Download or read book A Reconstruction of Steppe Bison Mobility in the Yukon Tanana Uplands and Implications for Prehistoric Human Behavior written by Crystal L. Glassburn and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 430 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study seeks to characterize steppe bison (Bison priscus) behavioral ecology in interior Alaska during the Pleistocene for the purpose of understanding how bison may have moved about the landscape on a seasonal basis and how this behavior could have influenced prehistoric human settlement and subsistence patterns. Steppe bison were present in Alaska and other circumpolar regions during the Pleistocene but became extinct during the late Holocene. Archaeological evidence from the Tanana River Basin in interior Alaska indicates that bison were an important component of human subsistence economies for at least 10,000 years, but aspects of steppe bison behavioral ecology including location of habitat area, seasonal movement patterns, and responses to environmental change remain largely unexplored in Alaskan archaeology or paleoecology. This study applies strontium, oxygen, and carbon isotopic analyses to 14 sequentially-sampled and AMS radiocarbon dated steppe bison teeth from two locales in the Yukon-Tanana Uplands in order to reconstruct steppe bison behavior on a seasonal basis. This study is the first of its kind for any prehistoric species in Alaska, and the results indicate that steppe bison did not migrate great distances, but instead, moved between different ecotones seasonally, spending summers in higher elevation regions and winters in lower elevation regions. The results also indicate that steppe bison had greater mobility during periods of warmer climate, including Marine Isotope Stage 3 (MIS3) and during the Late Pleistocene. Bison would have represented a large-bodied and predictable source of food for prehistoric peoples, and these results suggest that human landuse patterns likely incorporated the use of upland regions during the summer and fall, and lowland regions during the winter and early spring. Additionally, the results suggest that bison movement on the landscape would have been more predictable during the Late Pleistocene than during the Holocene. As such, settlement and subsistence patterns may have shifted from a more residentially-organized pattern during the Late Pleistocene to greater logistical mobility during the Holocene as bison population became more mobile.
Download or read book Frozen Fauna of the Mammoth Steppe written by R. Dale Guthrie and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1990 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This account of the discovery and examination of a mummified extinct steppe bison in loess deposits of Pleistocene age in interior Alaska near Fairbanks, gives a picture of bison evolutionary history and ecology on the 'Mammoth Steppe'.
Download or read book Investigating Ancient Bison Migration in Alaska written by Juliette Marie Funck and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Once abundant in the Arctic, bison (Bison bison) declined almost to extinction in the North but have subsequently been reintroduced into Alaska. The predecessors of these modern bison were the ancient steppe bison (Bison priscus), which were abundant throughout the Northern Hemisphere before their extinction during the Holocene. This thesis investigates the ecology and landscape-use of both the present-day wood bison (Bison bison athabascae) and the ancient steppe bison in Alaska using stable isotopes, among other methods. The stable carbon and nitrogen isotope compositions of animal tissues are traditionally used to investigate diet. However, this thesis uses the isotope composition of tail hairs from present day wood bison as a proxy for their nutritional stress. Nutritional stress of some wood bison appears to be influenced not only by food shortage during hard seasons, but also due to long-distance mobility. This insight provides a key to understanding the challenges of reintroduction of the species into Alaska today, and can also be applied to understand the nutritional stress and cost of dispersal by ancient animals. Whereas the mobility of present-day bison can be tracked using sophisticated satellite tracking technologies, studies of the paleo-mobility of ancient bison rely on isotopic markers such as strontium and oxygen isotope ratios preserved in their teeth. To aid this approach using isotopic geolocation, this thesis creates a map of bioavailable strontium modeled and based on strontium isotope composition of present-day rodent teeth from across Alaska. It then compares this map, together with an existing oxygen isotope map of precipitation in Alaska, with the strontium and oxygen isotopes preserved in a suite of ancient bison from Northern Alaska. This comparison brings to light some of the major habitation regions used by Bison on the North Slope of Alaska over the last ~50,000 years. Finally, these findings subsequently contribute to a detailed paleoecological investigation of a mostly articulated and complete ancient steppe bison found on the North Slope of Alaska. This final study reveals the life-history of an individual bison that dispersed from the coastal plain to the foothills of the Brooks Range early in his life, and shows that the trip was nutritionally costly. This information is combined with a suite of other paleoecological methods to provide a vivid life history of this ancient bison. We introduce new methodologies for studying these ancient animals that seek to bridge the gap between how we study present-day and the past.
Download or read book Blue Babe written by Mary Lee Guthrie and published by Alaska Ua Museum. This book was released on 1988 with total page 38 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on a scientific manuscript, this popular account, describes the discovery, excavation, scientific investigation and mounting for display of North Americas first frozen mummified remains of an ice age steppe bison (Blue Babe) found in 1979 near Fairbanks Alaska. Description of other Pleistocene animals and fossils is also provided.
Download or read book The Casper Site written by George C Frison and published by Eliot Werner Publications/Percheron Press. This book was released on 2013-12-31 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: George Frison's report on the 10,000-year-old Casper Site helped establish how large animal communal kill sites should be excavated, analyzed, and reported. With his background in ranching and hunting, Frison knows more about large animals than any other archaeologist. In The Casper Site Frison began to share that knowledge as well as the techniques of bone bed excavation; that, and the book's interdisciplinary approach, make it a landmark in paleoindian archaeology and faunal analysis. As Marcel Kornfeld writes in his new introduction, "One of Frison's outstanding contributions to Great Plains prehistory has been in the arena of bison studies and bone beds in particular, and Casper is one of its finest examples." Originally published by Academic Press in 1974. Praise from readers "The Casper site is one in a long tradition of bison procurement site studies by George Frison. This site typifies the use of the parabolic sand dune for bison trapping. The suite of analyses employed set the standard for kill site archaeology on the Plains and around the globe." Leland C. Bement, Oklahoma Archeological Survey "With astonishing fidelity the events of an ancient bison kill are uncovered from the rolling sands of Wyoming. That these remarkable events happened 10,000 years ago, and yet we see them so clearly today, is testimony to the skill of Frison and his team of researchers. A landmark publication." Jack W. Brink, Royal Alberta Museum "The brainchild of a remarkable archaeologist and a benchmark in integrative archaeological science, putting to work innovations in spatial analysis, experiments in technology and vertebrate taphonomy, hunter-gatherer ethnoarchaeology, geology, and zooarchaeology. One cannot help but sense the squeak of sand churned by desperate hooves when reading this classic study." Mary C. Stiner, University of Arizona
Download or read book Blue Babe written by Mary Lee Guthrie and published by White Mammoth Publications. This book was released on 1988-06-01 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Geoarchaeological Approach to Resolving the Origins of Bison Bone Beds at Bonfire Shelter 41VV218 Val Verde County Texas written by Ashley Eyeington and published by . This book was released on 2022 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This thesis investigates the origin of the bison bone beds at Bonfire Shelter, a prehistoric archaeological site in Val Verde County, Texas. Using geoarchaeological methods, such as sedimentology, stratigraphic analysis, and paleogeomorphology, this thesis reconstructs the site's depositional environment and to identify the processes that formed the bone beds. The thesis concludes that the bone beds were formed by a combination of natural and anthropogenic processes. The natural processes include erosion, deposition, and bioturbation. The anthropogenic processes include human hunting and butchering of bison. The findings suggest that the bone beds represent a single event, in which a large number of bison were killed and butchered by humans. The event may have been caused by a natural disaster, such as a drought or a flood, or it may have been a deliberate hunting event. The findings of this study have important implications for our understanding of the prehistoric human-bison relationship. The study suggests that humans were capable of killing and processing large numbers of bison, and that they may have played a role in the extinction of the Pleistocene bison.
Download or read book From the Yenisei to the Yukon written by Ted Goebel and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2011-08-25 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Who were the first people who came to the land bridge joining northeastern Asia to Alaska and the northwest of North America? Where did they come from? How did they organize technology, especially in the context of settlement behavior? During the Pleistocene era, the people now known as Beringians dispersed across the varied landscapes of late-glacial northeast Asia and northwest North America. The twenty chapters gathered in this volume explore, in addition to the questions posed above, how Beringians adapted in response to climate and environmental changes. They share a focus on the significance of the modern-human inhabitants of the region. By examining and analyzing lithic artifacts, geoarchaeological evidence, zooarchaeological data, and archaeological features, these studies offer important interpretations of the variability to be found in the early material culture the first Beringians. The scholars contributing to this work consider the region from Lake Baikal in the west to southern British Columbia in the east. Through a technological-organization approach, this volume permits investigation of the evolutionary process of adaptation as well as the historical processes of migration and cultural transmission. The result is a closer understanding of how humans adapted to the diverse and unique conditions of the late Pleistocene.
Download or read book Reconstructing Prehistoric Hunter gatherer Mobility Patterns and the Implications for the Shift to Sedentism written by Mark S. Becker and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Historic and Prehistoric Land Use in the Upper Tanana Valley II written by Jean S. Aigner and published by . This book was released on 1979 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book From the Yenisei to the Yukon written by Ted Goebel and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2011-04-01 with total page 411 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Who were the first people who came to the land bridge joining northeastern Asia to Alaska and the northwest of North America? Where did they come from? How did they organize technology, especially in the context of settlement behavior? During the Pleistocene era, the people now known as Beringians dispersed across the varied landscapes of late-glacial northeast Asia and northwest North America. The twenty chapters gathered in this volume explore, in addition to the questions posed above, how Beringians adapted in response to climate and environmental changes. They share a focus on the significance of the modern-human inhabitants of the region. By examining and analyzing lithic artifacts, geoarchaeological evidence, zooarchaeological data, and archaeological features, these studies offer important interpretations of the variability to be found in the early material culture the first Beringians. The scholars contributing to this work consider the region from Lake Baikal in the west to southern British Columbia in the east. Through a technological-organization approach, this volume permits investigation of the evolutionary process of adaptation as well as the historical processes of migration and cultural transmission. The result is a closer understanding of how humans adapted to the diverse and unique conditions of the late Pleistocene.
Download or read book Lithic Technological Organization and Paleoenvironmental Change written by Erick Robinson and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-11-06 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The objective of this edited volume is to bring together a diverse set of analyses to document how small-scale societies responded to paleoenvironmental change based on the evidence of their lithic technologies. The contributions bring together an international forum for interpreting changes in technological organization - embracing a wide range of time periods, geographic regions and methodological approaches. As technology brings more refined information on ancient climates, the research on spatial and temporal variability of paleoenvironmental changes. In turn, this has also broadened considerations of the many ways that prehistoric hunter-gatherers may have responded to fluctuations in resource bases. From an archaeological perspective, stone tools and their associated debitage provide clues to understanding these past choices and decisions, and help to further the investigation into how variable human responses may have been. Despite significant advances in the theory and methodology of lithic technological analysis, there have been few attempts to link these developments to paleoenvironmental research on a global scale.
Download or read book The Arctic in the Anthropocene written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2014-07-31 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Once ice-bound, difficult to access, and largely ignored by the rest of the world, the Arctic is now front and center in the midst of many important questions facing the world today. Our daily weather, what we eat, and coastal flooding are all interconnected with the future of the Arctic. The year 2012 was an astounding year for Arctic change. The summer sea ice volume smashed previous records, losing approximately 75 percent of its value since 1980 and half of its areal coverage. Multiple records were also broken when 97 percent of Greenland's surface experienced melt conditions in 2012, the largest melt extent in the satellite era. Receding ice caps in Arctic Canada are now exposing land surfaces that have been continuously ice covered for more than 40,000 years. What happens in the Arctic has far-reaching implications around the world. Loss of snow and ice exacerbates climate change and is the largest contributor to expected global sea level rise during the next century. Ten percent of the world's fish catches comes from Arctic and sub-Arctic waters. The U.S. Geological Survey estimated that up to 13 percent of the world's remaining oil reserves are in the Arctic. The geologic history of the Arctic may hold vital clues about massive volcanic eruptions and the consequent release of massive amount of coal fly ash that is thought to have caused mass extinctions in the distant past. How will these changes affect the rest of Earth? What research should we invest in to best understand this previously hidden land, manage impacts of change on Arctic communities, and cooperate with researchers from other nations? The Arctic in the Anthropocene reviews research questions previously identified by Arctic researchers, and then highlights the new questions that have emerged in the wake of and expectation of further rapid Arctic change, as well as new capabilities to address them. This report is meant to guide future directions in U.S. Arctic research so that research is targeted on critical scientific and societal questions and conducted as effectively as possible. The Arctic in the Anthropocene identifies both a disciplinary and a cross-cutting research strategy for the next 10 to 20 years, and evaluates infrastructure needs and collaboration opportunities. The climate, biology, and society in the Arctic are changing in rapid, complex, and interactive ways. Understanding the Arctic system has never been more critical; thus, Arctic research has never been more important. This report will be a resource for institutions, funders, policy makers, and students. Written in an engaging style, The Arctic in the Anthropocene paints a picture of one of the last unknown places on this planet, and communicates the excitement and importance of the discoveries and challenges that lie ahead.
Download or read book Foragers of the Terminal Pleistocene in North America written by Renee Beauchamp Walker and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2007-01-01 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These essays cast new light on Paleoindians, the first settlers of North America. Recent research strongly suggests that big-game hunting was but one of the subsistence strategies the first humans in the New World employed and that they also relied on foraging and fishing.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of the Prehistoric Arctic written by T. Max Friesen and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 1001 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite its extreme climate, the North American Arctic holds a complex archaeological record of global significance. In this volume, leading researchers provide comprehensive coverage of the region's cultural history, addressing issues as diverse as climate change impacts on human societies, European colonial expansion, and hunter-gatherer adaptations and social organization.
Download or read book Encyclopedia of Prehistory written by Peter N. Peregrine and published by Springer. This book was released on 2001-02-28 with total page 381 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Encyclopedia of Prehistory represents also defined by a somewhat different set of an attempt to provide basic information sociocultural characteristics than are eth on all archaeologically known cultures, nological cultures. Major traditions are covering the entire globe and the entire defined based on common subsistence prehistory of humankind. It is designed as practices, sociopolitical organization, and a tool to assist in doing comparative material industries, but language, ideology, research on the peoples of the past. Most and kinship ties play little or no part in of the entries are written by the world's their definition because they are virtually foremost experts on the particular areas unrecoverable from archaeological con and time periods. texts. In contrast, language, ideology, and The Encyclopedia is organized accord kinship ties are central to defining ethno ing to major traditions. A major tradition logical cultures. is defined as a group of populations sharing There are three types of entries in the similar subsistence practices, technology, Encyclopedia: the major tradition entry, and forms of sociopolitical organization, the regional sub tradition entry, and the which are spatially contiguous over a rela site entry. Each contains different types of tively large area and which endure tempo information, and each is intended to be rally for a relatively long period. Minimal used in a different way.
Download or read book Paleoecology of Beringia written by David M. Hopkins and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2013-09-17 with total page 503 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Paleoecology of Beringia is the product of a symposium organized by its editors, sponsored by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, and held at the foundation's conference center in Burg Wartenstein, Austria, 8-17 June 1979. The focus of this volume is on the paradox central to all studies of the unglaciated Arctic during the last Ice Age: that vertebrate fossils indicate that from 45,000 to 11,000 years BP an environment considerably more diverse and productive than the present one existed, whereas the botanical record, where it is not silent, supports a far more conservative appraisal of the region's ability to sustain any but the sparsest forms of plant and animal life. The volume is organized into seven parts. Part 1 focuses on the paleogeography of the Beringia. The studies in Part 2 explore the ancient vegatation. Part 3 deals with the steppe-tundra concept and its application in Beringia. Part 4 examines the paleoclimate while Part 5 is devoted to the biology of surviving relatives of the Pleistocene ungulates. Part 6 takes up the presence of man in ancient Beringia. Part 7 assesses the paleoecology of Beringia during the last 40,000 years
