François B. Lanoë

The Rosa-Keystone Dunes Field: The geoarchaeology and paleoecology of a late Quaternary stabilized dune field in Eastern Beringia

Stabilized sand sheets and dunes hold a remarkable amount of information on paleoenvironmental conditions under which late Quaternary landscapes evolved in northern subarctic regions. We provide the results of a project focused on understanding the development of lowland environments and ecosystems, including dunes and sand sheets, which were critical habitat for early human occupations in subarctic regions. Our study area is the Rosa-Keystone Dunes Field in the Shaw Creek Flats of the middle Tanana River basin, interior Alaska, one of the oldest continuously occupied areas in North America (14,000 cal. BP to present). The disturbance regimes of reactivated dunes and associated forest fire cycles between 12,500 and 8800 cal. BP fostered a unique early to mid-successional mixed vegetation community including herbaceous tundra, shrubs, and deciduous trees. This environment provided key habitats for large grazers and browsers, significant resources for early hunter-gatherer populations in central Alaska. After 8000 cal. BP, the expansion of black spruce and peatlands heightened landscape stability but decreased the range of local habitat for large grazers. Hunter-gatherer economic change during these periods is consistent with human responses to local and regional landscape disturbance and restructuring.

The Keystone Dune Site: A Bølling-Allerød Hunting Camp in Eastern Beringia

ABSTRACT The Keystone Dune site, in central Alaska, contains a well-preserved archaeological occupation that dates to 13,430–13,230 cal yr BP. Archaeological excavations resulted in the recovery of features, and materials include hearths, faunal and lithic specimens, macrobotanical remains, and ocher. These were analyzed and interpreted to reconstruct past activities conducted at the site. Keystone Dune was most likely used for a short time, in the context of a wapiti hunt, and can be placed within a larger economic and mobility system of eastern Beringian people during the Bølling-Allerød chronozone. By continuing to document the archaeological and paleoenvironmental records of the early Beringians, we contribute to a refinement of the models and ideas of human dispersal during the Pleistocene.