2019 Fieldwork Wrap-Up

This summer, I returned to Alaska for my last season of field research on late Holocene Athabascan behavior at the Klein Site (for now!).  I was joined by five outstanding research assistants from the University of Michigan, Tubingen University, and Appalachia State University who helped to uncover some amazing features and artifacts related to Athabascan subsistence and mobility.

2019 Klein Site Team (from left): Kristin Cimmerer, Emma Jones, Emma Creamer, Annika Reibentisch, Angie Feak, and myself.

The crack team of post-BA researchers that joined me this season were supported by funds that I secured last year from the Wenner-Gren Foundation. In addition to providing research experience, I believe it's important to provide the people who help me dig with something tangible, especially when they already have a few seasons of field experience under their belt. I am so grateful to the reviewers at the Wenner-Gren who recommended my project for funding so that I could appropriately compensate these experienced researchers.

In addition to the month of fieldwork we conducted at the Klein Site, we also visited several sites in the Shaw Creek Flats and joined Joshua Reuther (University of Alaska Fairbanks) and Francois Lanoe (University of Arizona) at the Hollembaek Site for more excavations. While Kristin joined me last summer at the Klein Site, the other four ladies got a comprehensive introduction to life in Alaska past and present. I learned a lot both from the material we recovered and from the insights my team provided.

​I'm excited to synthesize the data and write it up this fall as part of my on-going research dedicated to the Athabascan transition and migration! Stay tuned for more on those results...