Faculty Research Fellow Catherine West Presents on Arctic Food Adaptation at SAA Annual Meeting

Catherine West, a Research Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Archaeology and a Faculty Research Fellow at the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, recently presented a paper titled “Human Behavioral Ecology and the Complexities of Arctic Foodways” at the 84th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The paper, which is co-authored by Prof. Ben Fitzhugh (University of Washington), addresses how past and present people adapt to environmental conditions in the Arctic and Subarctic through their eating habits and culinary practices. It was presented in a session titled “Human Behavioral Ecology at the Coastal Margins: Global Perspectives on Coastal and Maritime Adaptations.”

The Annual Meeting, held in Albuquerque, New Mexico, from April 10-14, “brings together the archaeological community to share ideas, best practices, and state of the art knowledge; meet and network in interest groups, panels, symposia, and committees; and to celebrate their field.”

As a Pardee Center Faculty Research Fellow, Prof. West will convene social scientists, resource managers, and climate scientists at the first Symposium on Circumpolar Climate Change, Resource Management, and Applied Archaeology to create real discussion about the value of long-term archaeological and paleoenvironmental records for contemporary resource management. More specifically, the symposium will build on existing collaborations to discuss the role of these long-term records in fisheries management in the North Pacific and North Atlantic Oceans, where fishing is central to cultural and economic health in both regions.