Doctoral Dissertation Research: Identifying and Characterizing Human-Insect Relations through Material Culture in Western Alaska

昆虫出现在阿拉斯加各地的物质文化、口头传统和考古背景中，但学者们对昆虫的关注有限。本项目探讨昆虫在阿拉斯加西部土著物质文化中的表现和意义。该项目将从考古遗址和博物馆藏品中鉴定Yup 'ik和Iñupiaq昆虫；将昆虫置于土著世界观中；并将本地昆虫分类与科学的林奈分类进行比较和对比。该项目促进了对世界上数量最多的分类群的认识，无论是在物种还是个体数量方面，并突出了土著知识在了解北极生态系统中的作用。本项目资金支持对8个博物馆藏品中的昆虫进行调查；形式图解分析；以及科学鉴定和本地分类鉴定在昆虫描述中的应用。民族志和民族历史资料，结合访谈数据，将使材料的背景化。项目结果将通过昆虫-对象目录、会议报告、同行评议的期刊文章和论文传播。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Insects appear in material culture, oral tradition and archaeological contexts across Alaska, yet have received limited attention from scholars. This project explores the representation and meaning of insects in Indigenous material culture of western Alaska. The project will identify Yup’ik and Iñupiaq insect objects from archaeological sites and museum collections; contextualize insects within Indigenous worldviews; and compare and contrast Indigenous insect categories with scientific Linnaean taxonomies. This project advances understanding of the world’s most numerous taxon, both in terms of species and numbers of individuals, and highlights the role of Indigenous knowledge in understanding arctic ecosystems. Funding for this project supports survey of insect objects in eight museum collections; formal iconographic analysis; and the application of both scientific and Indigenous taxonomic identifications to insect depictions. Ethnographic and ethnohistoric sources, combined with interview data, will contextualize the materials. Project findings will be disseminated via an insect-object catalog, conference presentations, peer-reviewed journal articles, and a dissertation.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.