ABSTRACT OPP-9634834 McCartney/Dixon/Savelle This proposed research project will investigate baleen whale bones on precontact and contact Eskimo village sites between Barrow and Saint Lawrence Island in northern Alaska. Bone elements will be identified to species and size for purposes of reconstructing the relative abundance of major species, their ages and sizes at death, and the ways they were used by humans. The analysis of mortality profiles in zooarchaeological assemblages is important for understanding the relationships between human predators and prey species. Further, because the distribution of bowheads and gray whales is ice and season dependent, whale abundance or scarcity will be related to long-term climatic reconstructions. Comparisons will be made with previously analyzed bone assemblages from northern Canada.
