9304297 Lightfoot With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Kent Lightfoot and his colleagues will continue their archaeological research at the site of Fort Ross which is located on the northern California coast. Fort Ross was founded in 1812 by the Russian-American Company, a mercantile monopoly that represented Russia's interests in the lucrative North Pacific fur trade. The fort served as a staging area for sea otter and fur seal hunts along the coast of California and as an agricultural community for raising crops and livestock. It remained in the hands of the Russian-American company until 1841 when it was disbanded and the land sold. Fort Ross was a multiethnic community and included Russians as well as a sizeable contingent of Alaskan Aleut Indians who were imported to hunt. Finally, local Pomo Indians were also associated with the Fort and performed a number of tasks. The goal of Dr. Lightfoot's research is to understand the ethnic interactions which took place and to gain insight into how acculturation occurred. To accomplish this, he will continue archaeological excavation with a focus on the inter-ethnic areas of the site where, documents indicate, mixed- group families lived. Pomo women married both Russian and Aleut men. Dr. Lightfoot will clear large areas to reveal individual households. He will analyze artifacts collected to determine the degree of cultural syncretism which took place. Through use of survey, documents sources and both Pomo and Aleut informants, he will also attempt to reconstruct the larger settlement pattern and cultural landscape. Culture contact and change are dominant forces in today's world as even the most remote areas are drawn into global interaction and economic systems. Anthropologists wish to understand the processes by which cultural accommodation and assimilation take place and the New World, because of its large size and its relatively recent contact with the Old has proven a fertile ground for such investi gations. Dr. Lightfoot notes that researchers have tended to work with simple models which posit direct contact between Europeans and a single Native American group. In fact, the reality was often more complicated since exposure was often mediated by other Indian societies. Fort Ross provides an excellent example and through a detailed examination Dr. Lightfoot hopes to determine how mediated change, with Aleuts as intermediaries, took place. This research is important for several reasons. It will increase our understanding of inter-ethnic interaction and the process of culture change. It will shed new light on California's early history and assist in the training of several graduate students. ***
