Of Fox and Sea Otter
My Lab class has finished their projects. You can see their reports in our Aniakchak Wiki. The mammal group found some interesting results when they compared the skeletal parts recovered from fox and from sea otter. As their pie charts show, the identified sea otter elements are from all parts of the body, where as the fox elements are predominately either mandibles, metapodials, or phalanges. That is, heads and feet for the fox versus entire carcasses for the sea otter. One interpretation of these patterns is that the inhabitants were primarily hunting fox for furs (which they brought back to the site with the feet and head attached), while the sea otters were brought back whole (presumably as food). We need to pursue this analysis a little further, but I thought this preliminary result very intriguing.
Sea otter and fox identified elements (Illustration made by Amy Branden).
