Collaborative Research: Birnirk prehistory and the emergence of Inupiaq Culture in Northwestern Alaska, archaeological and anthropological perspectives.

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This project will explore the question of the origin of Inupiaq culture in northwestern Alaska at the end of the first millennium AD. The project will document the cultural histories, social interactions, population diversity and dispersal, and environmental changes from data collected at Cape Espenberg and in relation to the greater Bering Strait and Arctic regions. The research team will work together with community members in Shishmaref to conduct archaeological excavation, paleoecology and ancient DNA research to better understand who were the people that first settled the area around AD 1000, when and from where they came, and in what environmental conditions these events took place. At the same time they will work with cultural advisers and Shishmaref community members who have ancestral ties to the area to explore how material culture and landscape is interpreted to talk about the past and tell history. The project will promote progress of science and education by conducting basic research and developing new methods in the several research fields involved. By insuring and promoting proper conservation of artifacts the project, will increase awareness and capacity to preserve the growing catalog of perishable organic artifacts, increasingly exposed due to eroding coastal and thawing permafrost. By including indigenous perspectives on material culture, the research will promote an archaeology that is more receptive to multiple voices. The project will also foster national and international collaborations between four US research institutes, a French University (U. of Panthéon Sorbonne), a rural Alaska community and a regional non-profit corporation. Associated with the project a variety of initiatives represent opportunities in research, education and training for a number of underrepresented Alaska minorities, women, and undergraduate and graduate students. The aims of this multidisciplinary program of research is to explore human interaction, settlement history, climate and landscape dynamics in relation to the Birnirk archaeological complex at ca. AD 1000. After a period of hiatus, Birnirk site KTZ-304 at Cape Espenberg (Inuigniq) was occupied at a pivotal cultural and environmental moment in Northwest Alaska and the larger Bering Sea region, just before AD 1000 and prior to the emergence of Inupiaq culture around AD 1300. Cape Espenberg is a key location for this cultural history both because of the presence of Ipiutak, Birnik and Thule archaeological sites and as ancestral land of today's Kigiqtaamiut of Shishmaref. Interrelated and integrated analytical approaches involving cultural and physical anthropology, archaeology and paleoecology will (a) form the framework for continued excavation at site KTZ-304 (b) contribute to study architectural features, archaeofauna, ceramics, and artifacts in order to elucidate social networks, subsistence systems and technology, and to understand the impact of climate and resource availability on peoples activities, decisions and movements; (c) guide the collecting of paleoenvironmental data through targeted sampling of swales and ridges to date dune ridge stabilization, reconstruct terrestrial vegetation and map the location of the ocean relative to the site; (d) integrate ancient DNA (aDNA) studies to establish the broader genetic relationships of Inuit societies in the region and beyond; (e) explore how Kigiqtaamiut interpret material culture to understand the past, narrate history and generate knowledge (f) foster a dialog on the role of material culture today in the community of Shishmaref and in between the Kigiqtaamiut and the scientists to construct more reflexive interpretations of the past, and thus (g) advance understanding of the origin of Inupiaq culture through the development of a high-resolution chronology of settlement and landscape formation, cultural shift and climate variation.