Subarctic Archaeology

Fort Churchill or New Severn Post was constructed by the Hudson's Bay Company barely fifteen years after the company was incorporated, in 1670. The palisaded enclosure would remain standing for only five years. At that location, more than just European wares were exchanged for furs and vice versa. Two worlds came into contact and would be forever marked by the process. The brief period of occupation attested to at Gllw-1 illustrates some of the probing that was taking place between two distinct of life. Local Indigenous traders and their families learned about new technologies and tools, but also experimented with the properties of these new materials and objects, and incorporated them into their traditional, but changing, lifestyle. The English realized
that trading was not viewed by the Indigenous peoples as exclusively an economic equation, thus entering into social relationships with their Indigenous clients.

The Eastern Subarctic has long been portrayed as a place without history. Challenging this perspective, History in the Making: The Archaeology of the Eastern Subarctic charts the complex and dynamic history of this little known archaeological region of North America. Along the way, the book explores the social processes through which native peoples “made” history in the past and archaeologists and anthropologists later wrote about it. As such, the book offers both a critical history and historiography of the Eastern Subarctic.

In this paper we report on the results of spectral analysis of a large assemblage of obsidian artifacts from the Little John site (Borden Number KdVo-6), a multi-component site in southwestern Yukon with evidence of human occupation from the Late Pleistocene to contemporary times. Intra-site analysis of the distribution of obsidian source material and its use as formal and expedient lithic tools is examined through time and across the site, demonstrating both continuity and change in the technological organization of this lithic material. Following this we examine the inter-site comparison of obsidian source material at the Little John site with a selection of sites documented in the Alaskan Obsidian Database housed at the Museum of the North at the University of Alaska – Fairbanks, with a special focus on Late Pleistocene East Beringian sites of similar ages within the Tanana River Basin.

The Hudson Bay Lowlands is a vast region with a very unique set of environmental conditions which arise because of its proximity to Hudson Bay, and due to the consequences of post-glacial events. Until recently its ecological potential has been poorly documented and understood. Even today, little specific environmental and ecological data from the Lowlands are available. This situation led many anthropologists to deny the possibility of any significant, year-round prehistoric occupation of the area and to propose that the historic occupants were attracted there by the presence of European traders. Prior to 1981, the area remained virtually unexplored, in spite of the existence of long culture-historical records in adjacent regions.

Sites along the Severn River are few and the remains are sparse. However, following four seasons of reconnaissance and testing, it is possible to describe a distinctive adaptive pattern which began 1500 to 2000 years ago. The way of life of these people was predicated on the exploitation of a wide range of subsistence species of which caribou was a focal resource. Their material culture reflects the very significant distances which had to be traveled in order to successfully exploit the Lowlands on a year-long basis. Ceramics were only occasionally acquired, likely through trade. Bone and antler were probably more important raw materials for the manufacture of tools than was stone, which was used in a very expedient fashion. The Severn River assemblages stand in marked contrast to those of neighbouring areas to the East, South and West, although it is evident that long-range communication networks were maintained.

From an archaeological perspective, contact with Europeans, although obvious in certain categories of material items, such as hunting weapons, had little effect on the general lifestyle of the people until the mid to late XIXth century, when the subsistence/settlement pattern underwent important changes, coincident with declining caribou populations.

This thesis used a feminist archaeological theoretical framework to approach the analysis and presentation of the osseous tool collection from the Broken Mammoth site (XBD-131) in interior Alaska. The Broken Mammoth site dated to the Pleistocene/Holocene transition and has good organic preservation, which allowed for the recovery of seven formal osseous tools, which were available for physical analysis. Each tool was assessed for use and manufacture wear, and examined and photographed using a high-resolution scanner, digital micrograph, and standard digital camera. The tools were compared to a dataset of osseous tools from Western Beringia, Eastern Beringia, and North America compiled from previous research, in order to interpret the collection by function. The tools were interpreted as a combination of a projectile point or composite projectile pre-form cache, blunted projectiles, a foreshaft or projectile, and an eyed-needle. The feminist theoretical approach was used to develop a reflexive interrogation of the process of the tool analysis and to engender activity at the Broken Mammoth site.
The osseous tool collection was, in part, reflective of hunting strategies for small, fur bearing animals and of detailed or decorative sewing. I conducted a review of ethnographic literature from the Arctic and Subarctic, noting where men and/or women participated in the manufacture of clothing from raw material procurement through hunting to use of a completed garment. This analysis revealed the importance of women’s labor in this process.
The results of the ethnographic review were applied to previous research from the Broken Mammoth site, and the results of the osseous tool analysis, leading to the conclusion that women’s activities are visible at the Broken Mammoth site. 

Debates over meaningful archaeological units, typologies, or " technocomplexes " have a lengthy history in archaeology and the issue is particularly convoluted in eastern Beringia. Categorizing the early prehistoric tool industries of the Pleistocene/Holocene transition is pertinent to understanding the coloni-zation of eastern Beringia and ultimately the Americas. Yet, Alaska archaeologists continue to disagree on a unified culture history. The primary point of contention surrounds the presence or absence of microblade technology in central Alaska and the meaning of the Nenana and Denali complexes. While some interpret the former as a unique manifestation representing a separate migratory population, others disagree; and, the Denali complex has become a catchall category for a variety of artifact types leading to questions over its conceptual validity. This assessment tests specific questions pertinent to the relationship between prehistoric tool use and ecotones in an attempt to explain the presence or absence of particular artifact types and land use strategies through time. It also reflects on issues caused by repeated occupations, palimpsest assemblages, and other taphomonic processes that influence archaeological consensus. Results indicate separate phases in the initial colonization of Alaska and form a testable hypothesis based on functional land use properties associated with the Denali complex era in a way that distinguishes it from other early technologies in the region. The approach contributes to a longstanding discussion over subjectivity among archaeological categories and explains assemblage variability in eastern Beringia with widespread implications for interpreting the initial peopling of the Americas.

The Late Pleistocene sites from Ushki Lake (Kamchatka) are among the most important sites for the understanding of the early archaeology of Beringia. This article presents a descriptive technological analysis of the stone-tool productions from Ushki-1 and Ushki-5, focusing on the late Pleistocene microblade component (layer VI). Microblade sites from late Pleistocene northeast Asia and North America represent one of the earliest migration waves to colonize the Americas. This particular technology originated in the Far East before spreading towards Alaska. The understanding of this migration process is thus essential, especially since the discovery of the Swan Point CZ4 microblade industry, the oldest human occupation so far in Alaska.

Research focused on the Little John site, located in the Alaska- Yukon borderlands has demonstrated a new, previously unrecognized geoarchaeological context for the preservation of deeply buried early Beringian sites with excellent faunal preservation, expanding our knowledge of early human adaptations in Beringia. At the same time, this expanded zooarchaeological database, essentially deriving from an east- west transect through interior Alaska and the western Yukon, has created an opportunity for us to gain insights into subsistence variability and settlement patterns in late Pleistocene/early Holocene Beringia. It also allows consideration of regional variability in paleoclimatic and paleoenvironmental change in Beringia during the late Pleistocene/early Holocene period that may help to explain the demise of the late Pleistocene “Nenana/Chindadn complex” as well as the adaptive basis of the succeeding early Holocene “Denali complex” in eastern Beringia.

Vegetation and plant resources can impact forager mobility and subsistence strategies. However, misconceptions about the preservation of organics in subarctic archaeological contexts and underestimations of the importance of plant resources to foraging societies limit paleoethnobotanical research in high-latitude environments. This research draws upon concepts from human behavioral ecology to address questions relating to site seasonality, plant resource
use, land use, and deposition and taphonomy. The model developed in this thesis outlines expectations of seasonal archaeobotanical assemblages for Late Pleistocene and Holocene sites in interior Alaska. I consider these expectations in light of plant macroremains found in anthropogenic features from Components 1 and 3 (approximately 13,300 and 11,500 cal yr BP, respectively) at the Upward Sun River site, located in central Alaska.

Site-specific methods include bulk sampling of feature matrix in the field and wet-sieving matrix in the laboratory to collect organic remains. Analytical measures of density, diversity, and
ubiquity tie together the model expectations and the results from Upward Sun River. The dominance of common bearberry in the Component 1 archaeobotanical assemblage meets the
expectations of a late summer or fall occupation. This suggests that site occupants may have focused on mitigating the risk of starvation in winter months by foraging for seasonally
predictable and storable resources. The variability in results from the Component 3 features could relate to longer-term occupations that extended from mid-summer to early fall, in which site occupants foraged for locally available and predictable plant resources such as blueberry or low-bush cranberry species.

In this thesis, I argue that large mammal resources were a key component in Late Pleistocene and Holocene subsistence strategies. However, foragers were flexible in their behavior and also targeted small mammals, fish, waterfowl, and plant resources in response to environmental conditions and cultural preferences. The results illustrate the long-standing use of culturally and economically important plant resources in interior Alaska and draw attention to aspects of human behavior that are under-conceptualized in northern archaeology, such as the gender division of labor, domestic behavior, and potential impacts of plant resource exploitation
on mobility and land use.

This thesis considers the role of monuments in the social construction of landscape over a six-thousand-year period in northern Finland.
Using Cultural Virus Theory and a Resilience Theory (RT) framework, this study argues that large, lasting, and widespread artifacts such as monuments form systems with their own Adaptive Cycles, and that these artifacts change much more slowly than most systems that shape human behaviour. As a result, they become an important part of the selective environment over the long term.
From 6500 BP to 1500 BP the hunter-gatherers of northern Finland constructed stone monuments along the coast of the Bay of Bothnia. These monuments are associated with the productive paleo-estuaries from which the populations derived most of their resources. Because the coastline was moving westwards rapidly, due to isostatic rebound following the end of the last glaciation, new coastal monuments were periodically constructed as the older ones lost their association with the shoreline.
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) were used to reconstruct six ancient shorelines for northwestern coastal Finland, creating five strips of land each corresponding to an area that emerged over a one-thousand-year period. The coastline was also divided into Northern, Middle, and Southern study regions. Using these two parameters, fifteen study areas were created. GIS was then used to show that the monuments in most of the study areas are distributed non-randomly with respect to two important features of the coastal landscape: major waterways and the edges of watershed basins. Mapping the spatial data also showed that monuments are associated with particular paleo-estuaries and that that association persists over time, with each construction renewing a well-defined ancestral landscape.
The work of previous archaeologists on the hunter-gatherers of the ancient Finnish coast has shown that, while the early occupants were culturally relatively homogenous, different parts of the coastline diverged over time. This is confirmed by the present study; however, persistent commonalities in the situation of monuments relative to resources are also observed. It is demonstrated that certain patterns of monumental location are repeated asynchronically across different regions of the coast as patterns of sedentism and social differentiation shift. As groups become more sedentary, monuments are constructed a few kilometers away from major waterways, bracketing the resources closely associated with the paleo-estuaries. As populations grow and social differentiation increases, more monuments are constructed, and the area they cover expands to include entire watersheds and other kinds of capital resources. All three study regions experience a fairly rapid collapse, though not at the same time, and in all three regions a similar pattern can be observed: post-sedentary hunter-gatherer groups build fewer monuments, but those that they do construct continue to mark parts of the coastline that were important in the previous millennia. This suggests that the human understanding of monuments, particularly regarding their placement in the landscape, is remarkably consistent across time and space, providing evidence of a shared history and ongoing interaction along the coast even as the study regions are drawn into different networks, subsistence strategies, and forms of social organization.

Many historic Native components have been excavated along the Severn River of northern Ontario. These span the historic period, from earliest contacts to the present century. Changes in material remains, as well as in the faunal assemblages suggest that major elements of the traditional lifestyle persisted well beyond the initial contact period. In fact, major shifts cannot be perceived archaeologically until well into the nineteenth century. In this particular instance, we might question the degree of dependence of Native people on the European whites.

The Northern Indigenous Copper Technology working group at Purdue University has examined over 2000 copper objects from hundreds of pre-Contact and Contact period archaeological sites across Alaska, Northern Canada, and the Northwest Coast.  Pre-Contact copper objects from arctic and subarctic contexts originate from geological native copper sources in either the Wrangell and St. Elias mountain ranges in the western subarctic or the Coronation Gulf region of the central arctic.  Recent geospatial analysis has shown that the occurrence of sites containing archaeological copper decreases as acquisition costs and travel time from geological sources increase.  The research presented here expands upon this analysis to examine variability within this trend.  A significant subset of the Northern Indigenous Copper Technology database is examined here for morphological variability in artifact form.  This group of over 1000 objects has been previously shown to most likely originate from central arctic sources in the Coppermine Mountains, Bathhurst Inlet, and on Victoria Island based on geospatial modeling of travel time and acquisition cost.  It is hypothesized that morphological variability in copper technologies in general and in this subset in particular will vary significantly as a function of increasing acquisition cost and travel time, as well as a response to local technical requirements imposed by specific cultural and environmental contexts.  Preliminary assessments of spatiotemporal variation in copper artifact morphologies will be presented, including correlations with variation in acquisition costs.

New AMS radio-carbon dates derived from culturally modified bone and charred material in association with artifacts has expanded our appreciation of the antiquity and continuity of occupation at the Little John site, from the early Bolling-Allerod in the Late Pleistocene post-glacial period through the Early and Later Holocene. These new dates, combined with dates from other local sites on the Yukon – Alaska borderlands, allow us to identify a number of discrete chrono-zones at Little John that can be related to, and increase our understanding of, regional vegetation and climate history, major Climate Events, and cultural complexes identified elsewhere in Eastern Beringia. In this paper we present a brief overview of the Little John site and the most recent developed chronology that currently guides our continued excavations and analyses, with a particular attention to component assignment to Alaskan and Yukon Archaeological Cultures.

Dr. Alicia Colson is an archaeologist and ethnohistorian. In this piece she writes about archeology as adventure, in the context of a long history of colonial exploration and exploitation of Indigenous peoples in the Canadian 'wilderness'.

https://adventureuncovered.com/stories/the-brown-bear-and-i-archeology-adventure-and-colonisation-in-the-canadian-wilderness/

The record of human adaptation to the exigencies of the environment of the Hudson Bay Lowlands of northern Ontario extends back several thousand years. Over this time, the hemispherical climate has undergone many long-term changes not unlike those described today as being induced by the effects of global warming, albeit over longer time frames. It can be argued that seasonal variations which range from intense winter conditions not unlike those experienced in the Arctic, to sometimes crushingly hot summers were a greater challenge than modifications of annual mean temperatures that could only be measured over the course of generations. Indeed, archaeology indicates that seasonal variations in climate left an indelible imprint on the material record of the region rather than any measurable change in mean annual temperature.

1997. 29min documentary in Tłı̨chǫ and English.
Produced by the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre and the Tłı̨chǫ Treaty 11 Council in partnership with Lone Woolf Television Production Services and Milligan Media Works.
The documentary shows the construction of a Tłı̨chǫ birchbark canoe.  The film can be viewed or downloaded at https://www.pwnhc.ca/item/dogrib-birchbark-canoe/

29min documentary in Tłı̨chǫ and English.
2001. Produced by the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre and the Tłı̨chǫ Treaty 11 Council in partnership with Lone Woolf Television Production Services and Milligan Media Works. The film documents the repatriation of a century-old Caribou skin lodge and the creation of two contemporary copies.  The film can be viewed or downloaded at https://www.pwnhc.ca/item/dogrib-caribou-skin-lodge-project/

Indigenous peoples of Canada’s North have long made use of boreal forest products, with wooden drift fences to direct caribou movement towards kill sites as unique examples. Caribou fences are of archaeological and ecological significance, yet sparsely distributed and increasingly at risk to wildfire. Costly remote field logistics requires efficient prior fence verification and rapid on-site documentation of structure and landscape context. Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and very high-resolution (VHR) satellite imagery were used for detailed site recording and detection of coarse woody debris (CWD) objects under challenging Subarctic alpine woodlands conditions. UAVs enabled discovery of previously unknown wooden structures and revealed extensive use of CWD (n = 1745, total length = 2682 m, total volume = 16.7 m3). The methodology detected CWD objects much smaller than previously reported in remote sensing literature (mean 1.5 m long, 0.09 m wide), substantiating a high spatial resolution requirement for detection. Structurally, the fences were not uniformly left on the landscape. Permafrost patterned ground combined with small CWD contributions at the pixel level complicated identification through VHR data sets. UAV outputs significantly enriched field techniques and supported a deeper understanding of caribou fences as a hunting technology, and they will aid ongoing archaeological interpretation and time-series comparisons of change agents.

The study of archaeological collections from the Ushki-I site, Layer VI (Kamchatka) made it possible to detect more than 200 items related to the production and use of pieces with burin facets. The following groups can be identified: burins on retouched truncation (lateral, diagonal and transverse), angle burins, double burins, and multiple ones. In most cases, the spall platforms were prepared by retouch. The basic knapping method was pressure technique. The number of burin spalls detached from the same flaking surface varies from two to nine. The use of pressure technique allowed a high level of regularity and standardization of the production process, with burin spalls having predetermined morpho- logical characteristics. As a result of experimental and use-wear studies 30 pieces with burin spalls have been identified as inserts for planing and drawing knives used to work solid organic materials. The character of wear traces together with the size of tools and the presence of numerous spalls of previous burin blows testify that these tools were used repeatedly over a long period of time.

В результате анализа коллекции VI слоя стоянки Ушки-I (Камчатка) нами выявлено свыше 200 предметов, связанных с технологическим контекстом производства и использования изделий с резцовыми сколами. Выделены варианты одинарных ретушных (боковых, диагональных, поперечных), угловых, двойных и комбинированных резцов. В большинстве случаев площадкой для нанесения резцового скола служила подготовленная ретушированная поверхность, основной техникой скола являлся отжим. Снятие резцовых сколов с одной и той же плоскости скалывания могло осуществляться от двух до девяти раз.  Использование отжимной техники позволяло добиваться высокого уровня регулярности и стандартизации в получении резцового негатива заданных морфологических параметров. Результаты экспериментально-трасологического иссле-дования 30 изделий с резцовыми сколами позволило идентифицировать их в качестве вкладышей строгальных ножей и скобелей по твердым органическим материалам. Характер следов износа, размеры изделий и многочисленные следы предыдущих резцовых снятий указывают на длительное использование изучаемых инструментов в работе.

Le site Neskuteu (HdDe-5) est une manifestation culturelle de la Tradition Archaïque Maritime. Le site se trouve sur le lac de la Hutte Sauvage, à 250 km au nord-est de Schefferville au Nouveau-Québec. Celui-ci se charactérise par deux structures ovales ou rectangulaires avec des aménagements internes de taille considérable qui auraient servi comme foyers, cuisines et lieux de taille de la pierre. Une grande quantité de déchets et de débris de taille fut recueillie, mais peu d'outils. L'analyse particulière du débitage permet d'affirmer une même affiliation culturelle aux occupants des deux structures.  De plus, cette analyse nous renseigne sur l'utilisation différentielle des matières premières par les occupants. Ceux-ci n'avaient plus accès au Quartzite du Labrador et employaient alors le quartz et le quartzite local pour fabriquer de gros éclats pouvant être utilises sans modifications ou presque.

The Neskuteu site (HdDe-5) is a Maritime Archaic Tradition manifestation on Indian House Lake, 250 km northeast of Schefferville, Nouveau-Québec. The site comprises the remains of two oval to rectangular surface structures. Large central depressions within these structures were the foci of many activities such as cooking and the working of stone.  A large amount of debitage was recovered from each structure, but very few finished tools. The analysis of the debitage shows that the two structures were occupied by people of the same culture group who employed a specific strategy of raw material usage while at the site. Labrador Quartzite was not readily available and so local, poorer quality, materials were used to produce large utilizable flakes, which were used as such without further modification in most cases.

Indigenous peoples of Canada’s North have long made use of boreal forest products, with wooden drift fences to direct caribou movement towards kill sites as unique examples. Caribou fences are of archaeological and ecological significance, yet sparsely distributed and increasingly at risk to wildfire. Costly remote field logistics requires efficient prior fence verification and rapid on-site documentation of structure and landscape context. Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and very high-resolution (VHR) satellite imagery were used for detailed site recording and detection of coarse woody debris (CWD) objects under challenging Subarctic alpine woodlands conditions. UAVs enabled discovery of previously unknown wooden structures and revealed extensive use of CWD (n = 1745, total length = 2682 m, total volume = 16.7 m3). The methodology detected CWD objects much smaller than previously reported in remote sensing literature (mean 1.5 m long, 0.09 m wide), substantiating a high spatial resol...

The Northern Indigenous Copper Technology working group at Purdue University has examined over 2000 copper objects from hundreds of pre-Contact and Contact period archaeological sites across Alaska, Northern Canada, and the Northwest Coast.  Pre-Contact copper objects from arctic and subarctic contexts originate from geological native copper sources in either the Wrangell and St. Elias mountain ranges in the western subarctic or the Coronation Gulf region of the central arctic.  Recent geospatial analysis has shown that the occurrence of sites containing archaeological copper decreases as acquisition costs and travel time from geological sources increase.  The research presented here expands upon this analysis to examine variability within this trend.  A significant subset of the Northern Indigenous Copper Technology database is examined here for morphological variability in artifact form.  This group of over 1000 objects has been previously shown to most likely originate from central arctic sources in the Coppermine Mountains, Bathhurst Inlet, and on Victoria Island based on geospatial modeling of travel time and acquisition cost.  It is hypothesized that morphological variability in copper technologies in general and in this subset in particular will vary significantly as a function of increasing acquisition cost and travel time, as well as a response to local technical requirements imposed by specific cultural and environmental contexts.  Preliminary assessments of spatiotemporal variation in copper artifact morphologies will be presented, including correlations with variation in acquisition costs.