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

探索向上太阳河 (Xaasaa Na) 的内部变异性，这是阿拉斯加中部更新世末期遗址：觅食行为和古环境背景。

• 批准号: 1223119
• 负责人: Ben Potter
• 金额: $ 70.6万
• 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: 2012-12-15 至 2018-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1223119&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Exploring; intrasite; variability; Upward; Sun

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.

该项目包括对向上太阳河（USR） （Xaasaa Na’）的探索，这是阿拉斯加中部一个深埋的遗址，与北美北极或亚北极最早的人类遗骸和住宅结构（约11500年前）有关。这次探索将集中在理解从上一个冰河时代到现代间冰期过渡时期的技术和生存经济（包括植物和动物）。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，包括石器工具、动物、植物大化石、植物岩和稳定同位素分析。研究结果还将告诉我们与通过白令陆桥对新大陆进行最初殖民有关的适应策略。其他问题涉及到在最后一个冰河时代结束时，在不断变化的气候条件下，适应策略保持不变或改变的程度。考虑到USR站点对当地和地区阿拉斯加原住民社区的重要性，该项目具有强大的教育组成部分，包括支持阿拉斯加原住民的参与。这项研究有可能为我们了解西半球这一重要时期提供变革性的数据。