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“The Multiplication of Forms:” Bering Strait Harpoon Heads as a Demic and Macroevolutionary Proxy

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Macroevolution in Human Prehistory

Abstract

Harpoon head technology offers evolutionary theory a proxy means of discerning shifts in adaptation across the Bering Strait region over the last 2,000 years. The harpoon head has both a functional basis and a decorative overlay that is useful in defining ethnic categories across space and time. Archaeological taxonomy distinguishes the “mother” culture of Old Bering Sea at the center, with its competitors, at the margins, especially Birnirk and Thule. The transformation between types and styles was galvanized by climate-forced shifts in hunting strategy, access to iron (for decoration), and demographic changes related to the accumulation of surplus.

Acknowledging the surrealist painter Yves Tanguy, whose painting “Multiplication of the Arcs” resides at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Geoarch Alaska, 99509-1554, P.O. Box 91554, Anchorage, AK, USA

    Owen K. Mason

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  1. Owen K. Mason
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Correspondence to Owen K. Mason .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. Anthropology, University of Montana, Missoula, 59812, U.S.A.

    Anna Prentiss

  2. Dept. Anthropology, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, 46556, U.S.A.

    Ian Kuijt

  3. Dept. Earth & Environmental Sciences, California State University, E. San Ramon Ave. 2576, Fresno, 93740-8001, U.S.A.

    James C. Chatters

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Mason, O.K. (2009). “The Multiplication of Forms:” Bering Strait Harpoon Heads as a Demic and Macroevolutionary Proxy. In: Prentiss, A., Kuijt, I., Chatters, J. (eds) Macroevolution in Human Prehistory. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0682-3_4

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