Christyann M. Darwent

Associate Professor, Ph.D. University of Missouri, 2001

Chair, Evolutionary Wing

Department of Anthropology
University of California, Davis
One Shields Avenue

Davis , CA 95616

Email: cmdarwent@ucdavis.edu

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Education:

B.Sc. in Archaeology, University of Calgary, Canada (1992); M. Anne Katzenberg, honor's advisor
M.A. in Archaeology, Simon Fraser University, Canada (1995); Jonathan C. Driver, master's advisor
Ph.D. in Anthropology, University of Missouri-Columbia, USA (2001); R. Lee Lyman, doctoral advisor

Biography:

Zooarchaeology Lab

Inglefield Land Archaeology Project

Research Interests

My interests primarily are in animal skeletal remains from archaeological sites and how these remains can shed light on past human subsistence economies and past environments. I have spent the past 20+ years conducting fieldwork and laboratory research on archaeological faunal material, and the past 15+ years applying this knowledge to remains from the North American High Arctic.

Qaqaitsut, Paris Fjord, Northwest Greenland, 2009

Qaquitsut, Paris Fjord, Northwest Greenland, 2009

Since 2004 I have been co-investigator of the Inglefield Land Archaeology Project with Dr. Genevieve LeMoine (Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum) in collaboration with Hans Lange of the Greenland National Museum in Nuuk. This project is funded by the National Science Foundation's Office of Polar Programs (International Polar Year) and also received funding through National Geographic. During the summers of 2004, 2005, and 2006 we undertook systematic foot, boat and helicopter survey of Inglefield Land northwestern Greenland. We have recorded over 1500 new archaeological features (winter houses, tent rings, long houses, meat caches, fox traps, kayak stands, and human burials) ranging from the earliest paleoeskimo occupation (ca. 2000 BC) to recent times. In 2006, excavation of two Inughuit sod-block winter houses at the site of Iita (Etah) was undertaken to investigate technological and subsistence changes with outside contact. This site is well-known as the place where Robert Peary launched his polar expeditions. In 2008, excavation of three Thule winter houses, a Thule fall/spring house, a Late Dorset mid-passage (summer) structure and midden, and an early Paleoeskimo (Independence I) midpassage dwelling was undertaken at Cape Grinnell, which was first documented by arctic explorer Elisha Kent Kane. In 2009, we excavated four Thule winter houses at Qaqaitsut in Paris Fjord, and one at Glacier Bay.

In collaboration with project PIs, Drs. John Hoffecker and Owen Mason of INSTAAR, University of Colorado, Boulder, I am a senior researcher and zooarchaeologist on the Cape Espenberg Thule Origins Project (NSF - International Polar Year) to understand the Thule transition and the advent of whaling in northwestern Alaska. Excavations at Cape Espenberg on a series of beach ridges at the southwestern extend of Kotzebue Sound began in 2009, and will continue in 2010 & 2011 with a collaborative UCD & Paris-Sorbonne undergraduate and Inupiat high-school student archaeological field school (Summer Session I).