"The Multiplication of Forms": Bering strait harpoon heads as a demic and macroevolutionary proxy

Abstract

Harpoon head technology offers evolutionary theory a proxy means of discerning shifts in adaptation across the Bering Strait region over the last 2,000 years. The harpoon head has both a functional basis and a decorative overlay that is useful in defining ethnic categories across space and time. Archaeological taxonomy distinguishes the mother culture of Old Bering Sea at the center, with its competitors, at the margins, especially Birnirk and Thule. The transformation between types and styles was galvanized by climate-forced shifts in hunting strategy, access to iron (for decoration), and demographic changes related to the accumulation of surplus. © 2009 Springer-Verlag New York.