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.