Evaluating the Social and Environmental Process of the Dene/Athabascan Migration from the Subarctic

• Main Author: Doering, Briana
• Other Authors: Stewart, Brian A, Fisher, Daniel C, Esdale, Julie Anne, Kingston, John, Wright, Henry T
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 2020
• Subjects: migration; subarctic; Dene/Athabascan; geospatial; isotopic; Indigenous history; Anthropology and Archaeology; Social Sciences; Yukon; Athabascan; Subarctic; Alaska
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/2027.42/163305

Approximately 1,500 years ago, Dene/Athabascans radically altered their lifestyle in central Alaska and Yukon, and many ultimately left this region entirely. In my dissertation, I evaluate the causes of this drastic transition using a multiscalar archaeological dataset that draws from excavation, geospatial, and ethnographic data. Specifically, I consider whether either a massive volcanic eruption or population change led to a sudden, wide-scale shift in Subarctic technology, diet, and trade, and an ultimate southward migration. The results of technological, isotopic, and geospatial analysis presented here strongly suggest that Dene/Athabascans responded to a regional population increase, likely driven by a shift in group organization predicated by the Dene/Athabascan kinship structure. In response, Dene/Athabascans became increasingly specialized and territorial until some Dene/Athabascans began a southward migration that finally terminated in the American Southwest over 500 years ago. The diachronic nature of my multiscalar research allows me to model this transition as a process, rather than an event, that can be compared to similar cultural processes to provide a comprehensive understanding of resilience, adaptation, and migration at different periods of history and around the world. PhD Anthropology University of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/163305/1/doeringb_1.pdf