhugh and Crowell 1988;Varjola et al. 1990;Veniaminov 1984); however, we do not know the antiquity of such cultural practices. They are difficult to demonstrate archaeologically, and results from the present faunal samples, coming from test pits not linked to any recognizable structures, cannot be extrapolated very far. ...
In 1991 a multidisciplinary team initiated excavations at the only known midden site on Buldir Island in the western Aleutians. The project integrated archaeological and biological research to understand human adaptations and Holocene environments over time. Buldir was chosen for the project for several reasons: (1) it is strategically located between the Rat and Near Islands and potentially contributes information on rate of westward migration of hunters in the Aleutian chain, (2) it can provide clues to the amount and kind of communication and/or isolation that existed among the western islands, and (3) its extant faunal population was never impacted by foxes and should be an excellent analogue for the island's past biodiversity. Radiocarbon dates suggest the island was inhabited as early as 1100 years ago. This paper describes the bone, lithic, and wooden artifacts recovered from two test pits excavated on the beachfront of the midden site. Due to the unusual preservation in the island midden, fragile organics, including wood, were recovered. For the first time, western Aleut woodworking technology is discussed. Additionally, this paper explores the types and sources of lithic raw materials selected by ancient peoples on Buldir. Lithic and bone artifact analysis, coupled with radiocarbon dates, suggest that both Rat and Near Islanders used Buldir - sometimes concurrently. The first year's excavation on Buldir shows the potential for prehistoric research in the western Aleutian Islands.
... The use of bird skins for clothing is well documented in the ethnographic literature (see, e.g., Black 1982;Fitzhugh and Crowell 1988;Varjola et al. 1990;Veniaminov 1984); however, we do not know the antiquity of such cultural practices. They are difficult to demonstrate archaeologically, and results from the present faunal samples, coming from test pits not linked to any recognizable structures, cannot be extrapolated very far. ...
During 1991, an archaeological investigation was conducted on Buldir Island, Aleutian Islands, Alaska. This paper presents quantified zooarchaeological data for that site and constitutes the first such report for the western Aleutians. Excavations of two test pits produced a sample of 8822 vertebrate elements, representing marine mammals, birds, and fish. In terms of meat yield, Steller sea lion (Eumetopias jubata) dominated the assemblage. Although the most important parameters for traditional Aleut bird hunting have been size and weight, our research suggests that smaller bird species, including the whiskered auklet, were hunted for purposes of clothing ornamentation rather than for meat yield. Presence of alcids, pelagic fish, and infant sea lions in the assemblage supports a scenario for summer occupation of Buldir by Aleut hunters; however, the ratio of adult sea lion remains provides evidence for possible year-round habitation on the island. Although sea lions provided the highest meat yield in the eastern and western Aleutians, fish played a much larger role in the eastern economies. Alcids dominate the archaeological faunal assemblages in the western Aleutians, but albatrosses, cormorants, and other Procellaridae are the most prevalent species found in the east. Preliminary archaeological evidence suggests that short-tailed albatross, black-legged kittiwakes, murrelets, and least auklets varied in importance on Buldir over time.
... Furthermore, Eskimo women took pains to make their stitching as regular as possible to avoid offending either the animals that had 'given' their skins or future prey. Such wives participated in the hunt with every stitch while making it possible for men to assume the qualities associated with each animal that had contributed a piece of itself to their clothing (Chaussonnet 1988). ...
Prehistoric phalanges with anthropic holes through one side of their shafts have usually been interpreted as whistles. But identical bones are used by several peoples as human effigies — most commonly of women and babies. Distal limb bones with incised or sculpted heads, eyes, arms and vulvas prove that such bones were also interpreted anthropomorphically by Eurasian cultures in the past. The use of phalangeal figurines from central Siberia to Greenland also suggests that the practice spread around the Arctic from ancient sources. Ethnographic examples illustrate a few roles women have played in the region's cold weather economies and how female effigies reflect such roles, but are not offered as strict analogies with Palaeolithic counterparts. Instead a case is made from new internal readings of several prehistoric objects incorporating feminine imagery — including the 'woman between reindeer hooves' from Laugerie-Basse and an engraving from Étiolles — that some ancient feminine images reflect a vision of women in keeping with the division of labour in northern hunter-gatherer subsistence models. Economic necessities may partly explain how pregnancy and compact feminine effigies have been viewed ideologically in cold Eurasian areas for millennia. Finally, the possible existence of perforated phalanges from the Middle Palaeolithic and even earlier is noted and a protocol of tests is suggested for determining whether their holes are anthropic or natural. If any of the holes in these older specimens turn out to be man-made, then the conclusion that prehistoric perforated phalanges are likely to be figurines will have to be extended to those made by archaic humans like Neanderthals.
... They were also an important trade item. Abundant abalone shell obtained from coastal peoples of the south and central California areas was extensively traded among other indigenous peoples in southwestern (Howorth 1978;Jackson and Ericson 1994) and northwestern (Fitzhugh and Crowell 1988) North America. In addition to abalone beads, olive snail and limpet (Acmaea spp.) shells were traded into the Great Basin immediately east of present-day California during the last 4,000 years (Jackson and Ericson 1994). ...
Abalone (Haliotis spp.) shell was a trade commodity in northwestern North American and part of a marine shell trade that also included tusk shell (Dentalium spp.) and olive snail (Olivella spp.). The occurrence of abalone trade shell in Haida art, language, and family crest usage demonstrates, at a minimum, an appreciable influence of the abalone shell trade in the post–contact era. However, despite archaeological evidence that trade in other shells regionally extends back at least 7,000 years, radiocarbon dating of California-area abalone trade shells excavated from the Haida village of Kiusta in northern Haida Gwaii (Queen Charlotte Islands) reveals them to be post-contact only. Compared to California-area abalone, the poor quality of local northern abalone (H. kamtschatkana kamtschatkana) shell may have accounted for their infrequent use. This paper reviews the post-contact abalone shell trade in southern British Columbia and Washington, and offers speculation on its pre-contact manifestation. Résumé. Les coquilles d'ormeau (Haliotis spp.) s'échangeaient dans le nord-ouest de l'Amérique du Nord et faisaient partie d'un commerce de coquillages marins qui englobait les dentales (Dentalium spp.) et les olives (Olivella spp.). La place des coquilles d'ormeau dans l'art, la langue et les emblèmes haïdas révèle à tout le moins l'importance considérable de leur commerce après l'arrivée des Européens. Cependant, malgré les documents archéologiques qui montrent que d'autres coquillages marins s'échangeaient dans la région il y a plus de 7 000 ans, la datation au carbone 14 de coquilles d'ormeau de la zone californienne qui ont été exhumées dans le village haïda de Kiusta dans le nord de Haida Gwaii (îles de la Reine-Charlotte) indique qu'on ne les trouve qu'après l'implantation européenne. La qualité inférieure des ormeaux nordiques (H. kamtschatkana kamtschatkana) par comparaison aux ormeaux de Californie a peut-être contribué à l'utilisation peu fréquente des premiers. L'article examine le commerce des ormeaux dans le sud de la Colombie-Britannique et dans l'État de Washington après l'arrivée des Européens et propose des hypothèses quant à son existence préalable.
... The artists accompanying the early expeditions of exploration created images of the locations and people they saw (Dauenhauer et al. 2005;de Laguna 1971;Fitzhugh and Crowell 1988;Shur and Pierce 1976;Wright 2001). The explorers and trad-ers also provided records of the appearance and clothing of those with whom they interacted and obtained artifacts, some of which have subsequently been lost (Gunther 1971). ...
Long woolen burden straps are a distinctive carrying device used by Gitksan, Witsuwit'en, and other peoples of the northwestern part of British Columbia, Canada. They were used for many purposes, including carrying cargo, securing dog packs, supporting cradles, and carrying infants and small children, thus enabling the effective movement of people and goods over land and up and down the steep mountain slopes of the region. With 20th-century changes in economy and transportation, strap weaving has become a heritage craft. The origins of this technology are obscure: Was it wholly indigenous, a European introduction, or a hybrid technology based on an undocumented 18th- or 19th-century European introduction of rigid heddle weaving to the region? Early ethnologists, working in a “salvage ethnography” paradigm, dismissed this technology as a recent European introduction. However, re-examination of historic and contemporary straps, spindles, and looms suggests a more complex analysis. [tumpline, Gitksan, Witsuwit'en, weaving, carrying, British Columbia, heddle]
... Women were also responsible for the proper treatment of the animal once it was brought home. Their actions could have as much effect on the availability of prey animals as those of the hunter himself (Bogoras 1925, 208; Ostermann 1952, 36–7; Chaussonnet 1988; Fienup-Riordan 1988, 262–3; 1994, 95–8; Petrov 1989; Bodenhorn 1990; Pelly 2001). If a woman consumes a tabooed piece of meat, animals may be offended and refuse to come to the hunter the next time he goes out (R.K. Nelson 1983; Brightman 1993). ...
In this article, I discuss the ways in which animals act as ontological subjects — as other-than-human persons and as agents in myth and ritual. First I outline how humans conceive of and behave with animals and their remains in indigenous cosmologies using ethnographic and ethnohistoric examples from the Arctic, Subarctic and Amazonia. I then explore the archaeological evidence for indigenous ontologies along the coasts of Chukotka and Alaska, arguing that prehistoric hunters interacted with animals as agential persons, engaging in social practices intended to facilitate hunting success and avoid offending prey. Two forms of ritual activities are discussed: the use of hunting amulets and the caching of animal bones and antlers. I conclude that focusing on shamanism in the study of hunter-gatherer belief obscures the roles of hunters and their wives. Their thoughts and actions established and maintained relationships with prey animals and may be more productively conceptualized as dynamic social behaviours embedded within the context of daily life than as privileged ritual acts.
The paper focuses on the material known as Mesolithic portable art. Earlier research has interpreted the material as representative art relating to ideology, mythology, prestige, ritual practices and tribalism. Such interpretations are based on theoretical frameworks that build on hylomorphism and Cartesian metaphysics, resulting in this material being viewed as static objects of art. I offer a new theoretical framework informed by a new animist perspective, coupled with Tim Ingold’s meshwork, Giordano Bruno’s theory of bonds and Chantal Conneller’s relational chaîne opératoire . I conclude that the engravings on the tools and pendants are communications to the animated subjects that make up and inhabit the environment. Furthermore, I conclude that the binary positions of function and ritual cannot be applied when studying the form-generating process of this material, as the tools and pendants along with the imagery are a result of what is in between these binary positions.
Most native peoples along the Pacific Coast of North America viewed whales as an important subsistence item. Some Alaskan and Northwest groups developed a whale hunting culture, and nearly all coastal dwellers exploited stranded whales, providing abundant meat and oil for consumption. Many rock art sites along the coast between Alaska and Acapulco contain images of whales and other cetaceans, and portable effigies depict these marine mammals. Chumash, Alaskan, and Northwest Coast shamans used whale effigies in rituals designed to summon the whales to be hunted and/or beach themselves in one’s territory. A survey of the ethnographic literature investigates the extent to which these rituals sought the assistance of a Supernatural Gamekeeper or Animal Master. At least some whale depictions in carved effigies and rock art likely resulted from such rituals.
Insects are a common sight across much of the circumpolar region during the summer season and have a multi-faceted cultural significance to Indigenous peoples across North America’s Arctic and the Bering Strait region. Historians and ethnologists in the 19th and 20th centuries documented contemporary Indigenous interactions and beliefs involving insects, notably butterflies, moths, and bees. However, these investigations inferred comparatively little about the understanding among ancient Arctic peoples and the influence of insects in their lives. By examining a select group of Old Bering Sea (OBS) ivory artifacts, I identify insect-related designs on OBS hunting implements and investigate the correlation between these designs and the potential implications of their inclusion on these objects. I attempt to challenge the vertebrate bias present in the study of Arctic prehistory and relational ecology and suggest that insects have a deeper cultural influence than has been previously acknowledged.
Visions for tomorrow’s Arctic include complementary and conflicting ideas such as sustainability, security, prosperity, biodiversity, Indigenous rights, and more. Implicit in many of these views is the assumption that the right combination of policy and action will create a stable configuration producing the intended outcome for the foreseeable future. Even a cursory review of Arctic history, however, shows that economic, political, cultural, ecological, climatic, and other forms of stability are unlikely. Instead, the lessons of the past suggest that local and global factors will continue to interact to create high variability. Individual policies and institutions may help promote effective responses to that variability, but a commitment to enduring equity is necessary to foster long-term well-being for the Arctic and its peoples.
The Indigenous people of northwestern North America have been here at least 16,000 years, and have developed a highly diverse range of languages and cultures. At least nine completely unrelated language families exist. Economies largely focus on fishing, hunting, and plant management and gathering. Large villages with kin-based political organization are typical.
The most basic and important resources in the Northwest Coast are aquatic, especially sea mammals, marine fish, and sea-running (anadromous) fish. The several species of salmon and sea-running trout are the most famous of these, defining the region in many views. Many less-known resources were highly important and are described here, since they tend to be neglected in much of the literature.
Using 14 proxy human population time series from around the North Pacific (Alaska, Hokkaido and the Kuril Islands), we evaluate the possibility that the North Pacific climate and marine ecosystem includes a millennial-scale regime shift cycle affecting subsistence and migration. We develop both visual and statistical methods for addressing questions about relative population growth and movement in the past. We introduce and explore the use of a Time Iterative Moran I (TIMI) spatial autocorrelation method to compare time series trends quantitatively-a method that could prove useful in other paleoecological analyses. Results reveal considerable population dynamism around the North Pacific in the last 5000 years and strengthen a previously reported inverse correlation between Northeast and Northwest Pacific proxy population indices. Visual and TIMI analyses suggest multiple, overlapping explanations for the variability, including the potential that oscillating ecological regime shifts affect the North Pacific basin. These results provide an opening for coordinated research to unpack the interrelated social, cultural and environmental dynamics around the subarctic and arctic North Pacific at different spatial and temporal scales by international teams of archaeologists, historians, paleoecologists, paleoceanographers, paleoclimatologists, modelers and data management specialists.
The Arctic Ocean is undergoing rapid change: sea ice is being lost, waters are warming, coastlines are eroding, species are moving into new areas, and more. This paper explores the many ways that a changing Arctic Ocean affects societies in the Arctic and around the world. In the Arctic, Indigenous Peoples are again seeing their food security threatened and cultural continuity in danger of disruption. Resource development is increasing as is interest in tourism and possibilities for trans-Arctic maritime trade, creating new opportunities and also new stresses. Beyond the Arctic, changes in sea ice affect mid-latitude weather, and Arctic economic opportunities may reshape commodities and transportation markets. Rising interest in the Arctic is also raising geopolitical tensions about the region. What happens next depends in large part on the choices made within and beyond the Arctic concerning global climate change and industrial policies and Arctic ecosystems and cultures.
les hommes modernes viennent d'Asie vers l'Europe (jamais d'Afrique) ils apportent l'art et un autre rapport à l'animal qui est désormais monté, bien avant sa domestication, les armes faites en matières osseuses désignent la même volonté de puissance sur la nature
l'homme moderne constitue une population nouvelle et conquérante avec des systèmes de valeurs si audacieux qu'ils ont anéantis les rasions d'exister des Néandertaliens : pas de combats, sinon idéologiques, comme toujours entre deux populations différentes, brusquement mises en présence l'une de l'autre
The homeland of Inuit extends from Asia and the Bering Sea to Greenland and the Atlantic Ocean. Inuit and their Chukchi neighbors have always been highly mobile, but the imposition of three international borders in the region constrained travel, trade, hunting, and resource stewardship among neighboring groups. Colonization, assimilation, and enforcement of national laws further separated those even from the same family. In recent decades, Inuit and Chukchi have re-established many ties across those boundaries, making it easier to travel and trade with one another and to create new institutions of environmental management. To introduce Indigenous perspectives into the discussion of transboundary maritime water connections in the Arctic, this paper presents personal descriptions of what those connections mean to people who live and work along and across each of the national frontiers within the region: Russia–U.S., U.S.–Canada, and Canada–Greenland. Some of these connections have been made in cooperation with national governments, some in the absence of government activity, and some despite opposition from national governments. In all cases, the shared culture of the region has provided a common foundation for a shared vision and commitment to cooperation and the resumption of Indigenous self-determination within their homelands.
Since the 1980s, museum professionals have increasingly committed to sharing collections with the descendants of people and communities from whom the collected artifacts originated. As late as the 1970s, Indigenous people were not considered stakeholders in the collection and exhibition of their own cultural artifacts. Recently, however, exemplary cases of collection sharing have occurred in North American and European museums. Museums have become “contact zones” as issues of decolonization have come to the fore. This article discusses the sharing of material culture and “double” position of anthropological museums, rooted in their own (colonial) history but in possession of another’s culture. Ownership issues, access, and ethics are important for local communities but not always easy for museums to negotiate. This article describes thirteen examples of collaborative partnerships between museums, for the most part large, urban, European, postcolonial institutions, and Arctic Indigenous communities. I argue that open communication, collection research, and an increasing level of co-curation are prerequisites for changes in museum practice, and these changes will benefit both the institutions and the communities involved.
People have worn clothes made from fish skin since early times, with earliest traces being found from the Hezhe ethnic minority group in Northeast China. There is evidence of fish skin leather production in Scandinavia, Alaska, Hokkaido, Japan, Northeast China and Siberia. Although the craft has almost disappeared, in 2006 the skill of processing fish skin was one of the first listed as Intangible Cultural Heritage of China.
This paper describes the FishSkinLab workshop delivered at Tongjiang city, where experienced Hezhe craftspeople have pass down the endangered fish skin craft to the next generation of Chinese students as part of a sustainable fashion higher education program to learn best practices for social change and sustainability. The students mapped their creative journey, explored the rich cultural background of Hezhe communities and created a collection of fish skin textile samples with the help and guidance of Hezhe fish skin masters.
In 2014, the National Museum of Denmark (NMD), in conjunction with the Greenland National Museum and Archives (Nunatta Katersugaasivia Allagaateqarfialu [NKA]), as well as the Museum of Cultural History, Oslo, launched the website Skin Clothing Online. The site presents the NMD’s total collection of 2,170 historic skin clothing items, dating from circa 1830 to 1950, from the circumpolar area. The clothing can be studied in minute detail due to high-resolution photos; 100 complete suits were photographed from all sides. Furthermore, 107 items of clothing were measured by means of 3D technology, which can be used to draw precise two-dimensional patterns. The documentation is made accessible to the public through a website, in compliance with creative commons licenses: CC-BY-SA for the photos and CC-BY-SA-NC for the patterns. The website uses content from the database SkinBase. Since 2017 parts of the NKA’s collection of archeological skin clothing from Qilakitsoq (circa 1475 AD), as well as historical garments and contemporary fashions, have also been made accessible, in keeping with the same copyright rules for photos. The NKA staff entered the items into the database without difficulty using a Virtual Private Connection (VPN). The Danish and Greenlandic national museums encourage international partners to contribute items to the website. The aim is to create a collaborative open forum for information and research with easy access for everybody to unique, fragile pieces of circumpolar cultural heritage. With clothing from Arctic peoples and clothing used on expeditions to Antarctica, the Polar Museum in Cambridge will be the next museum to contribute to the website.
La relation entre nature et culture passe par des voies symboliques réciproques. Tout dans l'animal s'intègre dans les activités humaines traditionnelles, comme l'habitat, l'outillage et la prédation. Ce caractère particulier a permis une extrême survivance des valeurs jusqu'à aujourd'hui. La condition essentielle tient à la mobilité, au moins partielle de certains membres du groupe qui ont laissé leurs traces, parfois étalées sur des centaines de kilomètres. Les traditions au Paléolithique supérieur agissent tel un filet de symboles, d'actes et d'actions. La monte du cheval paraît s'imposer, au moins partiellement et pour des groupes limités. Les idées se diffusent à grande vitesse, rendues évidentes par l'extrême extension des techniques et des arts. Tout s'oppose donc de ce point de vue aussi antre le Paléolithique moyen et le Paléolithique supérieur. Mots-clés : monte du cheval – extension – Eurasie – mobilité Abstract: The relationship between nature and culture can be understood in terms of reciprocal symbolic pathways. All parts of an animal are integrated into traditional human activities, including shelter, tools and hunting. This particular character has enabled an extreme survival of values up to the present. The essential condition is due to mobility, at least partial mobility of some members of the group, which has left evidence in the archaeological record, sometimes over hundreds of kilometers. Traditions during the Upper Palaeolithic act as a network of symbols, acts and actions. Horse riding appears to have been necessary, at least in part and for limited groups. Ideas are spread rapidly, as seen by the widespread expansion of techniques and art. All elements of prehistoric culture are therefore opposed when comparing the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic.
The Dorset site of Phillip's Garden (EeBi-1) in Newfoundland is unusual for its size, the distinct character of its settlement, and its rich material remains, including a wide range of osseous (bone, antler, and ivory) tools. This paper presents a comprehensive description of sled technology at the site through an analysis of sled shoes, their design, manufacture sequence, distribution, and the materials selected for their fabrication. The results reveal that while sleds were important throughout the site's history, their frequency is not consistent, suggesting changes in transporting practices that reflect shifting settlement patterns. It becomes apparent that when compared to sled shoes from elsewhere in the Dorset period, those at Phillip's Garden exhibit a design that is unique in a number of ways indicating the development of a local technological tradition. © 2014 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System.
By the 13th century AD, Thule people - ancestors of today’s Inupiat - occupied most of Northwestern Alaska. Since then, and in a growing quantity after the 15th century and to the Contact Period in late 18th century, jade tools and objects become abundant in archaeological assemblages from northwestern Alaska. To explore the techniques that were used for the exploitation and manufacturing of jade objects, the status of this green stone and its role in the subsistence economy, since the emergence of Thule Culture (1200 AD - 1800 AD), a doctoral research on past jade economy in Alaska was developed. The objective of this study is to explore the potential socio-cultural relationship that existed within Thule communities and the social and economic relations maintained between the two sides of Bering Strait during the last millennium, as well as how these influenced (or not) the material culture of past communities in Northwest Alaska. This article is an overview of the reduction processes and manufacturing techniques of jade artifacts based on archaeological assemblages from Northwestern Alaska (Cape Espenberg), and of the status of jade tools and products such as perceived throughout the ethnographic litterature.
The Siberian Northeast shows striking parallels between the cosmologies of hunters and reindeer herders. What may this tell us about the transformation from hunting to pastoralism? This article argues for a structural identity between hunting and sacrifice, and for the domestication of the reindeer as the result of hunters' efforts to use sacrifice to control the accidental variables of the hunt. Hunters can practise their ethos of ‘trust’ with prey only through highly controlled ritual enactments. We describe two: the famous bear festival of the Amur Gulf region and the consecrated reindeer of the Eveny. Both express the same overall logic by which sacrifice functions as an ideal hunt. The animal is involved in a relation not of domination but of trust, while also undergoing a process of taming. We therefore suggest that the reindeer's domestication may be based not only on ecological or economic adaptations, but also on cosmology.
A 190 cm. bison sculpture exists beside Ségognole 3's vulva and horses. The grooves making up parts of the vulva and bison are technically identical, making them likely Palaeolithic contemporaries, but different from the horses'. Compositional analyses reveals how the frieze resembles ones at Guy Martin and Roc-aux-Sorciers. A survey of representations with some natural contours shows that mammoths and bison seem to be the main species illustrated this way. This adds support to a "prey-mother" hypothesis linking "armour-headed" herbivores and some Palaeolithic feminine imagery. Finally, the kind of compositional inquiry that led to the bison's discovery is shown to have wider applications. Résumé : Il existe, à côté de la vulve et des chevaux de la Ségognole 3, une sculpture de bison de 190 cm de longueur. Les fissures qui composent les parties de la vulve et la queue du bison ont subi des interventions humaines qui les rendent techniquement identiques, et susceptibles de contemporanéité, mais elles diffèrent des tracés qui dessinent les chevaux. Des analyses de composition montrent que la frise ressemble à celles de Guy-Martin et du Roc-aux-Sorciers. Une enquête sur les représentations qui utilisent des contours naturels montre que les mammouths et les bisons semblent êtres les principales espèces traitées de cette façon. Cela ajoute du crédit à l'hypothèse d'une "proie-mère" qui permet de relier certaines représentations féminines paléolithiques à des herbivores à "têtes cuirassées". Enfin, l'article montre que l'on est en mesure d'attendre davantage de résultats du type d'analyse compositionnelle qui a conduit à la découverte du bison.
Cultural values are the hidden dimension of bilingual education. They are invisible. They are hard to pin down. They are delicate to deal with. For this reason, many bilingual programs allow them to remain hidden. As ethereal as cultural values often are, they subtly influence the academic outcomes of bicultural students. In Alaska, the Bering Strait School District has sponsored and piloted a two-pronged cultural awareness program for Eskimo students and their non-Eskimo teachers. The first prong is a series of 36 weekly bulletins designed to alert teachers to some of the contrasting cultural values that can help promote student achievement in school. The second prong is a course for high-school students that teaches them how to recognize and cope with contrasting cultural values so that, instead of culture clash, they can experience culture comfort. The course content is of such high interest to students that they are unaware that they are taking part in an intensive language development program.
This article unveils imagery that seems intended to be recognized in phases from such sites as Font-de-Gaume (pg. 24), Laugerie-Basse (pg. 35-37), Isturitz (pg. 37-38), Saint-Cirq-du-Bugue (pg. 38-39), and Guy-Martin (pg. 26-35), after describing the first Paleolithic sculpture of an animal reported in the Ile-de-France. These include:
1) The extended panel of Ségognole 3. The grotto is known for a vulva between 2 faint horses, but its largest graphic element is a groove that has been explained away as a “border”. The groove is actually the caudal line of a 1.9 meter-long bas-relief of a bison that has been overlooked because of the failure to apply the same conventions of the vulva – figurative realism, monumentality, and the use of natural forms – to the engraved line, although it is identical in manufacture. The wisent composed by natural relief accentuated by incising, flaking, and polishing confirms that the ensemble is Paleolithic.
2) A survey of Paleolithic parietal images whose contours are defined like the Ségognole bison by natural relief uncovered over 120 examples. This revealed that mammoths and bison were illustrated far more commonly this way than other species. Such statistical analyses of how imagery relates to rock morphology provides a new way of grouping Paleolithic art and opens another window into makers’ intentions. It also raises the related phenomenon of imagery that played upon similarities between the contours of bison and mammoths.
3) The “mammoth” on the Grotte de Canecaude spear-thrower, which has one eye above a crescent that makes it read as a tusk and another eye below the same crescent that makes it read as a bison’s horn. The sculpture is one of several images that combine mammoths and bison in some of the oldest known figure-ground illusions.
4) The art of Font-de-Gaume. Numerous paintings blend aspects of mammoths and bison, extending the theme of Paleolithic figure-ground illusions and making the relationship between the "armor-headed" herbivores the cave’s leitmotif.
5) The Roc-aux-Sorciers. The juxtaposition of the generative portion of a woman’s body with one of the two herbivores identified as having some equivalency in Magdalenian art turns out to be a re-current theme in northern France, where it is also seen at Guy-Martin and Ségognole 3. Links are established between these northern friezes and the Grotte des Fieux, Grotte du Sorcier, and Abri Reverdit.
6) Guy-Martin’s “obstetric” frieze. The panel uses a compositional technique similar to Cubism – building a “de-composed” horse, for example, out of figurative, natural and schematic elements. Another example of the panel’s “interactive” technique involves a single crescent that is positioned to be read 4 ways: as one horse’s tail, another horse’s mane, an ibex’s backward horn, and an auroch’s forward horn.
7) The “Femme au Renne”. Several Magdalenian engravings of “women” are re-examined in light of such findings of polysemic density, leading to the discovery of more secondary imagery. This re-examination shows that “la femme au renne” contains at least 4 degrees of engraving, ranging from the pregnant female under the herbivore to such lightly incised details as hocks that transform the figure into a therianthropomorph, 2 outer “pregnancies”, an umbilical snake within the over-arching external pregnancies, and even a “spectral” baby whose head is formed by a circle of light crosses.
8) Similarly, the “women” and bison on a wand from Isturitz share such traits as hooves and hackles.
9) The Grotte du Sorcier “anthropomorph”. The “sorcerer” turns out to have both short hoofed and longer human legs and rounded buttocks enclosed within a herbivore’s rectilinear rump. The figure can also be read as being juvenile or female, rather than just as an ithyphallic male.
These analyses coalesce into a new interpretation of the relationship between some Paleolithic feminine imagery and symbolically important prey species: a “prey-mother” hypothesis. Although the theory is based on internal evidence that “women” were repeatedly associated with herbivores through shared traits and connections, it is also in keeping with female roles in glacial subsistence systems where there is little for women to gather for much of the year and fitted clothing is essential.
Frequently, one female role in such “hunter-sewer” economies is to increase the chance of a hunter’s success by providing him with animal qualities. Several polar cultures believe women do this while sewing clothing and camouflage by synthesizing the powers of the species whose hides compose the garments, thereby imbuing hunters with qualities needed for success. Another common role is for wives to enter trances in which they “become” prey and lull it into coming within range. A third is to reconcile hunters with animals they have killed by “feeding” dead animals like guests and inviting them upon their “departure” to return home as living creatures. “Whale-wife-mothers” among the Koryaks and Nootka, for example, do this by initiating the regeneration of whales. All three roles involve beliefs in a woman’s maternal capacity not only to give birth to humans but also to morph into, control and generate socially important prey.
At the heart of the polysemic Paleolithic imagery examined here there probably lay equally layered beliefs concerning the relationship between women and animals. The repeated association of the generative portion of women’s bodies with large herbivores suggests that some Paleolithic societies believed that women had the capacity to generate and intercede among humans and their prey - making them the sex that spiritually controlled the food supply.
Some western Alaskan coastal prehistoric and protohistoric village sites had intrasite semisubterranean passageways that connected the village men's house(s) and the smaller family houses. These tunnels acted as an interstitial and negotiated space that connected the gendered spatial spheres of Yup'ik Eskimo women and men. Instead of examining a newly constructed space that may have transformed relationships, this work examines the historically contingent consequence of the loss of these tunnels as a built medium, both between women and men and among women. It is my contention that the dismantling of the multipurpose village tunnels insulated women from one another, from their established methods for learning and means for building influence and authority, and from intimate engagement with the expanding mercantilist economy and equitable access to social and economic resources.
Protohistoric and probably Late Prehistoric Mountain Shoshones (sometimes known as Sheepeaters) who lived in and around the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem of north-western North America made soapstone bowls in the mountains at the time of Euroamerican contact. The Rocky Mountain soapstone bowl industry is characterized by undecorated, flowerpot-shaped bowls that generally hold more than one litre. Using ethnographic and ethnohistoric data, as well as archaeological evidence, I examine how the distribution of soapstone – also known as steatite – vessels refines ideas about Mountain Shoshone territory, which in turn makes it possible to delineate a Protohistoric seasonal mobility system that included summertime use of alpine mineral, floral and faunal resources.
The ambivalent legacy of anthropologists' relations with local communities presents contemporary researchers with both obstacles and opportunities. No longer justifiable by assumptions of free scientific access and interpersonal rapport, research increasingly calls for explicit contract agreements and negotiated reciprocities. The complex, unfinished colonial entanglements of anthropology and Native communities are being undone and rewoven, and even the most severe indigenous critics of anthropology recognize the potential for alliances when they are based on shared resources, repositioned indigenous and academic authorities, and relations of genuine respect. This essay probes the possibilities and limits of collaborative work, focusing on recent Native heritage exhibitions in south-central and southwestern Alaska. It also discusses the cultural politics of identity and tradition, stressing social processes of articulation, performance, and translation.
The question which runs throughout this talk can be stated in stark form: is it a mistake to take our interest in an ethnographic phenomenon in the direction of empirical investigation when what is really needed with respect to its clarity is an imaginative contemplation of it? It is my overall argument that the Malinowskian recourse to ethnographical evidence is misguided. As an example, I take the animist conception of ‘soul’. I will show how it is essentially an imaginary issue. Rendering it intelligible, therefore, involves launching a speculative investigation into the source of its origin. This finds an echo in Frazer, the last survivor of the old ‘armchair school’. His style of anthropology was marked by a deliberate speculative interrogation of cross-cultural ethnography – a process whereby abstract thinking gives force and meaning to ethnographic observations.
La question qui sert de fil rouge à ce propos peut être formulée crûment: est-ce une erreur que de transposer notre intérêt pour un phénomène ethnographique vers une investigation empirique, alors que pour le mettre en lumière, il nécessiterait en réalité une contemplation imaginative? L'auteur affirme, de manière générale, que le recours aux preuves ethnographiques selon les principes de Malinovski n'est pas pertinent. Il propose comme exemple la conception animiste de « l'âme » et montre pourquoi il s'agit pour l'essentiel d'une question imaginaire: pour rendre cette question intelligible, il faut donc s'engager dans une investigation spéculative de ses origines. Cette approche fait écho à Frazer, dernier avatar de l'ancienne armchair anthropology. Son style anthropologique se caractérise par un questionnement délibérément spéculatif des divers comptes-rendus ethnographiques: un processus par le biais duquel la pensée abstraite apporte force et signification aux observations ethnographiques.
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