Boris O. Dolgikh, Alexander B. Dolitsky, J. David McMahan and Henry N. Michael Division of the Far North and Siberia of the Institute of Ethnography, Soviet Academy of Sciences President, Alaska-Siberia Research Center. 9216 Black Wolf Way, Juneau, AK 99801, USA; adolitsky{at}gci.net Alaska-Siberia Research Center. 1021B Meadowbrook Rd., Ashland City, TN 37015, USA; ugruk{at}hotmail.com Former Senior Fellow, Museum Applied Science Center for Archaeology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA

Fish were absolutely necessary for survival for many households in preindustrial societies. Because fishing waters are considered a common-pool resource, it is difficult to exclude users, and the catch is subtractable. To learn what strategies were in place to avoid fish-stock depletion and secure continuous harvests, we investigated how Indigenous Sami households in Lule lappmark, Sweden, used low-productive freshwaters between 1660 and 1780. Our aim is to show how they conducted fishing and how it was linked to rules for fishing. Our sources are contemporary 17th- and 18th-century accounts and local court rulings. Rules for fishing were developed in a self-governance context. Users and fishing areas were well defined, and users often had exclusive rights to fish. Inheritance was important but not a sufficient prerequisite to obtain access. Our research covers a period during which abundant but low-yield fishing waters per household declined, making it more difficult to survive.

Recent reanalysis of material excavated from the Bluefish Caves, Yukon Territory claims to have identified culturally modified bone dating to 24,000 cal. BP, thereby providing evidence for continuous human occupation of eastern Beringia from the Last Glacial Maximum. However, the recent research largely ignores the history of criticisms of the site and leaves outstanding questions about the site context, associations of lithic artifacts and Last Glacial Maximum radiocarbon dates, and the impact of natural processes on the faunal assemblage, and therefore, how the site fits into the broader Beringian archaeological record. This paper critically analyzes the archaeological record from Bluefish Caves by focusing on evidence for significantly disturbed archaeological contexts and alteration of bone by nonanthropogenic processes. We offer alternative hypotheses explaining the archaeological record at Bluefish Caves based on published data that were not considered in the recent reanalysis. These alternative hypotheses must be addressed before Bluefish Caves can be considered evidence for a Last Glacial Maximum occupation of Beringia. Bluefish Caves remains provocative but unconvincing archaeological evidence for the Beringian Standstill supported by genetic data.

This paper examines archaeological signs indicating cultural diversity between trader societies in the coastal regions of the Bothnian Bay in northwestern Fennoscandia between the 13th and 15th centuries AD by focusing attention on the functioning of the network that connected the societies together. It is observed that within a relatively small bounded region, notable variation specifically in contemporary burial forms is present indicating cultural differences between the local communities. At the same time, archaeological evidence attests to interconnectedness and communication between the communities. It is suggested that the cultural diversity and distinctiveness between the communities was maintained due to the strong gateway position each of them held in regards to the interaction network, which was instrumental in, for example, the functioning of the northern medieval trade. At the same time, this interconnectedness caused certain similarities—specifically in relation to the manner of communication itself—to manifest.

This article explores the prehistoric ontologies etched into theriomorphic images on ivory harpoon parts among the Okvik and OBS cultures that flourished about 2,000 years ago in the Bering Strait region. Inspired by the theory of relational ontology, the author argues that the images on prehistoric Inuit artifacts not only reveal the interior essence of other-than-human animals but also signify the interpersonal and intersubjective relationship between humans and other-than-human persons. A comparison between the prehistoric Inuit artifacts and the Yup’ik yua masks suggests that these Okvik/OBS hunting artifacts with theriomorphic images represented rebuilding of the hunter’s multiple, extra body. Further analyses show that interspecies relations between other-than-human persons are crucial in prehistoric Inuit ontologies. Accordingly, the author argues that the polymorphous form represented by the prehistoric hunting implements was not only the human hunter’s but also the other-than-human being’s extra body.

This article presents four new possible images of drums in the Finnish rock art, and considers these, and apparent dancing images as an acoustic record of the past. It also presents preliminary results of testing echo at over 100 rock-art sites that suggest that exceptional soundscape is an elemental, if not a fundamental component, of rock art. Both the images and the echo correlate well with the local Sámi ceremonies of singing and drumming at sacred sieidi sites—regional tradition and Finnish rock art point to entering into deeper trance through music and dancing. However, in Finland, there are few entoptic signs in rock art. In some places these signs are connected to shamanism but research shows a correlation with entoptic signs and psychedelic substances but not necessarily with shamanism. This disconnect emphasizes the need for redefining ASC: the term is not singular, but plural. Contrary to being hallucinations, shamanic states can be better understood as being exceptionally present and part of an Indigenous knowledge formation process. A pattern of liminal features, images, and local analogies construe Finnish rock-art sites effectively as sites of liminality, trance, and relationship.

The Japanese occupation of Kiska Island in the Western Aleutians was far more comprehensive than previously reported or archaeologically documented. Remarkably wellpreserved World War II Japanese military tunnels, entrenchments, structural remains, and communications networks are located throughout the southern coastal bays and coves of the island. These features were constructed in 1942–1943 by Imperial Japanese Army and Imperial Japanese Navy troops stationed on Kiska during the Aleutian Operation. The features and their associated material assemblages provide an opportunity to expand interpretations of the human landscape of war in the western Aleutians through first-phase archaeological descriptions enriched by information from historical documents.

In this article, we identify and discuss the possibilities, limitations, and challenges of sustainable tourism development in Southwest Greenland through a consideration of dimensions of social and cultural capital. We present our findings concerning the current context-specific promises and problems of tourism development and then discuss suggestions to improve local sustainability. Our argument is that the diverse natural, cultural, and political histories of this area offer a range of resources, here conceptualized as dimensions of capital, for multiple smaller, decentralized, and interconnected economic activities that can together contribute to developing tourism. However, such activities in the Greenlandic context also face particular, interdependent challenges. We suggest that the development of a series of disparate but integrated attractions might offer numerous opportunities but that the concomitant challenges necessitate concerted efforts by public authorities to support targeted educational programs and communication infrastructure developments and improve the foundations for decentralized network economies.

By exploring the ethnographic example of the Innu of northeastern Québec (Canada), this paper proposes an analysis of the interaction between economy and cosmology using the concept of the production of persons. Through an examination of the transformations in subsistence and exchange patterns, it shows how the contemporary reality of the Innu is entangled between their traditional hunting cosmology and the order of the market and the State. The paper explores three main themes: 1) The importance of hunting and working towards the production of persons among the Innu, 2) The gift and commodity continuum in contemporary exchange patterns of food from the land, and 3) The entanglements of hunting and monetary economy in ritual and cosmological praxis. The main conclusion is that economy and cosmology are fundamentally tied together and that the economic and cosmologic practices of the Innu echo their political and identity affirmations.

This paper shows how a society imagines human individuals and their power to act upon spirits both ritually and materially. Based on the author’s fieldwork (from 1994 to 2019), it analyzes the emic concept onnir, which is omnipresent in the daily activities and the past and present collective/individual rituals of Siberian Evenki and Even. Each human owns a specific fluctuating “charge made of spirits” and an “active imprint” that empowers the human to act, perform rituals, develop talents, and create. Even after death, this “imprint” affects everything and everyone a human ever touched. Onnir defines the interrelations between the individual, the spirits of his or her own “charge,” and the spirits of the universe in an “active agent”-“patient” relationship. This paper contributes to studies of the notions of the individual, “playing” as a ritual means, the acceptance/rejection of neoshamans, neorituals, and the (ritual) agency of ordinary individuals.