2001 Arctic Social Sciences Program Workshop

In January 2001, the Arctic Research Consortium of the United States (ARCUS) organized and convened a workshop on arctic social sciences research on behalf of the NSF Arctic Social Sciences Program. Over 70 participants gathered, bringing academic arctic researchers together with social scientists based in other regions, federal and state agency scientists, and policy and decision-makers working on related issues. The workshop's format included posters, panels, and round-tables, with ample opportunities for brainstorming and informal discussions. The goals of the January 2001 workshop were: to generate increased awareness of the opportunities for innovative social science research in the Arctic, to provide models of social science research contributions to human dimensions questions, and to focus attention on priority or emerging areas of arctic social science. Key themes of the workshop included exploring interdisciplinary linkages between the social sciences, international collaboration, and the interrelationships between social and physical and biological sciences. Small working groups focused on the themes of: the role of humans in northern environmental history and pre-history; institutional development in the Arctic, such as self-governance, common property management, and informal decision-making; linkages between identity and socioeconomic transitions in the Arctic; and traditional knowledge and the intersection between the social sciences and the humanities. A brief summary of the working group discussions is available in the Resources tab above. An exciting part to the workshop was a round-table discussion about the perspectives of federal and state agencies on arctic social science research, which was organized by the Polar Research Board. Workshop Abstracts Wilderness in Alaska: The Need for Cross-Cultural Understanding of Meanings and ValuesLillian Alessa, Depts of Biology and Education, University of AlaskaAlan Watson and Brian Glaspell, Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute Wilderness means many things to many people and this is partly influenced by legislation, agency policy, changing societal values, human perception inherent in culture and regional definition. In the U.S., the Wilderness Act of 1964 culminated a romantic legacy established by historically recent figures such as John Muir and Aldo Leopold. Subsequently, this has led to confusion among groups of people regarding the nature and value of ìwildernessî at a time when scientists, communities, policy makers and resource managers are being confronted with issues that revolve around how ìwildernessî should be utilized and, ultimately, viewed as a component of the local, regional and global culture. In Alaska, this is complicated by the fact that a number of factors which created and protected wilderness in the contiguous U.S. are incompatible with circumpolar regions. We propose that, in order for a cohesive and useful body of knowledge to develop, the following approaches should be adopted in order to better understand the process of wilderness perception and valuation in Alaska: (a) cultural differences in the uses of the word (concept) ìwildernessî in primary literature and in society requires clarification and agreement; (b) critical research to further our understanding of the role of wilderness meanings and values in society, science and politics and the forces that threaten these meanings and values needs to be identified; and (c) methodologies that will allow us to collect meaningful data and develop a critical mass of research such that an ongoing body of knowledge can be built need to be developed. The Arctic System Science Data Coordination Center (ADCC)R. J. Dichtl and C. McNeave, National Snow and Ice Data Center, University of Colorado, Boulder The ARCSS Data Coordination Center (ADCC) at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), University of Colorado at Boulder, is the permanent data archive for all components of the ARCSS Program. Funded by the National Science Foundationís Office of Polar Programs, our focus is to archive and provide access to ARCSS-funded data and information. The concept of System Science depends on the accessibility and exchange of data and information within the scientific community. The ADCC strives to be a catalyst to facilitate that accessibility and cooperation.A major concern of the research community is the availability of reliable data for research. Working with ARCSS investigators, the ARCSS Committee and NSF, the ADCC is continually acquiring data and developing data products appropriate and useful for the research community. Integration of the data and information from ARCSS projects described on this poster is a high priority at the ADCC. We also work with other national and international data centers to provide optimum accessibility to data and information from the ARCSS archive.The ADCC strives to provide the most contemporary means of data accessibility to the scientific community. We have developed ingest procedures to assist ARCSS researchers in data and information submittal to the long-term archive. The ADCC home page (http://arcss.colorado.edu/) has become an important tool for data accessibility and integration within ARCSS. Data and information are also distributed on other media (CD-ROMs, disks, data catalogs, etc.) when appropriate. The ADCC maintains a complete backup of the ARCSS archive to ensure data and information collected from the program are available on a long-term basis. Political Traditions for the FutureStephanie Fox, PhD Student, University of Cambridge, England The Deh Cho region is located southwest of Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada, and encompasses 13 Slavey (Dene) communities. The First Nations are united under the Deh Cho First Nations (DCFN), which is located in Fort Simpson. The DCFN has been engaged in negotiations with the federal government for several years; most of that time has been spent working out a process for the negotiations. The Deh Cho is reknowned as the only group of First Nations in the Northwest Territories committed to determining its own process based on traditional Deh Cho principles, beliefs, and values. This has resulted in the ìDeh Cho Process,î which will be a negotiation about how Deh Cho and non-Deh Cho peoples will share and manage the regionís land and resources; it will also include talks on Deh Cho government. This poster describes the Deh Cho region and people, their negotiating process, and the work I will be doing researching political traditions and customs beginning in July 2001. As the work has not yet begun, it will highlight some issues and challenges that I expect to encounter during the research process. Oxygen Isotope Composition of Human Dental Enamel as a Record of Climate ChangeHenry C. Fricke (1), James R. OíNeil (1) & Niels Lynnerup (2)(1) Department of Geological Sciences, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, U.S.A.(2) Laboratory of Biological Anthropology, University of Copenhagen, Denmark The d18O value of human tooth enamel (d18Op) can be used to infer the value of ingested local meteoric water (d18Ow). d18Ow is in turn a reflection of local climate variables such as temperature and humidity. Human remains found in archaeological sites then provide a possible continental record of climate change. In the first such study, the analyses of Greenland Norse and Eskimo teeth validate the relation between d18Op and temperature. The spread in d18Op values between the most northern and southern sites is similar to the spread of values for modern-day meteoric waters. A 3º decrease in d18Op from sites in Greenland dating from AD 1400 to 1700 implies rapid cooling during the so-called Little Ice Age. Early Holocene Maritime Adaptations on the Northwest Coast of North America: Excavations at 49-PET-408.E. James Dixon, Ph.D., Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado at Boulder Human remains of an adult male dated to 9,880 +/- 50 BP delta 13C -12.1 o/oo (CAMS-32038) (pelvis) and 9,730 +/- 60 BP delta 13C -12.5 o/oo (CAMS-29873) (mandible) have been excavated from 49-PET-408 (On Your Knees Cave), an archeological and paleontological site on Prince of Wales Island, Southeast Alaska (Dixon et al. 1997, Dixon 1999). AMS 14C results indicate these are oldest reliably dated human remains yet recovered in Alaska and Canada. Delta 13C values demonstrate a diet based on marine foods, and the 14C age should be adjusted to c 9,200 based on the regional marine carbon reservoir extrapolated from the Queen Charlotte Islands (Fedje et al. 1996). The human remains appear to be contemporary with a cultural occupation dated by three 14C AMS dates on charcoal (8,760 +/- 50 BP (CAMS-43991), 9210 +/- 50 BP (CAMS-43990) and CAMS-439899, 9,150 +/- 50). Obsidian, microblades, bifaces, and other tools have been recovered from this statigraphic unit. An undated underlying stratigraphic unit contains bone fragments, charcoal and lithic flakes; possible evidence of an earlier human occupation. Bone and shell tools from different chambers of the cave are 14C AMS dated to 10,300 +/- 50 BP (CAMS-42381), 5780 +/- 40 (CAMS-42382), and 1,760 +/- 40 BP (CAMS-64540) suggesting several periods of use/occupation of the cave. These data indicate that by c 9,200 BP, humans along the Northwest Coast of North America were coastal navigators with an economy based on maritime subsistence and established trade networks for obsidian. Trace element analysis documents at least two sources for the obsidian, Mount Edziza on the British Columbia mainland and Sumez Island in Southeast Alaska. These data suggest earlier human occupation in order to establish this broad regional adaptation by 9,200 BP and strengthen the theory that humans may have first entered the Americas using watercraft along the Northwest Coast of North America during the late Pleistocene (F

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