SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION OF RESOURCES AND HUMAN SETTLEMENT AND FORAGING IN THE ALASKA YUKON RIVER VALLEY

Cultural ecological studies of human foragers have often been characterized by a paucity of ecological information and a reliance on arbitrary cultural explanations for observed human behavior. Reversing the traditional approach, a foraging population in Interior Alaska is studied from primarily an ecological perspective. Contour maps of seasonal resource distribution are constructed and compared with observed human population distribution to measure the relative impact of spatial variation in resource abundance alone upon human foragers. The goal is a preliminary assessment of the relative influence of resource abundance on foraging population distribution without consideration of the effects of cultural, technological, or historical changes.;Path analysis demonstrates relative foraging population density has been primarily determined by regional salmon abundance from 1880 to the present, with little observed impact from social or technological changes. In conclusion, simple measures of resource abundance, coupled with trend surface analysis, appear to be very effective for constructing maps of relative foraging population density for any time period in the Yukon Valley irrespective of cultural identity or technology.;Trend surface analysis of human and summer resource distribution indicates foraging population distribution is a close reflection of regional summer resources in general, and salmon distribution in particular. Trend surfaces of salmon abundance are found to be virtually identical to relative population density and also serve as probability surfaces for settlement location through time. Patterns of population movements, traditional hostilities, and differential reproduction have all acted to redistribute population density to match available resource distribution. Different linguistic groups in the Yukon Valley are equally effective in extracting subsistence resources from the environment; no pronounced cultural differences in extraction efficiency are found between Eskimo and Indian foragers, indicating cultural identity and technological differences have had little influence on foraging efficiency.