Collaborative Research: The Hot Springs Village Site: a Window to Southern Bering Sea Paleo-Ecosystems and Human - Landscape Interactions

白令海南部和布里斯托尔湾是美国的故乡？最重要的渔业。了解白令海南部生态系统对于我们了解气候变化、全球经济发展和现代渔业是如此关键，以至于许多美国机构投入了大量资源来了解白令海生态系统。然而，人们对白令海的古代历史知之甚少，也没有衡量现代变化的基线。这个合作项目将在阿拉斯加半岛穆勒港温泉遗址的精确确定的地点进行挖掘，这些地点在时间上是不同的。温泉在过去曾多次被挖掘，但记录很少。它是白令海沿岸最大的村庄之一，也是最北端的阿留申村庄，也是阿留申/阿卢蒂克互动或占领的潜在场所。仅凭这些理由，就值得重新研究，以更好地了解区域史前历史。然而，PIS还将调查白令海地区的主要考古和生态问题，包括人类对景观的利用、生存方式的稳定性和变化、物种分布、长期气候变化和海冰制度。该项目将增加我们对东南部白令海地区人类生态系统的了解，并包括对当地阿留申学生的教育和培训。该项目最重要的是，该地点是在过去5000年来最温暖的气候条件下占据的，通常是在阿拉斯加半岛其他地区人口稀少的时期。它位于冬季冰盖的南部边缘，但有4000年人类收获的深层和分层的贝类沉积物。在温泉沉积物中已经发现了100多种哺乳动物、鸟类、鱼类和贝类。通过有系统和有针对性的挖掘，从温泉村遗址收集大量动物遗骸样本，私人投资者将重建白令海南部的环境历史，有可能为现代渔业研究创造一个基线。

The southern Bering Sea and Bristol Bay are home to the United States? most important fisheries. Understanding the southern Bering Sea ecosystem is so critical to our understanding of climate change, global economic development, and modern fisheries that a number of US agencies have invested considerable resources to understand the Bering Sea ecosystem. Yet little is known about the ancient history of the Bering Sea, with no baseline from which to measure any modern changes. This collaborative project will undertake excavations at precisely identified locations in temporally distinct middens at the Hot Springs site, Port Moller, Alaskan Peninsula. Hot Springs has been excavated repeatedly in the past but poorly documented. It is one of the largest, if not the largest, village site on the Bering Sea coast, the northernmost known Aleut village, and a potential place for Aleut/Alutiiq interaction or occupation. On these grounds, alone, it is worth re-investigating to understand better regional prehistory. However, the PIs will also investigate major archaeological and ecological questions in the Bering Sea region, including human use of landscapes, stability and change in subsistence practices, species distribution, long-term climate change, and sea ice regimes. The project will add much to our understanding of human ecodynamic systems in the southeastern Bering Sea region, as well as including education and training for local Aleut students.What makes this project most important is that the site was occupied during some of the warmest climatic regimes of the last 5000 years, often during time periods when the rest of the Alaska Peninsula shows a sparse population. It is at the southern edge of the winter ice pack but has deep and stratified shellfish deposits from 4000 years of human harvesting. Over 100 taxa of mammals, birds, fish, and shellfish have been identified in the Hot Springs deposits. Using systematic and targeted excavations to collect large samples of faunal remains from the Hot Springs Village site, the PIs will reconstruct the environmental history of the southern Bering Sea with the potential to create a baseline for modern fisheries studies.