Alliance and Conflict

Alliance and Conflict
Author: Ernest S. Burch
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Total Pages: 408
Release: 2005-01-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780803213463

Alliance and Conflict combines a richly descriptive study of intersocietal relations in early nineteenth-century Northwest Alaska with a bold theoretical treatise on the structure of the world system as it might have been in ancient times. Ernest S. Burch Jr. illuminates one aspect of the traditional lives of the I_upiaq Eskimos in unparalleled detail and depth. Basing his account on observations made by early Western explorers, interviews with Native historians, and archeological research, Burch describes the social boundaries and geographic borders formerly existing in Northwest Alaska and the various kinds of transactions that took place across them. These ranged from violence of the most brutal sort, at one extreme, to relations of peace and friendship, at the other. Burch argues that the international system he describes approximated in many respects the type of system existing all over the world before the development of agriculture. Based on that assumption, he presents a series of hypotheses about what the world system may have been like when it consisted entirely of hunter-gatherer societies and about how it became more centralized with the evolution of chiefdoms. ø Accounts of specific people, places, and events add an immediate, experiential dimension to the work, complementing its theoretical apparatus and sweeping narrative scope. Provocative and comprehensive, Alliance and Conflict is a definitive look at the greater world of Native peoples of Northwest Alaska.

The Iñupiaq Eskimo Nations of Northwest Alaska

The Iñupiaq Eskimo Nations of Northwest Alaska
Author: Ernest S. Burch
Publisher:
Total Pages: 496
Release: 1998
Genre: History
ISBN:

In what distinguished anthropologist James VanStone has described as "a superb example of salvage ethnography," The Inupiaq Eskimo Nations of Northwest Alaska presents a social geography of this far corner of the continent as it was during the early historic period. Author Ernest S. Burch, Jr., who has studied the area for over thirty years, contends that the Inupiaq Eskimos of northwest Alaska were organized into several autonomous societies equivalent to nations as we think of them today, but at the hunter-gatherer level of complexity. This book is a clearly written introduction to these tiny nations; it is based primarily on information the author was given by the last generation of Inupiaq elders born while oral narrative still was the primary form of historical record for their societies. The book emphasizes the identity of the nations in the region, their locations in space and time, and the numbers, lifeways, general distribution, and seasonal movements of their members. The discussion of each district includes brief summaries of previous research done there and accounts of how each nation met its demise during the second half of the nineteenth century. The work presents a substantial body of information that has never been published in book form before, and that can never be acquired again. It will endure as a major connecting link between archeological and historical research in northwest Alaska, and thus is of critical importance to understanding long-term social change in the region.

Batza Tena, Trail to Obsidian

Batza Tena, Trail to Obsidian
Author: Donald Woodforde Clark
Publisher: University of Ottawa Press
Total Pages: 333
Release: 1993-01-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 177282139X

This volume reports on the findings from the extensive archaeological surveys and excavations in the Batza Téna area, Alaska’s most important source of obsidian.

Culture and Archaeology of the Ancestral Unangax̂/Aleut of the Aleutian Islands, Alaska

Culture and Archaeology of the Ancestral Unangax̂/Aleut of the Aleutian Islands, Alaska
Author: Debra Corbett
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 433
Release: 2024-01-03
Genre: Science
ISBN: 3031442946

For the past 9,000 years, people lived and flourished along the 1,000-mile Aleutian archipelago reaching from the American continent nearly to Asia. The Aleutian chain and surrounding waters supported 40,000 or more people before the Russians arrived. Despite the antiquity of continuous human occupation, the size of the area, and the fascinating and complex social organization, the region has received scant notice from the public. This volume provides a thorough review describing the varied cultures of the ancestral Unangax̂, using archaeological reports, articles, and unpublished data; documented Unangax̂ oral histories, and ethnohistories from early European and American visitors, assessed through the authors’ multi-decade experience working in the Aleutian Archipelago. Unangam Tanangin ilan Unangax̂/Aliguutax̂ Maqax̂singin ama Kadaangim Tanangin Anaĝix̂taqangis (Culture and Archaeology of the Ancestral Unangax̂/Aleut of the Aleutian Islands, Alaska) begins with a description of the physical and biological world (The Physical Environment and The Living Environment) of which the Unangax̂ are part, followed by a description of the archaeological research in the region (The People). The rest of the book addresses ancestral Unangax̂ life including settlement on the land, and the characteristics of sites based on the activities that took place there (People on the Landscape). From this broad perspective, the view narrows to the people making a living through hunting, fishing, and collecting food along the shore-line, making their intricate tools, storing and cooking food, and sewing and weaving (Making a Living); household life including house construction, households, and the work done within the home (Life at Home); and the personal changes an individual goes through from the time they are born through death, including spiritual transitions and ceremonies (Transitions), and the evidence for these events in the material record. This book is written in gratitude to the Unangax̂ and Aleut people for the opportunity to work in Unangam Tanangin or the Aleutian Islands, and to learn about your culture. We hope you find this book useful. The purpose of this book is to introduce the broader public to the cultures of this North Pacific archipelago in a single source, while simultaneously providing researchers a comprehensive synthesis of archaeology in the region.

Proposed Noatak National Arctic Range, Alaska

Proposed Noatak National Arctic Range, Alaska
Author: United States. Department of the Interior. Alaska Planning Group
Publisher:
Total Pages: 724
Release: 1974
Genre: Noatak National Arctic Range (Alaska : Proposed)
ISBN:

A detailed assessment of environmental impacts associated with the establishment of the proposed arctic range and its management. Includes an inventory of the resources of the area.