In the last few decades, environmental archaeologists have begun to challenge traditional views of hunter-gatherers as living in harmony with the natural world.  Humans exist as dynamic agents within environmental systems, whose lifeways have influenced landscape change throughout time in ways that are observable in the paleoecological record.  This is particularly true in Arctic and sub-Arctic regions where ecosystems have been shown to recover slowly, if at all, from anthropogenic disturbance.  My thesis proposes to illustrate the effectiveness of archaeoentomological methods in observing the impacts Inuit had in these environments through examining settlements as sites of significant ecological disturbance.  Through the examination of beetle remains from peat profiles in the vicinity of archaeological sites, I will test whether an ecological “footprint” for Inuit activities can be recognized in the archaeoentomological record, while also documenting ecological changes associated with specific resources and activities.  Additionally, I plan to integrate insect subfossil data with other high-resolution archaeo-environmental analyses and radiocarbon dating, with the overall goal of contributing towards the establishment of a chronology for the Inuit occupation of specific sites in the area of Okak in Northern Labrador.

Diverse factors such as isostatic rebound, cold and damp climatic conditions and permafrost have fostered exceptional preservation conditions for whole sites and for organic remains in the Nain region of Nunatsiavut.  Current climate change processes impinge on these conditions however and the lack of diachronic studies of contemporary site taphonomy hinders assessment of the nature, scale and speed of their impacts.   Long-term research projects focused on specific sites can provide a means to grapple with the problem. This presentation reviews site taphonomy data compiled since 2000 by archaeological field projects in the Dog Island region of Nunatsiavut.  Survey, excavation and soil coring records, paleoenvironmental surveys and photographic documentation are used to identify current threats to archaeological sites and landscapes.  Sea level rise and coastal erosion comprise a major risk factor.  This study suggests that even more dangerous factors may include the loss of permafrost patches associated with peat and anthropogenic soils, the subsequent erosion of the soil column and the shrubbification of peat and tundra environments where well-preserved sites are found.  A proposed programme of remote sensing, site assessment and instrumentation and mapping provides a set of tools for monitoring and measuring the scale of these threats in the region, in the immediate future.

Here we present the results of an isotopic study of movement on the Iberian Peninsula during the Imperial Roman period.  This study focuses two specific populations from sites in eastern Spain; one coastal, and one in-land (Valentia and Segóbriga). Since Valentia was a thriving agricultural centre and port town, and Segóbriga was home to a notable mine, and both sites are located along Roman roads, it is plausible that individuals in the past migrated into these areas.  Human (n=101) and horse (n=1) enamel and dentine were sampled for strontium isotope analysis (87Sr/86Sr).  The locally bioavailable strontium range was calculated for each site using the mean and two standard deviations of dentine values.  Results from enamel values show 24% (4/17) of individuals from Segóbriga who originated from outside the local range.  For Valentia, 19% (16/84) were identified as non-local.  Males and females migrated into Valentia in similar proportions.  All infants and children were identified as local, while 25% of adolescents and young adults respectively were classified as migrants. 20% of adults were non-local, and 50% of mature adults had enamel values outside the local range.  Results from horse enamel show that the animal was brought into Valentia as well, potentially originating from an isotopically similar geographic area to a number of human migrants.  This study confirms the presence of migrants in both Valentia and Segóbriga, but on a broader scale, builds on the current isotopic understanding of movement and migration in eastern Spain during the Imperial Roman period.

Between the mid-17 to 19 centuries, Inuit in Labrador and parts of Greenland both adopted large, communal living arrangements. It is unclear to what extent this transition in these two locations arose separately, or whether there was communication between these two regions that might have influenced their coincident development. To better understand the extent and nature of Inuit socio-economic networks, it may help to know what climate conditions were like at the time. How extensive was winter sea ice in the Labrador Sea and Baffin Bay? How stormy was it? We here attempt to answer these questions using simulated climate results from the Climate Modelling Intercomparison Project (CMIP) 5 and an ice reconstruction from Kinnard et al. (2011). Using global climate model simulations to reconstruct past regional climate conditions has some notable challenges: there is no guarantee that the climate state in the model matches historical conditions, and the resolution of the climate data is too low to resolve the small-scale features that would have been important to Inuit. To assess the effectiveness with which these climate model simulations describe climate conditions during the period of interest, we perform a model-data comparison over a later period when local data records exist, namely, the late 18 century Labrador coast Moravian mission weather dataset published in Demarée (2008). On the basis of this comparison, we present both our best estimates of climate conditions during the 16-17 centuries in Labrador and Baffin Bay, as well as our confidence in those results.

In the mountains of the Yukon, northern Canada, mountain ice patches have been melting and revealing a 9,000-year record of First Nations’ hunting weapons. Included in these assemblages are dozens of lost hunting arrows and the fragmentary remains of more ancient hunting spears referred to as a throwing darts or atlatl darts. For 20 years the fragmentary remains of this locally extinct technology have been recovered from a variety of sites across southern Yukon. For the first time in the summer of 2018 a complete, and entirely intact throwing dart was recovered from the overlapping territories of the Carcross/Tagish and Kwanlin Dün First Nation’s. This specimen is crafted from three separate pieces of wood and features an intact stone point, sinew bindings and carefully applied fletching. In this poster we will describe the construction and design of this weapon and how new insights from our analysis lend insight to previously made discoveries.