LATE-PREHISTORIC IÑUPIAQ SOCIETIES, NORTHERN SEWARD PENINSULA, ALASKA: AN ARCHEOLOGICAL ANALYSIS AD 1500-1800

Survey data are presented from an archeological inventory of the 2.7-million-acre Bering Land Bridge National Preserve, northern Seward Peninsula, Alaska. Information gathered from two decades of National Park Service sponsored research are compiled, analyzed, and synthesized. Overviews of archeological, oral historical, and ethnographic data and research histories for the Seward Peninsula and Bering Strait areas are presented and emphasize unpublished original data from various personal sources, archives, and agency literature. These data are examined from a landscape perspective in a pattern-recognition study of late-prehistoric settlement systems, from AD 1500-1800. Data from large winter settlements are used to evaluate site chronology and patterns of land use. A classification system is developed for unexcavated house forms, and the distribution of nearly 500 mapped houses is interpreted to indicate the long-standing presence of groups with distinct material cultures in late-prehistoric times. These distributions compare well with portions of ethnographic reconstructions of territorial boundaries for 19th-century Iñupiaq societies. Large winter villages and associated monumental architecture on top of volcanic cinder cones are seen as evidence of conflict along territorial boundaries, influenced by climatic deterioration during the Little Ice Age and the dynamics of late-prehistoric inter-regional trade. Findings correspond well with broad regional trends identified elsewhere in Alaska and Canada where archeological research has demonstrated widespread boundary destabilization, large population movements, and accelerated warfare and trade linked to the control of key subsistence resources and the flow of European trade items in the 1700s. This study demonstrates that surface-survey data can be used to address questions concerning prehistoric lifeways and organizational strategies, beyond standard inventory and descriptive documentation. It also shows that survey data when closely scrutinized can be effectively used to study sites in nondestructive ways and to better focus limited archeological research dollars to address key research and resource management problems.