Collaborative Research: Exploring Subsistence Economies, Technological Organization, and Site Structure in Eastern Beringia

About This Grant

This award funds the scientific analysis of materials recovered from the site of Broken Mammoth in central Alaska. This site has figured heavily in debates about the peopling of the Americas and yielded a vast collection of artifacts and butchered animal bones--far more diverse and numerous than from other early Beringian sites. These materials hold clues to understanding human adaptations during the transition from the last Ice Age to the modern environment. Through analysis of the site collection, the research team will explore changes in foraging ecology and seasonal land use strategies, reconstruct subsistence economies, and investigate changes in site activities through time. Broader impacts include making site materials and primary data available to the scientific community, support for several students and a post-doctoral researcher, educational opportunities for Indigenous youth, and a cultural heritage summit with regional Tribal leadership. Investigations at Broken Mammoth (1989–2010) in central Alaska revealed a deeply buried site with multiple occupations dating from 13,310 to 2250 years ago, including two rare residential camps. The site has been highly influential in developing broad spectrum foraging models and has yielded the largest faunal assemblage in Beringia by species richness and count of identified specimens. However, no detailed artifact, faunal, or spatial analyses have been conducted. The project team will curate and analyze this large collection in order to reconstruct human resource and risk management strategies from initial human settlement to the recent past. The team will employ zooarchaeological, biomolecular (proteomic and genetic species identifications), and lithic technological analyses. Objectives include reconstructing site subsistence economies through time (including diet breadth and seasonal land use strategies); investigating raw material use and procurement; and identifying site structure and activity patterns through plant macrofossil, spatial and hearth biochemical analyses. This integrated analytical strategy will enable the research team to document changes in human behavior through time and link human adaptations to regional environmental dynamics. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.