Collaborative Research: Glacial Retreat and the Cultural Landscape of Ice Floe Sealing at Yakutat Bay, Alaska

这项多学科研究对阿拉斯加州雅库塔湾哈伯德冰川附近的浮冰产卵地的古代、历史和当代斑海豹的收获进行了研究，模拟了环境和人类狩猎系统对全新世晚期气候变化的响应。该项目将土著知识、语言和口头遗产与考古学、地质学和古环境研究的材料和时间证据结合起来，记录了雅库塔湾的文化历史和景观。公元1100年之后，雅库塔湾发生了急剧的冰川消退，吸引了大量海豹的聚集，并为苏格皮克、埃亚克、阿特纳和特林吉特的定居打开了峡湾。研究小组提出，由于雅库塔海豹对阿拉斯加海湾东部的人们具有经济中心地位，因此在雅库塔海豹周围形成了一个以部族为基础的本地和外部准入权体系；随着时间的推移，海豹营地随着冰川前缘的消退而从外部海湾转移到内部海湾；营地的位置、人工制品组合、动物遗骸和空间布局表达了不同时代狩猎的文化和社会组织。他们假设，雅库塔湾人类和环境历史的定位知识被编码在生动的口头传统和多语言地名中，丰富地描绘了这一九世纪的文化景观，口头遗产可以与考古和地质数据按时间顺序相关联。这项研究从过去一直延伸到今天，当密封的连续性和社区的文化和语言遗产是当地迫切关注的问题时。这项研究的方法和结果与不断变化的北方的人类适应和复原力问题以及在土著和科学知识系统之间建立一致性的挑战高度相关。

This multidisciplinary study of the ancient, historical, and contemporary harvest of harbor seals at icefloe pupping grounds near Hubbard Glacier in Yakutat Bay, Alaska models the reshaping of both an environment and a human hunting system in response to Late Holocene climate change. The project joins indigenous knowledge, language, and oral heritage with the material and chronometric evidence of archaeology, geology, and paleoenvironmental studies to document the cultural history and landscape of Yakutat Bay, where dramatic glacial recession after C. E. 1100 attracted major concentrations of harbor seals and opened the fiord for Sugpiaq, Eyak, Ahtna, and Tlingit settlement. The research team proposes that a clan-based system of local and external access rights developed around Yakutat sealing because of its economic centrality for peoples of the eastern Gulf of Alaska; that sealing camps shifted from the outer to the inner bay over time to follow the receding glacial front; and that the locations, artifact assemblages, faunal remains, and spatial layouts of camps express the cultural and social organization of hunting in different eras. They hypothesize that situated knowledge of Yakutat Bay's human and environmental history is encoded in living oral traditions and multilingual toponyms that richly delineate this nine-century cultural landscape, and that oral heritage can be chronologically correlated with archaeological and geological data. The study leads from the past to the present day, when the continuity of sealing and of the community's cultural and linguistic heritage are matters of urgent local concern. The methodologies and results of this study are highly relevant to questions of human adaptation and resiliency in the changing North and to the challenge of building coherence between indigenous and scientific knowledge systems.