Collaborative Research: Glacial Retreat and the Cultural Landscape of Ice Floe Sealing at Yakutat Bay, Alaska

合作研究：阿拉斯加雅库塔特湾的冰川退缩和浮冰封闭的文化景观

• 批准号: 1203271
• 负责人: Daniel Mann
• 金额: $ 25.54万
• 依托单位: University of Alaska Fairbanks Campus
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2012-09-01 至 2016-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1203271&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Glacial; Retreat; Cultural

This multidisciplinary study of the ancient, historical, and contemporary harvest of harbor seals at icefloe pupping grounds near Hubbard Glacier in Yakutat Bay, Alaska models the reshaping of both an environment and a human hunting system in response to Late Holocene climate change. The project joins indigenous knowledge, language, and oral heritage with the material and chronometric evidence of archaeology, geology, and paleoenvironmental studies to document the cultural history and landscape of Yakutat Bay, where dramatic glacial recession after C. E. 1100 attracted major concentrations of harbor seals and opened the fiord for Sugpiaq, Eyak, Ahtna, and Tlingit settlement. The research team proposes that a clan-based system of local and external access rights developed around Yakutat sealing because of its economic centrality for peoples of the eastern Gulf of Alaska; that sealing camps shifted from the outer to the inner bay over time to follow the receding glacial front; and that the locations, artifact assemblages, faunal remains, and spatial layouts of camps express the cultural and social organization of hunting in different eras. They hypothesize that situated knowledge of Yakutat Bay's human and environmental history is encoded in living oral traditions and multilingual toponyms that richly delineate this nine-century cultural landscape, and that oral heritage can be chronologically correlated with archaeological and geological data. The study leads from the past to the present day, when the continuity of sealing and of the community's cultural and linguistic heritage are matters of urgent local concern. The methodologies and results of this study are highly relevant to questions of human adaptation and resiliency in the changing North and to the challenge of building coherence between indigenous and scientific knowledge systems.

这项多学科的研究对阿拉斯加雅库塔湾哈伯德冰川附近冰原幼崽的古代、历史和当代海豹的收获进行了研究，模拟了环境和人类狩猎系统的重塑，以应对全新世晚期的气候变化。该项目将土著知识、语言和口头遗产与考古学、地质学和古环境研究的材料和计时证据结合在一起，记录雅库塔湾的文化历史和景观。公元1100年之后，雅库塔湾发生戏剧性的冰川衰退，吸引了大量海豹聚集，并为Sugpiaq、Eyak、Ahtna和Tlingit定居点开辟了峡湾。研究小组提出，雅库塔特封地周围形成了一个以氏族为基础的当地和外部访问权制度，因为它对阿拉斯加湾东部的人民具有经济中心地位；封地营地随着时间的推移从外海湾转移到内湾，以跟随冰川前缘的消退；营地的位置、人工制品组装、动物遗迹和空间布局表达了不同时代狩猎的文化和社会组织。他们假设，雅库塔湾人类和环境历史的地理位置知识被编码在生动的口头传统和多种语言的地名中，丰富地描绘了这一九世纪的文化景观，口头遗产可以与考古和地质数据按时间顺序相关联。这项研究从过去一直持续到现在，当时印章的连续性和社区的文化和语言遗产是当地迫切关注的问题。这项研究的方法和结果与变化中的北方的人类适应和复原力问题以及在土著知识系统和科学知识系统之间建立一致性的挑战高度相关。