Achievement

As part of the Kuril Biocomplexity Project, an IPEM-affiliated activity, IPEM trainee Erik Gjesfjeld and colleague Colby Phillip created a prototype Social Network Analysis model for studying prehistoric material exchange and interactions through the Kuril Islands. This model was presented in symposium at the international Society for American Archaeology conference in St. Louis in April, 2010, and will be submitted for publication this summer. Dr. Ben Fitzhugh, IPEM core faculty, has submitted a manuscript demonstrating the high degree of cultural resilience to natural hazards throughout the Kuril's human pre/history. Mr. Gjesfjeld and several other members of the interdiciplinary team are drafting another, more data rich, publication modeling human ecodynamics at two locations in the Kurils over the past 4000 years to document human resilience and vulnerability to natural hazards in the remote islands. This work includes archaeology, geology, ecology, and climatology.