SAS Webinar
“Using ZooMS to understand osseous technology debris: A case study from NW Greenland”
by
Erika Ebel, Graduate Student at University of California Davis
Saturday, February 11, 2023
2:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. PST

The site of Iita in northwestern Greenland has had human occupation for the past 1000 years. Two distinct groups have foraged in the area at different times. Materials such as bone, antler and ivory were used for several purposes by these groups, including tool production. As skeletal material is formed into a tool, pieces are discarded, often with characteristics indicative of the method used to create the final product. Data regarding the manufacture, use and discard of the materials has been collected by analyzing the bone materials with a digital microscope. However, many of these small debris have been modified to an extent that few anatomically diagnostic features remain. Such fragments can be identified via Peptide Mass Fingerprinting (PMF), a method for identifying collagen peptides within bone materials to the genus or species level. In this talk Erika will provide background into the history of occupation and discuss her use of PMF to analyze artifacts from the area.

Erika is a graduate student at University of California Davis majoring in Anthropology. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology from Humboldt State University and Master of Arts in Anthropology from UCD and had advanced to PhD candidacy. She has field experience in Poland, Alaska, and California. Her PhD research is an analysis of faunal materials excavated in 2012 and 2016 at the Iita site.