PARENT SESSION
Oral Session 17: Traditional Ecological Knowledge.
Presiding: E Sulzman
Monday, August 2, 8:00 AM to 11:30 AM, Meeting Room F 151.

Long-term effects of habitation by the Aleut on vegetation of the Lower Alaska Peninsula.

Huntly, Nancy^*,1, Johnson, David¹, Maschner, Herbert ¹, ¹ Idaho State University, Pocatello, ID

ABSTRACT- We studied the vegetation of the Lower Alaska Peninsula, comparing areas that were occupied by villages of the Aleut in historic or prehistoric time with nearby areas that had similar elevation, slope, and exposure, but that had not been village sites. Village sites had higher species richness (38% average increase, paired t = 3.807, d.f. = 15, p < .002) and productivity (59% higher canopy layering, paired t = 5.126, d.f. = 15 , p < .001; 52 % higher biomass, paired t = 3.891, d.f. = 13 , p < .001; almost 3 times higher standing nitrogen, paired t = 6.229, d.f. = 13 , p < .001) than did adjacent areas of undisturbed tundra, and these differences apparently have persisted for up to 4000 years since the oldest villages were abandoned. The villages' sites also were enriched in plants that are used extensively by people, for food, medicine, or other household functions. Our results suggest that activities of the Aleut resulted in long-term local conversion of maritime tundra to diverse, productive meadow. Further, they suggest that the Aleut, which are and were a hunter-gatherer culture, had developed protoagricultural relationships with plant species that comprise the directly or indirectly altered communities of abandoned village sites.

Key words: productivity, landscape, diversity, people