Dating an umiak frame from the Birnirk collection, Museum of the North, University of Alaska

这是一个小型项目，用于资助加速器质谱（AMS）放射性碳定年和阿拉斯加大学北伯尼克博物馆收藏的木船框架碎片的试点研究；伯尼克是阿拉斯加北部海岸的一个早期因纽特文明。2012年春天，PI在Birnirk遗址（位于阿拉斯加州巴罗）发现了6块umiak碎片，它们是一艘船的碎片。来自同一和邻近挖掘单位的另外19个船碎片很可能属于同一艘船，本项目将对这些碎片进行测试，以确定它们是来自一个还是几个结构。这些发现的意义在于，在环极考古记录中，皮肤船架组合极为罕见；这些碎片的数量如此之多，而且起源似乎相当早，可能早在公元1300年，这使得这些碎片有可能是北极已知最古老的umiak框架组合。该项目将确定这些碎片是否来自同一艘umiak，并有可能将该结构置于更大的时间和文化背景中，并最终提供对早期北极船舶工程和航海的深入了解。

This is a small project to fund Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon dating and a pilot study of wooden boat frame fragments from the University of Alaskas Museum of the North Birnirk collection; Birnirk is an early Inuit civilization of the north coast of Alaska. In the spring of 2012 the PI identified six umiak fragments from the Birnirk site (Barrow, Alaska) as fragments of a single boat assemblage. 19 additional boat fragments originating from the same and adjacent excavation units have a strong probability of belonging to the same boat and this project would test these fragments to determine whether they are from one or several structures. The significance of these findings is that skin boat frame assemblages are extremely rare in the circumpolar archaeological record; in situ fragments such as those described, in such quantity and from what appears to be fairly early origin, possibly as early as 1300AD, makes these fragments potentially the oldest known umiak frame assemblage in the Arctic. The project will determine whether the fragments are from the same umiak and has the potential to place the structure within a larger chronological and cultural context and ultimately provide insight into early Arctic boat engineering and seafaring.