Collaborative Research: What is the Nenana Complex? New Excavations at the Late-Pleistocene Owl Ridge Site, Central Alaska

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。考古学家长期以来一直在寻找白令陆桥的线索，该地区包括阿拉斯加和西伯利亚的东北部，以寻找第一批美洲人的起源和人类向北极传播的线索。传统观点认为，人类首先从西伯利亚通过白令海陆桥迁移到阿拉斯加，白令海陆桥是冰河时期连接亚洲和美洲的一块陆地。然而，白令陆桥还没有揭示出克洛维的明确的考古前身，克洛维是北美最早的无可争议的考古文化，可以追溯到大约13000年前。相反，白令陆桥遗址包含了一套完全不同的、高度多样化的石器制品组合。解释这种考古上的差异是当今白令陆桥考古学中争论不休的话题。考古学上的差异要么来自至少两个不同的早期白令陆桥种群的存在，要么来自一个种群对遗址位置的不同使用。另一个问题是将人类在白令陆桥的定居与冰河时代末期该地区的气候条件剧烈波动联系起来。在美国国家科学基金会的支持下，凯利·格拉夫博士和她的同事将对位于阿拉斯加中部德纳里国家公园附近的猫头鹰岭遗址进行考古发掘。他们在2009-2010年的工作将提供解释早期白令陆桥考古变异性所需的证据，并将人类适应与波动的气候条件联系起来。在猫头鹰岭的测试挖掘已经发现了三个独立的考古组成部分，可以追溯到冰河时代末期，大约在13500到8000年前。2009年至2010年期间，将对猫头鹰岭遗址进行全面挖掘，以确定每个遗址的人工制品组合的特征，调查人类技术和定居变化的各个方面，并考虑这些过去的人类行为与冰河时代末期气候和环境变化的关系。这项研究的结果将有助于回答当今美洲人口研究中一些最引人注目的问题。白令陆桥早期人工制品变异性的意义是什么？冰河时代的环境如何影响人类在白令陆桥的定居？人类是何时以及如何从白令陆桥地区传播到美洲的？该项目将为研究生和本科生提供宝贵的学习经验，并进一步加深我们对遥远北方人类行为进化的理解，特别是在1.4万至7000年前冰河时代末期气候和环境剧烈波动的背景下。因此，拟议的研究将使人们更加了解人类在恶劣北极环境中的经历，以及全球气候变化对小规模人类社会的影响。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).Archaeologists have long looked to Beringia, the region encompassing Alaska and far northeastern Siberia, for clues about the origins of the first Americans and spread of humans into the Arctic. The traditional view holds that humans first migrated from Siberia to Alaska across the Bering Land Bridge, a land mass that connected Asia to America during glacial episodes of the Ice Age. Beringia, however, has not yet revealed a clear archaeological predecessor to Clovis, the earliest indisputable archaeological culture in North America dating to about 13,000 years ago. Instead Beringian sites contain an altogether different and highly varied set of stone-artifact assemblages. Explaining this archaeological variability is a topic of much debate in Beringian archaeology today. The archaeological differences either resulted from the presence of at least two distinct early Beringian populations or from one population that used site locations differently. Another issue has been tying human settlement in Beringia to dramatically fluctuating climatic conditions that characterized the region at the end of the Ice Age. With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Kelly Graf and her colleagues will conduct archaeological excavations of the Owl Ridge site, located near Denali National Park, central Alaska. Their work in 2009-2010 will provide evidence needed to explain early Beringian archaeological variability and tie human adaptation to fluctuating climatic conditions. Test excavations at Owl Ridge have already yielded three separate archaeological components that date to terminal Ice Age times, between 13,500 and 8,000 years ago. Full-scale excavations of the Owl Ridge site will be conducted during 2009-2010 to determine the character of each of the site's artifact assemblages, investigate aspects of human technological and settlement change, and consider how these past human behaviors relate to climate and environmental change at the end of the Ice Age. The results of this study will help to answer some of the most compelling questions in peopling of the Americas studies today. What is the meaning of artifact variability in early Beringia? How did Ice Age environments condition human settlement of Beringia's landscapes? When and how did humans spread from the Bering Land Bridge area to the Americas? The project will provide invaluable learning experiences for both graduate and undergraduate students and further our understanding of the behavioral evolution of humans in the far north, specifically in the context of significant climatic and environmental fluctuation at the end of the Ice Age, 14,000-7,000 years ago. Therefore, the proposed study will lead to greater appreciation of the human experience in harsh arctic environments and the impacts of global climate change on small-scale human societies.