There is a nearly 10,000-year history of human presence in the western Gulf of Alaska, but little understanding of how human foragers integrated into and impacted ecosystems through their roles as hunter-gatherers. We present two highly resolved intertidal and nearshore food webs for the Sanak Archipelago in the eastern Aleutian Islands and use them to compare trophic roles of prehistoric humans to other species. We find that the native Aleut people played distinctive roles as super-generalist and highly-omnivorous consumers closely connected to other species. Although the human population was positioned to have strong effects, arrival and presence of Aleut people in the Sanak Archipelago does not appear associated with long-term extinctions. We simulated food web dynamics to explore to what degree introducing a species with trophic roles like those of an Aleut forager, and allowing for variable strong feeding to reflect use of hunting technology, is likely to trigger extinctions. Potential extinctions decreased when an invading omnivorous super-generalist consumer focused strong feeding on decreasing fractions of its possible resources. This study presents the first assessment of the structural roles of humans as consumers within complex ecological networks, and potential impacts of those roles and feeding behavior on associated extinctions.

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Databases of accumulated paleoecological and archaeological records provide a means for large-scale syntheses of environmental and cultural histories. We describe the current status of the Canadian Archaeological Radiocarbon Database (CARD), a searchable collection of more than 36,000 14C dates from archaeological and paleontological sites from across North America. CARD, built by the late Dr Richard Morlan of the Canadian Museum of Civilization, consists of uncalibrated 14C data as well as information about the material dated, the cultural association of the date (e.g. Paleoindian, Archaic, Woodland), and its geographic location. The database can be used to study questions relating to prehistoric demography, migrations, human vulnerability to environmental change, and human impact on the landscape, but biases relating to sampling intensity and taphonomy must first be accounted for. Currently, Canada and the northern United States are well represented in the database, while the southern United States is underrepresented. The frequency of 14C dates associated with archaeological sites increases through time from 15,000 cal yr BP until European contact, which likely reflects, among other factors, both the destruction of older cultural carbon due to erosion and dissolution and increasing population numbers through time. An exploratory analysis of the dates reveals their distribution in both time and space, and suggests that the database is sufficiently complete to enable quantitative analysis of general demographic trends.

Carvings that represent polar bears (Ursus maritimus) are commonly found in Dorset Paleo-Eskimo archaeological sites across the eastern Arctic. Relational ecology, combined with Amerindian perspectivism, provides an integrated framework within which to comprehensively assess the connections between Dorset and polar bears. By considering the representational aspects of the objects, we reveal an ethology of polar bears encoded within the carvings’ various forms. Reconstructing the experiences and perceptions of Dorset as they routinely interacted with these creatures, and placing these interactions in socioeconomic, environmental, and historical context, permits us to decode a symbolic ecology inherent in the effigies. To the Dorset, these carvings were simultaneously tools and mnemonics (symbols). As tools, they were used to directly access the predatory and spiritual abilities of bears or, more prosaically, to teach and remind of the variety of proper hunting techniques available for capturing seals. As symbols, however, they were far more powerful, signaling how Dorset people conceptualized themselves and their place in the universe. Symbolic of an ice-edge way of life, the effigies expose the role that this special relationship with polar bears played in the creation of Dorset histories and identities.

A Schmidt Hammer was employed in evaluating the suface hardness of rocks which line ancient anthropogenic pit features, known as Pukaskwa pits, on the north shore of Lake Superior, Canada. This technique offers a possible new method of producing relative and absolute dates for such exposed stone features. Analysis of the data has provided a relative chronology for the pit features, representing two distinct construction phases. The range of absolute dates generated from the data indicates that the pits were likely constructed byBlackduck peoples c. 900 to 400 years BP.