YukonU fosters feminist archaeologist 

Archaeology usually conjures up images of spear and arrow heads, but feminist archaeology works towards making women and children more visible. This is the approach that former YukonU student, Jordan Handley took for her Masters thesis that was recently completed through the University of British Columbia. 

Jordan began her foray into archaeology as a student, technician, and volunteer with Norm Easton at the Little John archaeological site. Jordan has been excavating and doing research at the site since 2011 and recently completed her thesis, Women and hide-working at the Little John Site: a feminist application of use-wear analysis. This is the second thesis Jordan has completed using the Little John collection which makes a substantial contribution to the understanding of Yukon's oldest archaeological site. 

This is only the second time that a feminist archaeological perspective has been applied to Beringian archaeological material. The first was done by another former student at Little John, Annalissa Heffner - see "A feminist theoretical approach to the analysis of the osseous tool suite from the Broken Mammoth site, Interior Alaska." 

Jordan and Norm are nearing completion of a paper which applies geochemical analysis on a sample of basaltic artifacts from the site for the Journal of Archaeological Sciences.