T234 Reconstructing Interactions between Humans and the Natural Environment during the Holocene

Wednesday, 3 November 2010
8:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Mile High Ballroom 1AB

A 13,000 YEAR RECORD OF HUMAN-ENVIRONMENT INTERACTIONS AT QUARTZ LAKE, INTERIOR ALASKA

Paper number: T234-3
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 8:20 AM – 8:35 AM

Authors

Abstract

Recent archaeological and paleoenvironmental research at Quartz Lake in Interior Alaska has produced a record of >13,000 years of human-environment interactions. Quartz Lake is located adjacent to the Shaw Creek Flats in the Middle Tanana Valley, where Broken Mammoth, Mead, and Swan Point provide similar long records of human occupation. The location of Quartz Lake provides a unique ecological setting with access to several ecosystems, including the surrounding forested uplands, lowlands of Shaw Creek Flats, and the riparian zone of the Tanana River and its floodplain.

Archaeological studies at Quartz Lake have focused on four sites on the north side of the lake. At present, the work at the shoreline sites, Dock and XBD-159, indicates late single occupations. Work at the Klein and Bachner sites, both stratified and situated at least 15 m above the lake, indicates at least three occupations of the area during the terminal Pleistocene and throughout the Holocene. Humans exploited the available range of animal resources present during each human occupation episode, including large mammals (moose), small mammals (hare and marmot), fish (pike) and avifauna.

Geoarchaeological investigations have defined several periods of erosion, aeolian silt and sand aggradation, and episodic soil development during the terminal Pleistocene and Holocene on raised landforms (bluffs, dunes, and shorelines) surrounding the lake. Human occupation primarily coincides with soil formation and geomorphic stability across the landscape. Archeological findings are also being compared with multi-proxy paleolimnological analyses of sediment cores from Quartz Lake. Sediment cores >6 m in length have been taken from the lake, the basal ages of which are >13,000 (cal.) years old. Paleoenvironmental analyses include stable carbon and nitrogen analyses of total organic material, oxygen isotope analyses of carbonates and chironomids.

Investigations at Quartz Lake are ongoing with the development of a broader research program, the Quartz Lake-Shaw Creek Flats Multidisciplinary Project. We present our preliminary archaeological and paleolimnological data and interpretations about paleoclimatic changes and potential adjustments in human land use.