While spanning the last 125 years, archaeological research in the remote central and western Aleutian Islands has yielded only a broad perspective on precontact Aleut adaptations in this portion of the archipelago. In the last 50 years, surveys on many islands by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs and excavations on Atka, Amchitka, Buldir, Agattu, and Shemya islands have provided firm evidence that Aleuts maintained a fairly uniform and stable maritime adaptation for their entire 4500-year occupation of this region. With significant terrestrial fauna nonexistent and plant foods limited, fish, birds, marine mammals, and marine invertebrates provided the basis for human subsistence. Remains of these resources are well preserved in the typically large and deep Aleutian middens. However, to understand better the nature of this adaptation, including the significance of variable abundance of specific resources over space and time, requires archaeological efforts which are large-scale and regional, rather than site-specific.
CITATION STYLE
Veltre, D. W. (1998). Prehistoric maritime adaptations in the western and central Aleutian Islands, Alaska. Arctic Anthropology, 35(1), 223–233.
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