Exploring intrasite variability at Upward Sun River (Xaasaa Na'), a terminal Pleistocene site in central Alaska: foraging behaviors and paleoenvironmental contexts.

该项目包括勘探向上太阳河(USR)(Xaasaa Na‘)，这是阿拉斯加中部的一个深埋遗址，与北美北极或亚北极(约11,500年前)最早的人类遗骸和住宅结构有关。这项探索将侧重于理解从最后一次冰河时代向现代间冰期过渡时的技术和(植物和动物)生存经济。研究小组将探索技术和生存是如何受到遗址结构和组织、社会组织、季节性和古环境背景的制约的。这些背景控制将在多学科框架内进行分析，包括石器、动物群、植物大型化石、植硅体和稳定同位素分析。结果还将使我们了解与通过贝林贾对新大陆的最初殖民有关的适应战略。其他问题涉及适应战略在多大程度上保持不变或在上一次冰河时代结束时在不断变化的气候条件下发生变化。鉴于USR网站对当地和区域阿拉斯加土著社区的重要性，该项目有一个强有力的教育部分，包括支持阿拉斯加土著参与。这项研究有可能为我们理解西半球这一重要时期提供变革性的数据。

This project consists of exploration of Upward Sun River (USR) (Xaasaa Na'), a deeply buried site in central Alaska, associated with the earliest human remains and residential structure in the Arctic or Subarctic of North America (~11,500 years old). This exploration will focus on understanding technology and subsistence economy (of both plants and animals) at the transition from the last Ice Age to the modern interglacial. The research team will explore how both technology and subsistence are conditioned by site structure and organization, social organization, seasonality, and paleoenvironmental contexts. These contextual controls will be analyzed within a multi-disciplinary framework, incorporating stone tools, fauna, plant macrofossils, phytoliths, and stable isotope analyses. Results will also inform us on adaptive strategies associated with the initial colonization of the New World through Beringia. Additional questions involve the extent to which adaptive strategies remained constant or changed under changing climatic conditions at the end of the last Ice Age. Given the importance of the USR site to local and regional Alaska Native communities, the project has a robust education component, including support for Alaska Native participation. This research has the potential to contribute transformative data to our understanding of this important time period in the Western Hemisphere.