WWU's Michael Etnier awarded $126,000 grant to study archaeology and climate change in Alaska

Michael Etnier, an Anthropology research associate at Western Washington University, has received $126,000 in research funds through a Cooperative Agreement with the National Park Service to study archaeological samples and climate change in southwest Alaska.

Etnier will study archaeofaunas — samples of shells and animal bones — to try understand how ecological communities have responded to climate change.

“Most climate-change projections indicate that high-latitude environments such as Southwest Alaska will be affected more strongly and more quickly than the rest of globe,” said Etnier.

The research will ideally produce a clear picture of how larger animals have responded to climate change during the past 8,000 years, allowing researchers to gain a better idea of how species could be affected in the future. Etnier would like to target harbor seals, sea lions, puffins and salmon as samples.

Etnier will collaborate with several researchers from other universities to collect and analyze samples, including Central Washington University, Pennsylvania State University, University of Wyoming, and the University of North Carolina Wilmington. Shawn Larson of the Seattle Aquarium will also be part of the team.

“Our hope is to create a comprehensive inventory of all the archaefaunal collections from Southwest Alaska and then start to pull data from those collections,” said Etnier.

This is the first Cooperative Agreement Etnier has entered with the National Park Service. Etnier and the other researchers initially submitted the proposal in 2004, but did not receive funding until this year. The overall research project is slated as a one-year pilot study, with hopes of additional funding for two more years. The first samples were submitted for analysis in July, with initial results expected in December.

For more information, contact Michael Etnier at michael.etnier@wwu.edu.