Human settlement and Mid-Late Holocene coastal environmental change at Cape Krusenstern, Northwest Alaska

Abstract

Archaeologists hypothesize that mid-late Holocene environmental variability played a role in several significant western Arctic cultural developments including population fluctuations, the evolution of Arctic maritime adaptations, and Arctic-wide migrations. Further evaluation of these hypotheses requires higher resolution archaeological and paleoecological datasets than are currently available. In response, we undertook an interdisciplinary study at Cape Krusenstern, a large coastal site complex in northwest Alaska, which was occupied over the last ca. 5000-6000 years. Our goals were to refine local cultural and paleoenvironmental chronologies and to explore the question of how local environmental change may have influenced local settlement history. The resulting revised chronology and depositional units confirm and refine prior interpretation of the local archaeological settlement history. New geomorphological data on coastal environmental change and post-depositional modification of the Cape Krusenstern beach ridge system also provide information about patterns of archaeological site preservation, indicating periods of potentially poorer site preservation around 3990 cal BP; this informs interpretation of forager settlement data. Furthermore, our findings suggest that climate-driven changes in the coastal environment at Cape Krusenstern may not be as determinative in terms of landscape evolution as previously thought. Future work should focus on further investigating the relationship between beach ridge development and regional climatic patterns on a regional scale, as this has implications for use of beach ridges as a mid-late Holocene climate proxy. Continued efforts to build paleoenvironmental reconstructions of higher temporal and spatial resolution for the region will help address remaining questions about the relationship between local coastal environmental changes and regional patterns, and the impacts of these environmental shifts on local residents.

Dietary ecology of Alaskan polar bears (Ursus maritimus) through time and in response to Arctic climate change

“…The northern Alaskan climate during the MWP was no exception, having chaotic weather patterns and dramatic shifts in marine environments. These included heightened storms related to climatic cooling (Mason et al, 2020), development and restriction of beach ridge complexes (Anderson et al, 2020;Mason et al, 2020), and loss of sea ice extent likely associated with warming trends (Clark et al, 2019). The responses of marine and terrestrial faunal communities to these chaotic regional climate shifts remain poorly understood, with only a few exceptions of long-term sampling extending back into the MWP (Clark et al, 2019;Szpak et al, 2018).…”

Marine Reservoir Effects in Seal (Phocidae) Bones in the Northern Bering and Chukchi Seas, Northwestern Alaska

“…Despite this need for accurate and precise MRE values, until the last decade, few researchers sought to understand the differences between 14 C dates of marine mammal and terrestrial organisms over time across coastal northern Alaska (notable exceptions include Dumond and Griffin 2002;Khassanov and Savinetsky 2006;Ledger et al 2016;Krus et al 2019). In this paper, we document MREs in 14 C dated seal remains from several sites spanning the last 1600 years in the Bering Strait and northern Bering Sea and Chukchi Sea regions (Figure 1), encompassing a period of significant cultural and climatic changes during the late Holocene (Mason and Jordan 1993;Mason and Gerlach 1995;Anderson et al 2018Anderson et al , 2019Mason et al 2019). We present both the differences between 14 C dated marine-terrestrial pairs, R(t) values, and from the global marine curve, ΔR values (Reimer and Reimer 2017).…”

Long-term perspectives on circumpolar social-ecological systems

“…Our geographic focus then shifts eastwards, crosses the Bering Strait, and enters Alaska and the "Western Arctic". Anderson et al (2020) consider the extent to which mid-late Holocene environmental variability affected regional-scale cultural developments, including population fluctuations and the emergence of Arctic maritime adaptations around the Bering Strait coasts. (They also consider the extent to which climate change triggered local groups to migrate eastwards into new areas [see below]).…”