QRC members lead and participate in a wide range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary research projects from the study of past earth climates and glaciations to shifts in the geographic distributions and evolution of vegetation and faunal communities, to the evolution and dispersals of the genus Homo and the increasing scales of human modification of earth environments through the Holocene. QRC provides a venue for meeting and collaborating with scholars across Quaternary disciplines. We are also fortunate to be able to provide seed funding and small grants for member research projects. We are especially happy to support grad student and junior scholar research activities, much of which leads to larger, external funding from agencies like the National Science Foundation.
The Historical Archaeology of Gender, Food and Labor in Old Harbor, Alaska
Abstract: This dissertation project addresses the transformation of Sugpiaq society and identity through the Russian occupation, specifically focusing on gendered patterns of food procurement, preparation and storage in addition to other production tasks in and around Sugpiaq households within the Old Harbor region. The Sugpiat are the indigenous people of the Gulf of Alaska region, including the Kodiak Archipelago, the Alaska Peninsula and Prince William Sound. In framing this project around the period of Russian colonization in Alaska (1784-1867 CE), I consider both social (e.g. resettlement, labor demands) and environmental (e.g. local resource drawdown, epidemic disease) hazards brought on by Russian colonization, which created a multifaceted disaster for the Sugpiaq people – whose vulnerability to these hazards was mediated by factors such as gender, class and marriage status. To address these vulnerabilities and elucidate various Sugpiaq strategies for survival, I combine historical and ethnohistorical documentary research with archaeological analysis. The archaeological research centers on foodways (how people used the environment for subsistence, their menu, food preparation, cooking, eating practices) and the presence and use of both local and imported wares, tools and materials related to other production tasks, such as hide processing, sewing, and RAC-mandated hunts for fur-bearing animals. Taken together, these archaeological materials will provide a picture of daily lives and activities in the Old Harbor region during Russian occupation, which, when put in diachronic comparison, will allow me to trace Sugpiaq identity and the structures of social experience (gender, demographic situation, village and household social organization, religion, etc.) throughout the Russian period.