GIS Spatial Analysis of Arctic Settlement Patterns: A Case Study in Northwest Alaska

Abstract

Archaeologists have been interested in relationship between environmental variability and cultural change for the last six decades. By understanding how, when, and why humans adapt to environmental change, archaeologists and anthropologists can better understand the development and complexity of human cultures. In northwest Alaska, archaeologists hypothesize that environmental variability was a major factor in both growing coastal population density, with large aggregated villages and large houses, between 1000 and 500 years ago (ya), and subsequent decreasing population density between 500 ya and the contact era. After 500 ya people are thought to have dispersed to smaller settlements with smaller house sizes in coastal areas, and perhaps, upriver. This settlement pattern was identified through research at four site locations over 30 years ago.The changing geographic distribution of sites, associated settlement size, and house size has not been examined in detail. A more careful examination of changing northwest Alaskan settlement patterns is needed before larger questions about socio-economic organization can be addressed. I use Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to evaluate the evidence for a geographic redistribution of Arctic peoples during the Late Holocene. iii Acknowledgments