PSU researchers receive $230K to study diet of indigenous Alaskan communities centuries ago

A Portland State University professor recently received a $230,000 grant to study fragments of ancient pottery and sediments to answer the question: what did indigenous Arctic Alaskan people eat and how did they prepare their food over the last 4,500 years?

The National Science Foundation awarded the grant PSU anthropology professor Shelby Anderson and co-investigator Tammy Buonasera of the University of California, Davis. The award is in support of research that will improve understanding of when the Iñupiaq culture began using aquatic resources, such as fish, seals, and whales that remain central to their way of life today.

The goal of the project is to study new sources of data on animal use to shed light on the past sustenance practices of the Iñupiaq people. The researchers will gather that data by conducting physical and chemical analyses of fragments of pottery and sediments containing preserved residues associated with the production of ceramic technologies and food preparation. The samples were collected at archaeological sites in Northern and Western Alaska. The new data, combined with radiometric dating, will help the team better establish when the Iñupiaq people began harnessing aquatic resources for food, fuel, and other purposes. It will also provide vital information on how cooking vessels were made, how they were used, and what kinds of foods (e.g., marine or freshwater fish, caribou) were cooked.

The research team also plans a series of experiments in which they will make and test replica cookware using modern fish and animal specimens. Results from this portion of the study will further inform the group’s physical and chemical analyses. It will also provide clues as to how residues containing specific biomarkers found in the pottery and sediment samples might have been preserved. Such biomarkers are critical to the project, as they will be tested to determine the sources of food (marine, freshwater, terrestrial) cooked in the ancient pots.

“The big question we’re trying to answer is, what were people eating in the past and how were they making their food,” Anderson said. “To get at an answer to that question, we are focusing on when northern people started using aquatic resources and how their processes for making and using ceramic technologies changed over time. The closer we come to an answer to that question, the more we understand about the antiquity of aquatic adaptations that are still central to contemporary lifeways in the Alaskan Arctic.”