Collaborative Research: Glacial Retreat and the Cultural Landscape of Ice Floe Sealing at Yakutat Bay, Alaska

合作研究：阿拉斯加雅库塔特湾的冰川退缩和浮冰封闭的文化景观

• 批准号: 1203271
• 负责人: Daniel Mann
• 金额: $ 25.54万
• 依托单位: University of Alaska Fairbanks Campus
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2012-09-01 至 2016-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1203271&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Glacial; Retreat; Cultural

This multidisciplinary study of the ancient, historical, and contemporary harvest of harbor seals at icefloe pupping grounds near Hubbard Glacier in Yakutat Bay, Alaska models the reshaping of both an environment and a human hunting system in response to Late Holocene climate change. The project joins indigenous knowledge, language, and oral heritage with the material and chronometric evidence of archaeology, geology, and paleoenvironmental studies to document the cultural history and landscape of Yakutat Bay, where dramatic glacial recession after C. E. 1100 attracted major concentrations of harbor seals and opened the fiord for Sugpiaq, Eyak, Ahtna, and Tlingit settlement. The research team proposes that a clan-based system of local and external access rights developed around Yakutat sealing because of its economic centrality for peoples of the eastern Gulf of Alaska; that sealing camps shifted from the outer to the inner bay over time to follow the receding glacial front; and that the locations, artifact assemblages, faunal remains, and spatial layouts of camps express the cultural and social organization of hunting in different eras. They hypothesize that situated knowledge of Yakutat Bay's human and environmental history is encoded in living oral traditions and multilingual toponyms that richly delineate this nine-century cultural landscape, and that oral heritage can be chronologically correlated with archaeological and geological data. The study leads from the past to the present day, when the continuity of sealing and of the community's cultural and linguistic heritage are matters of urgent local concern. The methodologies and results of this study are highly relevant to questions of human adaptation and resiliency in the changing North and to the challenge of building coherence between indigenous and scientific knowledge systems.

这项多学科研究对阿拉斯加雅库塔特湾哈伯德冰川附近的海豹繁殖场的古代、历史和当代收获进行了模拟，模拟了环境和人类狩猎系统因全新世晚期气候变化而发生的重塑。该项目将土著知识、语言和口头遗产与考古学、地质学和古环境研究的物质和计时证据结合起来，记录雅库塔特湾的文化历史和景观，公元 1100 年之后剧烈的冰川退缩吸引了斑海豹和斑海豹的主要聚集地。为苏格皮亚克、埃雅克、阿特纳和特林吉特定居点开辟了峡湾。研究小组提出，由于雅库塔特海豹对于阿拉斯加东部湾人民的经济中心地位，因此围绕雅库塔特海豹开发了一种以氏族为基础的本地和外部访问权体系；随着时间的推移，随着冰川前缘的消退，海豹营地从外湾转移到内湾；营地的地点、文物组合、动物遗迹和空间布局表达了不同时代狩猎的文化和社会组织。他们假设，有关雅库塔特湾人类和环境历史的情境知识被编码在活生生的口头传统和多语言地名中，丰富地描绘了这个九世纪的文化景观，并且口头遗产可以按时间顺序与考古和地质数据相关联。这项研究从过去一直延续到今天，封印的连续性以及社区文化和语言遗产的连续性是当地迫切关心的问题。这项研究的方法和结果与不断变化的北方的人类适应和复原力问题以及在土著知识体系和科学知识体系之间建立一致性的挑战高度相关。