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Geomorphic processes influence human settlement on two islands in the Islands of Four Mountains, Alaska

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 December 2018

Lyman Persico ,
Henry Lanman ,
Lydia Loopesko ,
Kale Bruner  and
Kirsten Nicolaysen
Lyman Persico*
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, Whitman College, 345 Boyer Ave., Walla Walla, Washington 99362, USA
Henry Lanman
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, Whitman College, 345 Boyer Ave., Walla Walla, Washington 99362, USA
Lydia Loopesko
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, Whitman College, 345 Boyer Ave., Walla Walla, Washington 99362, USA
Kale Bruner
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas 66045, USA
Kirsten Nicolaysen
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, Whitman College, 345 Boyer Ave., Walla Walla, Washington 99362, USA
*
*Corresponding author at: Department of Geology, Whitman College, 345 Boyer Ave., Walla Walla, Washington 99362, USA. E-mail address: persiclp@whitman.edu (L. Persico).
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Abstract

The Islands of Four Mountains island group of the Aleutian island arc is remote and difficult to access. Consequently, little fieldwork has focused on geomorphic processes and their relationship to island morphology, climatic change, and human settlement. We investigated glacial, fluvial, and slope processes on the morphologically different Carlisle, Cleveland, and Tana volcanoes. The islands were extensively glaciated at the last glacial maximum (LGM), and there is evidence for a Neoglacial advance. On the highly dissected Tana volcano, a large basin is likely the result of a pre-LGM sector collapse and subsequent glacial erosion into weak hydrothermally altered rock. Valley and moraine morphology is also influenced by hydrothermal alteration. On both Tana and Carlisle, there are sediment fans composed dominantly of thick debris flow deposits mantled by ~3 m of layered tephras, fine-grained alluvium, and anthropogenic deposits. Debris flow deposition was favored during the unstable paraglacial landscape of the early Holocene–latest Pleistocene. The earliest direct archaeological evidence for settlement is 3.8 cal ka BP, but soil geochemical evidence suggests that the islands were inhabited by 7.3 cal ka BP. This discrepancy in the archaeological record may be explained by geomorphic processes including coastal erosion and unstable geomorphic surfaces.

Keywords

Chuginadak IslandCarlisle volcanoNeoglacialGlaciationParaglaciationHuman settlementAleutian prehistoryAleutian Islands
Type
Aleutians Special Issue
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 91 , Issue 3 , May 2019 , pp. 953 - 971
Copyright
Copyright © University of Washington. Published by Cambridge University Press, 2018 

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