Don E. Dumond

Holocene prehistory of the northernmost north Pacific

We examine evidence for Holocene contact between Asia and North America across what is now the Bering Strait, emphasizing maritime adaptation. After ∼10,000 B.P. residual influence of the Siberian Paleolithic is clear, and derivative Americans were moving southward along the open Pacific coast and settling in the eastern Aleutian Islands. By 6000 B.P. maritime adaptation is evident in the Kodiak Island region, and expansion westward brought colonization of the entire Aleutian chain of islands before 3000 B.P. In Asia there was marine subsistence on Hokkaido by 6000 B.P, but in the lower Amur River region, the southern and northern regions of the Okhotsk Sea, the coast of Kamchatka, and the Chukchi Peninsula no major maritime interest can be dated until after 2700 or even 2500 B.P In north Alaska, the mainland was cut off from Siberia by 6000 B.P with the rise of postglacial seas, but contact was reestablished ∼5000 B.P at the cultural level of the nonmaritime Siberian Neolithic. Pronounced marine orientation appears intrusively in north Alaska somewhat before 3000 B.P, when the only known source for the technology was the region extending from the Gulf of Alaska through the Aleutian Islands. Thereafter developed the maritime culture of the historic Eskimo people.

The Archeology of Alaska and the Peopling of America

The proposed existence of a biotically productive tundra-steppe on the exposed Bering Land Bridge of the late Pleistocene aids conceptualization of the migrations of early Asian hunters. But clear knowledge of the human occupants of north-westernmost America before 11,000 years ago is elusive. Evidence indicates that at that time the Alaskan peoples had a culture generally based on microliths that, while obviously derived from Asia, were not sufficiently similar to the tools of the earliest widely distributed hunters of more southerly North America to support any direct and close relation between the two cultures.

Classic to postclassic in highland central Mexico.

The data and argument we have presented converge on three points. 1) With the decline and abandonment of Teotihuacan by the end of the Metepec phase (Teotihuacan IV), the valleys of Mexico and of Puebla-Tlax-cala witnessed the development of a ceramic culture that was represented, on the one hand, by obvious Teotihuacan derivations in presumably ritual ware and possible Teotihuacan derivations in simpler pottery of red-on-buff, and, on the other hand, by elements that seem to represent a resurgence of Preclassic characteristics. Whether the development is explained through a measure of outside influence or as a local phenomenon, the direct derivation of a substantial portion of the complex from Classic Teotihuacan is unmistakable. This transitional horizon predated the arrival of plumbate tradeware in highland central Mexico. 2) The transitional horizon coincided with (and no doubt was an integral part of) an alteration of Classic settlement patterns so drastic that it must bespeak political disruption. Nevertheless, there is no evidence that the Postclassic center of Tula represented a significant force in the highlands at that time. There is no evidence that the center of Cholula, which may even have been substantially abandoned during the previous period, was able to exert any force at this juncture; it appears more likely that Cholula was largely reoccupied after the abandonment of Teotihuacan. There is no direct evidence of domination by Xochicalco or any other known major foreign center, although some ceramic traits suggest that relatively minor influences may have emanated from Xochicalco; unfortunately, the state of research at that center does not permit a determination at this time. Thus the most reasonable view on the basis of present evidence is that the abandonment of Teotihuacan was not the direct result of the strength of another centralized power, although some outside populations may have been involved in a minor way. Whatever the proximate cause, however, it is now clear that the abandonment of Teotihuacan led to a period of Balkanization in which no single center, or pair of centers, were dominant in the highlands. 3) The transitional horizon saw the immediate development of a cultural distinction between the Valley of Mexico and the Valley of Puebla-Tlaxcala, a distinction in which differential degrees of outside cultural influence may have played a part. This distinction was magnified in the early Postclassic, with the rising power of Tula on the west and of Cholula on the east, and Balkanization ended with the growth of empire.

Disease and the Development of Inuit Culture [and Comments and Reply]

Early ethnographic descriptions of the Inuit, the original inhabitants of Arctic Canada and Greenland, depict a culture and society assumed to have been relatively untouched by European influence. Archaeology has shown that this way of life had developed over the past five centuries from the Thule culture, which was technologically richer and more economically secure than that of the historic Inuit. The transformation from Thule to Inuit culture has generally been explained in terms of adaptation to a deteriorating environment. This paper argues that the development of Inuit culture can be more satisfactorily interpreted as a response to early and continued contacts with Europeans and the effects of repeated epidemic diseases resulting from such contacts.

Volcanism and History on the Northern Alaska Peninsula

Although research has addressed the distribution of prehistoric ethnic groups along the Alaska Peninsula, little effort has been devoted to understanding the effects attributable to massive volcanic eruptions in this volcano-ridden area. Following a suggestion that three volcanic ash deposits particularly well represented along Brooks River of the upper Naknek River drainage system represent deposition of ejecta from Aniakchak Volcano, 240 km to the southwest, this paper examines radiocarbon measurements relevant to those deposits and to airfall tephras along the Naknek River itself, on the Shelikof Strait slope of the Alaska Peninsula to the east, and in the upper Ugashik River drainage. The study concludes that (a) it is possible, although not demonstrable, that the same three tephras are represented in all areas, and (b) the three could possibly derive from Aniakchak, although their timing matches only imperfectly the reported ages of major eruptions there. Probable subsistence implications of widespread volcanic events are discussed.

Western Arctic Small Tool

relative time period: Follows the Northern Archaic tradition, with terminal portions of which it coexisted; precedes the Norton tradition, a modified descendant with portions of which remnant Western Arctic Small Tool assemblages coexisted. Some researchers in North Alaska expand the Western Arctic Small Tool tradition to also include the Norton tradition