A survey of beetles (Coleoptera) from the tundra surrounding the Nunalleq archaeological site, Quinhagak, southwestern Alaska

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a survey of beetles conducted in the vicinity of the archaeological site of Nunalleq, a pre-contact (16th-17th century AD) indigenous forager settlement located near the modern Yup’ik village of Quinhagak, in the Yukon-Kuskokwim delta, southwestern Alaska. Records and habitat data are reported for 74 beetle taxa collected in tundra, riparian, aquatic and anthropogenic environments from a region of Alaska that has been poorly studied by entomologists. This includes the first mainland Alaskan record for the byrrhid Simplocaria metallica (Sturm). Beyond improving our knowledge of the local beetle fauna’s diversity and ecology, this survey provides the basis for comparisons between modern and sub-fossil beetle assemblages from Nunalleq and Quinhagak.

“The Old Village”: Yup’ik Precontact Archaeology and Community-Based Research at the Nunalleq Site, Quinhagak, Alaska

“…The Nunalleq house floors sediments indicate large numbers of very wellpreserved fly (Diptera), beetle (Coleoptera), caddis fly (Trichoptera), human louse (Pediculus humanus L.) and flea (Siphonaptera) remains, now being analyzed (Forbes, Britton, and Knecht 2015;Forbes and Sikes 2018;Forbes et al 2019). The presence of human lice in floor layers at the site are typical of those not only at other Inuit sites (e.g., Bresciani et al 1989), but also from Europe, the Near East and the Americas (e.g., Girling 1984;Fletcher 1994;Bain 2004).…”