Category Archives: University of Alaska

Tissue Sample Preparation Video

Author: C. Funk | University at Buffalo | March 9, 2015

Dr. Nicole Misarti filmed lab assistant Kelsey Saylor while she prepared a freeze-dried mussel sample for stable isotope analysis.

Watch the youtube video: http://youtu.be/KzGRvNKlcfE

Learn more in Dr. Misarti’s earlier blog post about stable isotope analysis.

Peat Cores on Kiska Island

Author: C. Funk | University at Buffalo

Nancy Bigelow, our project specialist in pollen and plant macrofossils, took several peat cores and column samples from the area around our Summer 2014 camp – which happened to be situated near a newly described prehistoric Aleut village site (KIS-050). Her cores will give us a dated sequence of plant macrofossils (which come from the local area) and pollen (which may be wind-borne from a much broader area). Plants are sensitive to environmental changes like the amount of precipitation, temperature, windiness, soil chemistry, or amount of sunlight – and the impacts of human activities near them or interventions in their lifecycle.

Dr. Bigelow’s cores are the first from Kiska Island and her work will introduce entirely new information about the prehistoric environment shared by Aleuts, plants, and animals. Her research will combine with the archaeology team’s data to help us frame new questions about Aleut plant use and landscape manipulation. As the field images below show, processing a core is labor intensive, from the extraction process to lab sampling and analysis. Results from the processing of the first core should be ready this spring.