Variation in late holocene marine environments in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago: Evidence from ringed seal bone collagen stable isotope compositions

Abstract

Environmental change in the Arctic has been a primary topic of interest in recent years, particularly as it relates to the consequences of anthropogenic climate change. Sea ice is of particular importance in this context, both in terms of the effects of climate change in the Arctic, but also globally. Most studies examining the responses of various components of the biosphere to warming temperatures necessarily have a short temporal perspective. The purpose of this study was to use stable isotopes to examine long-term variation (c. 4000–500 yr BP) in the ecology of a ubiquitous Arctic marine mammal (the ringed seal, Pusa hispida) that is intimately linked to sea ice. We present δ13C and δ15N values for ringed seal bone collagen from archaeological sites in the central Canadian Arctic Archipelago as well as 61 new AMS 14C dates from these sites. Ringed seal δ13C values increased between the earliest sites in our study, Early Pre-Dorset (c. 4000 cal yr BP), through to the Late Dorset period (c. 800 cal yr BP) suggesting increasing primary productivity derived from sea ice relative to phytoplankton over this period and an overall cooling trend. Between the Late Dorset (1500–700 yr BP) and Thule (c. 700−500 yr BP) periods there was an abrupt decline in the contribution of sea ice algae to higher trophic levels, consistent with reduced sea ice extent and increased open water conditions. These data demonstrate the potential of using marine mammals from archaeological sites to reconstruct the changing importance of sea ice to food webs over time and offer insight into the consequences of climatic variation at higher trophic levels, which is difficult if not impossible to obtain with other proxy records.