Rick Knecht
University of Aberdeen, Archaeology, Faculty Member
The earliest-known settlements in the Aleutians are approximately 9,000 years old. They herald the beginning of the Anangula phase of the Eastern Aleutian archaeological sequence. These first inhabitants came from the Alaska Peninsula and... more
The earliest-known settlements in the Aleutians are approximately 9,000 years old. They herald the beginning of the Anangula phase of the Eastern Aleutian archaeological sequence. These first inhabitants came from the Alaska Peninsula and probably stemmed from the Paleoarctic tradition and ultimately from western Beringia. Despite climatic changes and volcanic eruptions, it appears that the Aleutians remained inhabited from the earliest time, as witnessed by the clear evidence of technological continuity. By approximately 6,000 years ago populations developed a successful adaptation to maritime resources and expanded throughout the entire Aleutian chain and had contact with several populations over widespread areas of the western Arctic.
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Centred on the underresearched precontact archaeology of southwest coastal Alaska, the Nunalleq project is a decade-long collaboration between the Yup’ik village of Quinhagak and the University of Aberdeen. The Nunalleq archaeological... more
Centred on the underresearched precontact archaeology of southwest coastal Alaska, the Nunalleq project is a decade-long collaboration between the Yup’ik village of Quinhagak and the University of Aberdeen. The Nunalleq archaeological site, like countless others in the Arctic, is being rapidly destroyed by the combined effects of global warming. Newly thawed permafrost soils are extremely vulnerable to rapid marine erosion from rising sea levels and decreases in seasonal ocean ice cover. Organic artifacts at the site have been preserved in remarkably intact condition, revealing an extraordinary record of precontact Yup’ik culture. But with the disappearing permafrost, this archaeological and ecological record is gradually decomposing, and recovery and analysis has become time critical. The Nunalleq project is a community-based response to locally identified needs to both recover threatened archaeological heritage and to find new ways to reconnect young people to Yup’ik culture and tradition. The results of the project have far exceeded our original expectations. Similar collaborative efforts may be the best hope for addressing threatened archaeological heritage in the North and beyond.
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Research Interests: Geography and Archaeology
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Research Interests: Geography and Subdivision
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Research Interests: Geography and Archaeology
... Richard A. Knecht and Richard H. Jordan, Department of Anthropology, Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, PA 19010 ... their traditional culture as Eskimo, even though the older people speak Alutiiq, a language closely related to Central... more
... Richard A. Knecht and Richard H. Jordan, Department of Anthropology, Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, PA 19010 ... their traditional culture as Eskimo, even though the older people speak Alutiiq, a language closely related to Central Alaskan Yupik (Krauss 1983; Leer 1978). ...
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Considerable interest exists in characterizing the extent of changes in methylmercury exposures from preindustrial to modern-day times. Hair is often preserved over centuries and has been useful in determining the extent of dietary trace... more
Considerable interest exists in characterizing the extent of changes in methylmercury exposures from preindustrial to modern-day times. Hair is often preserved over centuries and has been useful in determining the extent of dietary trace metal exposures, particularly methylmercury. We examined 16 human hair samples taken from human hair bundles buried in the soil of the Karluk One Archaeological site located near the current Karluk village on the Kodiak Archipelago of Alaska. Hair samples were analyzed for total mercury, methylmercury, selenium, and cadmium. The mean total mercury level was 1.33 ppm (SD = 1.09). The mean methylmercury level, however, was considerably lower than the total mercury concentration: the mean methylmercury level was 0.03 ppm (SD = 0.02). The mean cadmium level was 0.15 ppm (SD = 0.14) and the mean selenium level was 5.22 ppm (SD = 5.73). While the concentration of total mercury in the Karluk hair samples is comparable to those observed in ancient hair from other locations, direct methylmercury quantization demonstrated that methylmercury levels were less than 2% of the total mercury in these hair samples. Because the hair was subjected to a variety of environmental influences over the centuries, the possibility of degradation of methylmercury in the hair over the last 400 to 800 years cannot be ruled out. The use of hair from remains found in more protected frozen or dry environments may provide the best evidence for the extent of preindustrial exposures to methylmercury and other trace metals.
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Research Interests: Geography, Anthropology, Arctic Archaeology, Alaska Native Studies, American Indian & Alaska Native, and 9 moreCulture Change, Arctic Anthropology, Prehistory, Alaska Archaeology, Wet-site archaeology, Native Alaska Ethnology and Ethnohistory, Little Ice Age, Archipelago, and Alaska Native Art and Material Culture
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Research Interests: Geography and Archaeology
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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 southwestern Alaska. Nunalleq is deeply stratified, presenting a robust... more
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 southwestern Alaska. 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 c...
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Research Interests: Geography and Archaeology
Research Interests: Geography and Archaeology
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The sacred and the profane: souvenir and collecting behaviours on the WWII battlefields of Peleliu, Palau, Micronesia
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Domestic dogs have been central to life in the North American Arctic for millennia. The ancestors of the Inuit were the first to introduce the widespread usage of dog sledge transportation technology to the Americas, but whether the Inuit... more
Domestic dogs have been central to life in the North American Arctic for millennia. The ancestors of the Inuit were the first to introduce the widespread usage of dog sledge transportation technology to the Americas, but whether the Inuit adopted local Paleo-Inuit dogs or introduced a new dog population to the region remains unknown. To test these hypotheses, we generated mitochondrial DNA and geometric morphometric data of skull and dental elements from a total of 922 North American Arctic dogs and wolves spanning over 4500 years. Our analyses revealed that dogs from Inuit sites dating from 2000 BP possess morphological and genetic signatures that distinguish them from earlier Paleo-Inuit dogs, and identified a novel mitochondrial clade in eastern Siberia and Alaska. The genetic legacy of these Inuit dogs survives today in modern Arctic sledge dogs despite phenotypic differences between archaeological and modern Arctic dogs. Together, our data reveal that Inuit dogs derive from a s...
Domestic dogs have been central to life in the North American Arctic for millennia. The ancestors of the Inuit were the first to introduce the widespread usage of dog sledge transportation technology to the Americas, but whether the Inuit... more
Domestic dogs have been central to life in the North American Arctic for millennia. The ancestors of the Inuit were the first to introduce the widespread usage of dog sledge transportation technology to the Americas, but whether the Inuit adopted local Paleo-Inuit dogs or introduced a new dog population to the region remains unknown. To test these hypotheses, we generated mitochondrial DNA and geometric morphometric data of skull and dental elements from a total of 922 North American Arctic dogs and wolves spanning over 4500 years. Our analyses revealed that dogs from Inuit sites dating from 2000 BP possess morphological and genetic signatures that distinguish them from earlier Paleo-Inuit dogs, and identified a novel mitochondrial clade in eastern Siberia and Alaska. The genetic legacy of these Inuit dogs survives today in modern Arctic sledge dogs despite phenotypic differences between archaeological and modern Arctic dogs. Together, our data reveal that Inuit dogs derive from a s...
Domestic dogs have been central to life in the North American Arctic for millennia. The ancestors of the Inuit were the first to introduce the widespread usage of dog sledge transportation technology to the Americas, but whether the Inuit... more
Domestic dogs have been central to life in the North American Arctic for millennia. The ancestors of the Inuit were the first to introduce the widespread usage of dog sledge transportation technology to the Americas, but whether the Inuit adopted local Paleo-Inuit dogs or introduced a new dog population to the region remains unknown. To test these hypotheses, we generated mitochondrial DNA and geometric morphometric data of skull and dental elements from a total of 922 North American Arctic dogs and wolves spanning over 4500 years. Our analyses revealed that dogs from Inuit sites dating from 2000 BP possess morphological and genetic signatures that distinguish them from earlier Paleo-Inuit dogs, and identified a novel mitochondrial clade in eastern Siberia and Alaska. The genetic legacy of these Inuit dogs survives today in modern Arctic sledge dogs despite phenotypic differences between archaeological and modern Arctic dogs. Together, our data reveal that Inuit dogs derive from a s...
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Coastal shell middens represent a well-known element of the archaeological record of island and coastal regions across the world and shellfish have been an important resource for subsistence since the mid Holocene. However, the factors... more
Coastal shell middens represent a well-known element of the archaeological record of island and coastal regions across the world and shellfish have been an important resource for subsistence since the mid Holocene. However, the factors that influence shell-fishing remain poorly understood and in many regions investigations into the role of shellfish gathering have often remained focused on prehistoric examples to the detriment of shell middens of later dates. This article reports on the emerging evidence for large-scale exploitation of shellfish during a hitherto understudied period for shell midden archaeology in Northwest Europe: the first millennium AD. The article includes a review of a series of previously unknown large mussel-dominated middens in eastern Scotland, an outline of their chronology and character, including Bayesian modelling of dates, and a synthesis of the emerging evidence for shellfish gathering in Northwest Europe during the first millennium AD. The research r...
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Research Interests: Archaeology and Pottery
Media content to archive for the Nunalleq Educational Resource project (2017-2019). This contains an organised folder structure containing 3D model files, audio files, video files as well as text and photoshop files outlining the... more
Media content to archive for the Nunalleq Educational Resource project (2017-2019). This contains an organised folder structure containing 3D model files, audio files, video files as well as text and photoshop files outlining the structure of the original resource. Additionally we have provided a 'walkthrough' video which demonstrated how the interactions work within the resource. The installers for the current resource build which were distributed to schools in Alaska and made available for public download have also been included. The Native village of Quinhagak, as rights holders for the artefacts represented in the 3D models, will decide governance procedures for reuse or publication of the data. We have agreed to set the access as restricted so that we can grant access on request for educational or research purposes.
Domestic dogs have been central to life in the North American Arctic for millennia. The ancestors of the Inuit were the first to introduce the widespread usage of dog sledge transportation technology to the Americas, but whether the Inuit... more
Domestic dogs have been central to life in the North American Arctic for millennia. The ancestors of the Inuit were the first to introduce the widespread usage of dog sledge transportation technology to the Americas, but whether the Inuit adopted local Paleo-Inuit dogs or introduced a new dog population to the region remains unknown. To test these hypotheses, we generated mitochondrial DNA and geometric morphometric data of skull and dental elements from a total of 922 North American Arctic dogs and wolves spanning over 4500 years. Our analyses revealed that dogs from Inuit sites dating from 2000 BP possess morphological and genetic signatures that distinguish them from earlier Paleo-Inuit dogs, and identified a novel mitochondrial clade in eastern Siberia and Alaska. The genetic legacy of these Inuit dogs survives today in modern Arctic sledge dogs despite phenotypic differences between archaeological and modern Arctic dogs. Together, our data reveal that Inuit dogs derive from a s...
Domestic dogs have been central to life in the North American Arctic for millennia. The ancestors of the Inuit were the first to introduce the widespread usage of dog sledge transportation technology to the Americas, but whether the Inuit... more
Domestic dogs have been central to life in the North American Arctic for millennia. The ancestors of the Inuit were the first to introduce the widespread usage of dog sledge transportation technology to the Americas, but whether the Inuit adopted local Paleo-Inuit dogs or introduced a new dog population to the region remains unknown. To test these hypotheses, we generated mitochondrial DNA and geometric morphometric data of skull and dental elements from a total of 922 North American Arctic dogs and wolves spanning over 4500 years. Our analyses revealed that dogs from Inuit sites dating from 2000 BP possess morphological and genetic signatures that distinguish them from earlier Paleo-Inuit dogs, and identified a novel mitochondrial clade in eastern Siberia and Alaska. The genetic legacy of these Inuit dogs survives today in modern Arctic sledge dogs despite phenotypic differences between archaeological and modern Arctic dogs. Together, our data reveal that Inuit dogs derive from a s...
Domestic dogs have been central to life in the North American Arctic for millennia. The ancestors of the Inuit were the first to introduce the widespread usage of dog sledge transportation technology to the Americas, but whether the Inuit... more
Domestic dogs have been central to life in the North American Arctic for millennia. The ancestors of the Inuit were the first to introduce the widespread usage of dog sledge transportation technology to the Americas, but whether the Inuit adopted local Paleo-Inuit dogs or introduced a new dog population to the region remains unknown. To test these hypotheses, we generated mitochondrial DNA and geometric morphometric data of skull and dental elements from a total of 922 North American Arctic dogs and wolves spanning over 4500 years. Our analyses revealed that dogs from Inuit sites dating from 2000 BP possess morphological and genetic signatures that distinguish them from earlier Paleo-Inuit dogs, and identified a novel mitochondrial clade in eastern Siberia and Alaska. The genetic legacy of these Inuit dogs survives today in modern Arctic sledge dogs despite phenotypic differences between archaeological and modern Arctic dogs. Together, our data reveal that Inuit dogs derive from a s...
Domestic dogs have been central to life in the North American Arctic for millennia. The ancestors of the Inuit were the first to introduce the widespread usage of dog sledge transportation technology to the Americas, but whether the Inuit... more
Domestic dogs have been central to life in the North American Arctic for millennia. The ancestors of the Inuit were the first to introduce the widespread usage of dog sledge transportation technology to the Americas, but whether the Inuit adopted local Paleo-Inuit dogs or introduced a new dog population to the region remains unknown. To test these hypotheses, we generated mitochondrial DNA and geometric morphometric data of skull and dental elements from a total of 922 North American Arctic dogs and wolves spanning over 4500 years. Our analyses revealed that dogs from Inuit sites dating from 2000 BP possess morphological and genetic signatures that distinguish them from earlier Paleo-Inuit dogs, and identified a novel mitochondrial clade in eastern Siberia and Alaska. The genetic legacy of these Inuit dogs survives today in modern Arctic sledge dogs despite phenotypic differences between archaeological and modern Arctic dogs. Together, our data reveal that Inuit dogs derive from a s...
Domestic dogs have been central to life in the North American Arctic for millennia. The ancestors of the Inuit were the first to introduce the widespread usage of dog sledge transportation technology to the Americas, but whether the Inuit... more
Domestic dogs have been central to life in the North American Arctic for millennia. The ancestors of the Inuit were the first to introduce the widespread usage of dog sledge transportation technology to the Americas, but whether the Inuit adopted local Paleo-Inuit dogs or introduced a new dog population to the region remains unknown. To test these hypotheses, we generated mitochondrial DNA and geometric morphometric data of skull and dental elements from a total of 922 North American Arctic dogs and wolves spanning over 4500 years. Our analyses revealed that dogs from Inuit sites dating from 2000 BP possess morphological and genetic signatures that distinguish them from earlier Paleo-Inuit dogs, and identified a novel mitochondrial clade in eastern Siberia and Alaska. The genetic legacy of these Inuit dogs survives today in modern Arctic sledge dogs despite phenotypic differences between archaeological and modern Arctic dogs. Together, our data reveal that Inuit dogs derive from a s...
Domestic dogs have been central to life in the North American Arctic for millennia. The ancestors of the Inuit were the first to introduce the widespread usage of dog sledge transportation technology to the Americas, but whether the Inuit... more
Domestic dogs have been central to life in the North American Arctic for millennia. The ancestors of the Inuit were the first to introduce the widespread usage of dog sledge transportation technology to the Americas, but whether the Inuit adopted local Paleo-Inuit dogs or introduced a new dog population to the region remains unknown. To test these hypotheses, we generated mitochondrial DNA and geometric morphometric data of skull and dental elements from a total of 922 North American Arctic dogs and wolves spanning over 4500 years. Our analyses revealed that dogs from Inuit sites dating from 2000 BP possess morphological and genetic signatures that distinguish them from earlier Paleo-Inuit dogs, and identified a novel mitochondrial clade in eastern Siberia and Alaska. The genetic legacy of these Inuit dogs survives today in modern Arctic sledge dogs despite phenotypic differences between archaeological and modern Arctic dogs. Together, our data reveal that Inuit dogs derive from a s...
Birds have been an integral part of traditional Yup’ik lifeways in the Yukon–Kuskokwim Delta, southwest Alaska, both economically and symbolically. From a subsistence point of view, the rich ethnographic record for the region highlights... more
Birds have been an integral part of traditional Yup’ik lifeways in the Yukon–Kuskokwim Delta, southwest Alaska, both economically and symbolically. From a subsistence point of view, the rich ethnographic record for the region highlights the importance of this resource as a critical seasonal food and a source of raw materials for clothing and tools. Little is known of bird exploitation in precontact Yup’ik society, however, as a result of limited archaeological research in the region, which thus constrains our ability to understand subsistence strategies prior to Euro-American contact. Recent excavations at the Nunalleq site (sixteenth to seventeenth century AD) have yielded a well-preserved avian assemblage that provides the opportunity to explore the use of birds during the late prehistoric period in the region. In this paper, we present the results of our preliminary zooarchaeological and technological analyses of this material. These new data demonstrate that a relatively wide ra...
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More than two thousand archaeological grass artifacts dating from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century have been recovered from Nunalleq (GDN-248), an archaeological site located near the village of Quinhagak, southwest Alaska, in... more
More than two thousand archaeological grass artifacts dating from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century have been recovered from Nunalleq (GDN-248), an archaeological site located near the village of Quinhagak, southwest Alaska, in eight seasons of fieldwork at the site. This growing collection of basketry and cordage provides unprecedented insights on the use of grass artifacts in precontact Yup’ik households. Permafrost soils have preserved this assemblage astonishingly well, with objects made from grass blades and roots. Here we present the results of a preliminary study of these rarely encountered artifacts, based on the data recorded in the course of conservation work.
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Domestic dogs have been central to life in the North American Arctic for millennia. The ancestors of the Inuit were the first to introduce the widespread usage of dog sledge transportation technology to the Americas, but whether the Inuit... more
Domestic dogs have been central to life in the North American Arctic for millennia. The ancestors of the Inuit were the first to introduce the widespread usage of dog sledge transportation technology to the Americas, but whether the Inuit adopted local Paleo-Inuit dogs or introduced a new dog population to the region remains unknown. To test these hypotheses, we generated mitochondrial DNA and geometric morphometric data of skull and dental elements from a total of 922 North American Arctic dogs and wolves spanning over 4500 years. Our analyses revealed that dogs from Inuit sites dating from 2000 BP possess morphological and genetic signatures that distinguish them from earlier Paleo-Inuit dogs, and identified a novel mitochondrial clade in eastern Siberia and Alaska. The genetic legacy of these Inuit dogs survives today in modern Arctic sledge dogs despite phenotypic differences between archaeological and modern Arctic dogs. Together, our data reveal that Inuit dogs derive from a secondary pre-contact migration of dogs distinct from Paleo-Inuit dogs, and most likely aided the Inuit expansion across the North American Arctic beginning around 1000 BP.
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The Summer Bay archaeological site on Unalaska Island in the Aleutian Islands was oiled during the accidental grounding of the MV Kuroshima in late 1997. This report describes the remediation efforts at the site, which included excavation... more
The Summer Bay archaeological site on Unalaska Island in the Aleutian Islands was oiled during the accidental grounding of the MV Kuroshima in late 1997. This report describes the remediation efforts at the site, which included excavation and recovery of some 3,000 artifacts along with soil and faunal samples. The site was found to date from c. 2000 BP and added significant new information to our understanding of the prehistoric sequence in the Eastern Aleutians.
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This PhD Dissertation describes the results of the 1983-85 excavations on the Karluk One site on Kodiak Island, Alaska. Karluk One is a late prehistoric wet site with remarkable preservation, especially of wooden artifacts. Many of the... more
This PhD Dissertation describes the results of the 1983-85 excavations on the Karluk One site on Kodiak Island, Alaska. Karluk One is a late prehistoric wet site with remarkable preservation, especially of wooden artifacts. Many of the pieces recovered here are unique to the archaeological record of the Kodiak Archipelago. Diachronic changes in the assemblage are seen here as having been impacted by the Little Ice Age. This version includes scanned original black and white photos which are difficult to see in the earlier photocopied editions of the thesis. All the original 1995 text remains unedited.