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There is myriad evidence that global warming is exerting a profoundly disruptive influence on the lifeways of modern native (Yup'ik) communities living in the Yukon-Kuskokwim (Y-K) delta of southwestern Alaska. Yup'ik subsistence is intimately tied to seasonal change and the ability to accurately predict the availability of plant and animal resources. It therefore seems reasonable to suggest that periods of climatic instability such as the Little Ice Age (LIA) may have had a deleterious effect on Yup'ik communities in the past. However, at present there are no palaeotemperature records that document the localised climatic changes of the last millennium in the Y-K Delta region. This lack of data hinders our understanding of the archaeological record from the site of Nunalleq, which is situated at the heart of the delta and was occupied during the LIA. To address this oversight, this paper presents the results of a Coleoptera (beetle) based climate reconstruction from a peat profile in the vicinity of Nunalleq to investigate the magnitude of Late Holocene climatic changes. Using the Mutual Climatic Range (MCR) method, we reconstruct mean summer and winter temperatures from the mid-15th to late-19th centuries. The results indicate that the past environments of Nunalleq were characterised by a climate significantly cooler than the present. The earliest definitive evidence for Little Ice Age cooling dates from the late 16th century, when mean summer temperatures were at least 1.2ᵒC below the modern mean. Temperatures appear to have remained lower than modern until the early 19th century. The coolest Nunalleq record – 1.3ᵒC below the modern mean summer temperatures – is centred on AD 1815, after which there is evidence for climatic amelioration. These data present differences with observations from other regions of Alaska and underline the importance of more local palaeoclimate reconstructions, particularly when interrogating the relationships between past climatic and social change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Arctic archaeology suffers from a series of unfortunate conjunctures that make accurate and reliable dating of the prehistory of circumpolar North America problematic. Through the late-prehistoric Yup'ik site of Nunalleq, this paper explores a novel approach to dating archaeological sites in the circumpolar north. Presenting data from a peat sequence associated with the archaeological site, we examine if a combination of paleoenvironmental analyses (new insect, plant macrofossil and macroscopic charcoal data, and previously published palynological data), radiocarbon dating, and Bayesian modeling can generate high-resolution chronologies for archaeological sites. The results indicate that archaeological events are resolvable in the paleoenvironmental record and that the timing of such events illustrates a striking concordance with those derived from archaeological data. This paper highlights and recommends how paleoenvironmental analyses can be deployed towards improving the chronologies of Inuit and pre-Inuit archaeology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the results of a program of radiocarbon dating and Bayesian modeling from the precontact Yup'ik site of Nunalleq (GDN-248) in subarctic southwesternAlaska. Nunalleq is deeply stratified, presenting a robust relative chronological framework of well-defined individual house floors abundant in ecofacts suitable for radiocarbon dating. Capitalizing on this potential, we present the results of one of the first applications of Bayesian statistical modeling of radiocarbon data from an archaeological site in the North American Arctic. Using these methods, we demonstrate that it is possible to generate robust, high-resolution chronological models from Arctic archaeology. Radiocarbon dates, procured prior to the program of dating and modeling presented here, suggested an approximately three-century duration of occupation at the site. The results of Bayesian modeling nuance this interpretation. While it is possible that there may have been activity for almost three centuries (beginning in the late fourteenth century), occupation of the dwelling complex, which dominates the site, was more likely to have endured for no more than a century. The results presented here suggest that the occupation of Nunalleq likely encompassed three generations beginning cal AD 1570-1630 before being curtailed by conflict around cal AD 1645-1675. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through the case study of the Thule-era village site of Nunalleq (GDN-248), this paper presents 14C dating results and perspectives on the issues associated with radiocarbon dating stratified archaeological sites in circumpolar North America. The objective was to investigate relative variation in the 14C age of ecofacts with the aim of establishing a hierarchy of dating suitability for Nunalleq that could more widely inform 14C sample selection on archaeological sites across the North American sub-Arctic and Arctic and Greenland. Owing to the complexities associated with interpreting and establishing the relative chronology of the deeply stratified sod deposits at Nunalleq, we adopted open-area excavation and single-context recording methods. This approach, we suggest, allowed us to eliminate stratigraphic complexity as a source of variation in 14C measurements and to assess the taphonomic issues associated with dating different ecofacts. In total, 16 samples were submitted for dating, comprising two sets of eight different ecofacts, one from each of two stratigraphically contemporary but spatially discrete contexts. In most instances, the 14C ages of ecofacts were statistically indistinguishable between the two contexts and support the relative chronological relationships established by excavation. Only Elymus arenarius (grass) manufactures and Heleomyzidae (fly) puparia produced different ages in the two contexts, variations that suggest that these items are unreliable dating materials. As noted in previous studies, Phoca sp. (seal) and Oncorhynchus sp. (salmon) bone collagen demonstrated a strong marine reservoir effect (c. 700 14C yr.). Picea sp. (wood chips) were marginally older than seeds from edible berries (Rubus chamaemorus and Empetrum nigrum) and caribou (Rangifer tarandus) bone collagen, which provided the most consistent ages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

1. Subfossil beetle remains from archaeological sites have proven invaluable for examining past living conditions, human activities, and their impacts on landscapes and ecosystems. 2. In Iceland, specific economic practices (e.g. land management and natural resource exploitation) and major historical events (i.e. colonisation, economic intensification and commercialisation, and urbanisation) have affected local environments and left recognisable traces in the beetle subfossil record. 3. Understanding the ecology of synanthropic beetles is crucial if they are to be employed in high-resolution reconstructions of past lifeways and their ecological impacts, yet, because buildings' interiors are rarely the object of systematic entomological research, the ecological requirements of many such species are poorly understood. 4. A survey was conducted of live and dead beetle faunas from habitats that have so far been largely neglected by entomological research: stable manure and stored hay inside farm buildings, two key facets of a northern European pastoral economy. 5. The present results clarify the ecological requirements of some under-studied synanthropic beetles and the processes by which their exoskeletons may become incorporated into the archaeological record while also producing new records of exotic species recently introduced to Iceland. 6. This paper provides crucial guidance for the interpretation of archaeological beetle assemblages and highlights the potential of further investigations of indoor insect faunas for clarifying the causes, processes, and ecological impacts of recent bio-invasions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eiderdown has long been an important resource for northern cultures in the past but is overlooked in archaeology. Down, presumed to be from Eider ducks, has only been identified from a handful of high-status burials in Scandinavia. In order to test whether an archaeoentomological indicator for eiderdown production could be established, a survey of insects from two eiderdown productions sites in Iceland was conducted. The results identified over 500 duck fleas Ceratophyllus garei Rothschild and several beetle species from raw eiderdown and processing residue, as well as from pitfall traps placed in the floor of buildings where the down was stored and processed. It is argued that despite the fact that bird fleas parasitic on Eider ducks are not host-specific, their life history and microhabitat requirements, as well as the method employed to collect eiderdown, makes duck fleas a reliable indicator for eiderdown harvesting in archaeology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the results of an investigation of insect remains preserved in the floors of 19th- and early 20th-century turf buildings. Its aim is to test the potential and limitations of archaeoentomology as a basis for the reconstruction of indoor environments and activities on archaeological sites. The study focuses on the site of Þverá, in northeast Iceland, where previous ethnoarchaeological and geoarchaeological work enabled a detailed understanding of floor formation processes and the cultural practices that took place inside the buildings. Descriptive and multivariate statistics were employed to investigate the formation processes of archaeoentomological assemblages in floors and the extent to which insect faunas can be indicative of functional areas or of the presence of particular materials. The results identify subtle variations between the synanthropic communities and ectoparasites recovered from human living quarters, storage areas and animal stalls, but suggest that it would be difficult to identify a room's function solely on the basis of entomological evidence. Outdoor insects are likely to have become incorporated into floor layers as a result of their transport with hay, turf, peat and water, but as these can be collected from similar environments, it would be difficult to distinguish the entomological signatures for these resources. The insect assemblages from Þverá can be compared confidently with insect faunas preserved in archaeological floor layers from turf buildings and highlight the dangers of uncritical interpretation of entomological data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UNESCO World Heritage site of L'Anse aux Meadows (LAM) in northern Newfoundland is the only undisputed site of pre-1492 presence of Europeans in the Americas. In August 2018, we undertook fieldwork at LAM to sample the peat bog 30 m east of the Norse ruins for a multiproxy paleoenvironmental assessment of Norse settlement. Instead, we encountered a new cultural horizon. Here we report our fieldwork at this iconic site and a Bayesian analysis of legacy radiocarbon data, which nuance previous conclusions and suggest Norse activity at LAM may have endured for a century. In light of these findings, we reflect on how the cultural horizon, containing nonnative ecofacts, may relate to indigenous or Norse activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A series of peat monoliths was collected from Hjálmarvík, Kúðá and Bægístaðir, three abandoned farm sites located on a transect extending from the coast to 18 km inland in the Svalbarðstunga region (northeastern Iceland) in order to document the impact of human occupation and patterns of land use on landscape change and vegetation. Svalbarðstunga is of considerable interest because of the geographical and ecological features that distinguish it from other regions of Iceland, in particular by the more direct influence of the cold East Greenland Current (EGC). Plant and insect macrofossils and diatoms identified in peat monoliths provided proxy indicators of human settlement and land use that in some cases corroborate, and in others expand upon, existing archaeological and historical dates. Based on the presence of ecofacts (calcined bones, fish bones and charcoal), synanthropic insects and some anthropogenic plant‐indicators (e.g. weeds), we showed that there was a consistent occupation and use of the coastal site of Hjálmarvík since AD 970. At Kúðá, the scenario is quite different. Two periods of occupation or land use were identified: from prior to c. AD 960 to 1190 and from c. AD 1650 to 1870. In the 15th and into the 16th centuries, the decrease in the deposition of traces of fuel wastes around the inland farm sites (Kúðá and Bægístaðir) suggests that they were used much less frequently. The decline of such proxies for human occupation occurred shortly before the occurrence of the coldest conditions from the 16th to the 17th centuries as well as prior to the V1477 eruption, suggesting that these natural factors may not have been the primary or unique driver of changing modes of tenancy. A scenario of famine‐related depopulation would have played a significant role in this decrease in the human impact on vegetation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]