Mercury is one of the top 10 contaminants of concern for human health, with estimates that between 1.5 to 17/1000 children in coastal fishing communities worldwide exhibit toxic health effects from Hg.

Northern coastal communities are especially vulnerable to the effects of mercury contamination due to their reliance on marine ecosystems for sociocultural, economic, and subsistence resources. Mercury in high northern latitudes accumulate from sources both natural (volcanos, forest fires, and melting permafrost) and anthropogenic (distant industrial activities transported to the region).

This interdisciplinary 5-year study aims to investigate ancient and historical mercury dynamics in the Aleutian Islands to understand natural fluctuations of environmental mercury prior to the industrial revolution. We are examining bone from ancient Steller sea lion, Northern fur seal, and cod harvested and consumed by ancestral Unangan communities in the Aleutian Islands.