Through the collaboration of University of Alaska Fairbanks and the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities, a group of university students and educators completed an archaeological field school surveying, mapping, and excavating along the Alaska Highway. The 49-TNX-00252 Historic District contains sites representing the experiences of the Army Corp of Engineers during the building of the ALCAN pioneer road and bridges. This site allows for analysis of the materials that might reflect the prejudice and segregation that the predominantly African American engineers faced. The excavation of structural remains from the district can be utilized to orient historic maps and to confirm the locations of historic imagery. Through artifact excavation, collection, and identification, the nature and use of the structures themselves can be identified. Here, we present the findings from the excavation of Feature 2025-01, a hypothesized segregated outhouse and adjacent surface materials.

In 1941 the attack on Pearl Harbor brought the US into WWII. This raised concerns that Alaska could be a target of future attacks. President Roosevelt’s cabinet recommended the creation of a highway as a supply route to Alaska and as a way to connect existing airfields. The route would follow a path from Edmonton, Alberta to Fairbanks, Alaska. Construction of the road began in 1942 under the direction of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Predominantly African American regiments were tasked with establishing and maintaining the route through the uncharted Alaskan wilderness. The TNX-00252 historic district encompasses historic sites related to the construction of the original Alaska Highway pioneer road and the Robertson River pioneer bridge. In 2025 an archaeological field school through the University of Alaska Fairbanks partnering with the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities began investigating the district including an undocumented construction camp.

49-TNX-00252 is a historic district encompassing archaeological sites related to the construction of the original Alaska Highway pioneer road and Robertson River pioneer bridge. During the 2025 archaeological field school, students began field investigations into an undocumented construction camp where Company B of the 97th Regiment was stationed, near the Robertson River Bridge. During the harsh winter of 1942 when rations were hard to acquire it is unknown whether troops looked for alternative food sources such as native fauna. This preliminary research into the uses of alternative foods sources through food related artifacts and ecofacts found at the site. Ration cans are found throughout the site and sparse faunal remains have been identified. This poster explores the imported and local foods utilized by the 97th regiment.

In 2025, an archaeological field school through the University of Alaska Fairbanks, partnering with the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities, investigated the construction of the original Alaska Highway pioneer road and Robertson River pioneer bridge. Geospatial software was employed before the field school to establish a site grid and create GPS points for shovel test pits (STPs) at 10-meter intervals. Over 60 STPs were dug this season, spreading out from the main construction camp. Additionally, over 70 surface features and artifact clusters including buildings, military food cans, vehicle parts, drum stoves, and construction supplies were documented, clarifiying the boundaries of the camp. These artifacts and features were mapped and recorded with field notes, sketches, centimeter-accurate GPS, and high-resolution photography. Analysis of these materials and their locations may show differences in how the predominately African American regiments were supplied and in what ways they utilized the TNX-00252 historic district.

To identify and interpret historic district 49-TNX-00252, the cantonment of Company B, 97th Regiment of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, from 1942-1943 near the Robertson River Bridge and Tanacross, Alaska, a range of archaeological research methods were employed. Archival photographs obtained from digital libraries and the official photographer of the regiment, along with remote sensing data collected from satellites, LiDAR, and aerial drones, were combined with pedestrian surveys and RTK-GPS surface mapping. Findings include distinctions between birch tree spreads and spruce tree growth for site location, an organic barrier between the cantonment and surrounding forest and the Pioneer Road constructed during the modification of the Alaskan terrain for the building of the Alaska-Canada Highway (ALCAN). Features identified at the site include remains of barracks, a sawmill and a segregated outhouse.

The Chena Townsite, founded in 1902, is an abandoned gold-rush-era mining town on the Tanana River in Interior Alaska. The town was once a vibrant highlight of commerce and domestic transport, and attracted droves of miners, from varying cultural backgrounds, eager to achieve success during the gold rush. Presently a ghost town, the site leaves clues as to how gold-seeking settlers established the groundwork for commercialization and early multicultural settlement in Interior Alaska. This research investigates Chena’s botanical assemblage and seeks to uncover the utilization, cultivation, and transport of plants in Chena from 1902-1921. To date, a multitude of artifacts have been collected from the site, including various botanical remains. Synthesizing archeological, archival, historical, and biological datasets, this analysis resulted in the identification of numerous botanical taxa. These research findings are further demystifying the complex connections between settler-plant relationships and the biocultural landscape changes that ensued in Interior Alaska (1902-1921).

This project maps how salt was supplied by the British colonial Madras Presidency, which ruled much of southern India from the late 18th century until 1947, to the inland frontier district of Bellary. Utilizing the extensive administrative and survey records produced by the British empire in South Asia, it digitally tracks the movement of government salt over a period of roughly 70 years, from the last quarter of the 19th century until just before the end of colonial rule. The provisioning of the Deccan interior with salt from India’s coasts–crossing hundreds of miles of rugged, rural terrain–was an immense logistical challenge. Meeting this challenge required extensive central planning, all in the interest of protecting colonial revenue. Colonization fundamentally reconfigured long-standing regional networks, and salt became a vehicle for imperial power, strengthening the state’s hold over the southern Indian interior–even beyond colonial borders.

Elephant ivory has been traded for millennia, and its properties, including color, texture, and durability, made it desirable for carving myriad objects like figurines and combs. Ivory trade dramatically increased following European colonial projects in Africa and Asia, and by the 19th century ivory carving in Europe and the United States had reached industrial scales. The impacts on elephant populations were devastating, leaving modern herds shadows of their former glory. Here, we present ongoing zooarchaeological, zooarchaeology by mass spectrometry, ancient DNA, and stable isotope analyses of archaeological and historical ivory objects aimed at reconstructing the elephant ivory trade. We show how ivory data reveal changes in trade networks and consumer practices, and we discuss how these data speak to the impacts of this trade on elephant herds. Ultimately, this work demonstrates how the natural chemical fingerprints within ivory illuminate the historical global ivory trade and its effects.

Women played diverse and often overlooked roles aboard sailing vessels during the Age of Sail (c.1571-1862). Historical and archaeological work often relegates women on ships to roles as sex workers, spouses, or simply passengers, obscuring their true contributions while aboard different vessels. Maritime archaeological research has often overlooked the roles, experience, and influential factors that have led to women participating in seafaring in the Age of Sail. The historic record and social understanding of women were contributing factors in this marginalization and have held influence over the way women are viewed in maritime industry to this day. By understand the reasoning behind such limitations and examining how societal perceptions of women’s subjugated status have influenced historical narratives, a new perspective can be brought into mainstream discussions of industry on vessels. Through analysis of varied historical, autobiographical, and biographical texts, the roles of women who occupied vessels can be identified.