The Increased Role of Women and Children in Iñupiat Subsistence during the Little Ice Age: Zooarchaeological Analysis of a Prehistoric House at Cape Espenberg, Alaska

Faunal remains recovered from a prehistoric Iñupiat house (Feature 33, KTZ-088) at Cape Espenberg in northwest Alaska demonstrate the increasing importance of shellfish during the Little Ice Age.  The subsistence traditions typically associated with this time period, described by archaeologists as the Late Western Thule culture, are specific to male gender roles, such as cooperative whale-hunting[1] and the hunting of other large game.  Shellfish, which ethnographic accounts suggest were primarily harvested by women and children, have never been reported from archaeological sites above the Arctic Circle[2]. The current understanding of Thule culture ignores the contributions that women in particular made to dietary subsistence.  Analysis indicates the use and storage of significant numbers of large gastropods (Neptunea heros) and bivalve mollusks (e.g., Macoma sp., Siliqua sp.). These results underscore the important roles women and children played in Late Western Thule culture as food providers in the Thule-Iñupiat subsistence economy.