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。长期以来，考古学家一直在寻找白令吉亚（Beringia），这个地区包括阿拉斯加和西伯利亚东北部，寻找有关第一批美国人起源和人类向北极传播的线索。传统的观点认为，人类最初是通过白令陆桥从西伯利亚迁移到阿拉斯加的，白令陆桥是在冰河时期连接亚洲和美洲的一块大陆。然而，白令吉亚尚未揭示克洛维斯的明确考古学前身，这是北美最早的无可争议的考古学文化，可追溯到大约13,000年前。相反，白令纪遗址包含了一套完全不同的、高度多样化的石器组合。如何解释这种考古学上的差异性是当今柏林考古学中一个备受争议的话题。考古学上的差异要么是由于存在至少两个不同的早期白令人种群，要么是由于一个种群使用不同的地点。另一个问题是将白令吉亚的人类定居与冰河时代末期该地区特有的剧烈波动的气候条件联系起来。在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利国家公园附近的猫头鹰岭遗址进行考古发掘。他们在2009-2010年的工作将提供必要的证据来解释早期白令纪考古学的变异性，并将人类的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产生了三个独立的考古组成部分，可以追溯到13,500到8,000年前的冰河时代末期。猫头鹰岭遗址的全面发掘将在2009-2010年期间进行，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点变化的各个方面，并考虑这些过去的人类行为如何与冰河时代末的气候和环境变化相关。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。在早期白令吉亚，人工制品的可变性意味着什么？冰河时期的环境如何影响人类在白令吉亚的定居？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，并进一步了解远北地区人类的行为演变，特别是在14，000 - 7，000年前冰河时代结束时重大气候和环境波动的背景下。因此，拟议的研究将导致更好地了解人类在严酷的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.