This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Connor, C. Articles by Howell, W. Search for Related Content GeoRef GeoRef Citation Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

The Neoglacial landscape and human history of Glacier Bay, Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, southeast Alaska, USA

Department of Natural Sciences, University of Alaska Southeast, Juneau, Alaska, USA, cathy.connor{at}uas.alaska.edu

Greg Streveler

Icy Strait Environmental Services, Gustavus, Alaska, USA

Austin Post

US Geological Survey, Tacoma WA, USA

Daniel Monteith

Department of Social Sciences, University of Alaska Southeast, Juneau, Alaska, USA

Wayne Howell

Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, Alaska, USA

The Neoglacial landscape of the Huna Tlingit homeland in Glacier Bay is recreated through new interpretations of the lower Bay's fjordal geomorphology, late Quaternary geology and its ethnographic landscape. Geological interpretation is enhanced by 38 radiocarbon dates compiled from published and unpublished sources, as well as 15 newly dated samples. Neoglacial changes in ice positions, outwash and lake extents are reconstructed for c. 5500—200 cal. yr ago, and portrayed as a set of three landscapes at 1600—1000, 500—300 and 300—200 cal. yr ago. This history reveals episodic ice advance towards the Bay mouth, transforming it from a fjordal seascape into a terrestrial environment dominated by glacier outwash sediments and ice-marginal lake features. This extensive outwash plain was building in lower Glacier Bay by at least 1600 cal. yr ago, and had filled the lower bay by 500 cal. yr ago. The geologic landscape evokes the human-described landscape found in the ethnographic literature. Neoglacial climate and landscape dynamism created difficult but endurable environmental conditions for the Huna Tlingit people living there. Choosing to cope with environmental hardship was perhaps preferable to the more severely deteriorating conditions outside of the Bay as well as conflicts with competing groups. The central portion of the outwash plain persisted until it was overridden by ice moving into Icy Strait between AD 1724—1794. This final ice advance was very abrupt after a prolonged still-stand, evicting the Huna Tlingit from their Glacier Bay homeland.

Key Words: Glacier Bay • southeastern Alaska • Neoglacial • `Little Ice Age' • outwash plain • ethnographic landscape • Tlingit history.

The Holocene, Vol. 19, No. 3, 381-393 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0959683608101389


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?