Museum grants William E. Taylor Research Award to Arctic archaeologist Julie M. Ross
Hull, Quebec, March 18, 2002 - The fourth annual William E. Taylor Research Award has been granted to Julie M. Ross, a doctoral student in the University of Toronto’s Department of Anthropology, to support her research into the relationship between culture and climate change in the Canadian Arctic.
Her research project, “New Approaches to an Old Relationship: Environment and Culture in the Canadian Arctic” proposes to collect and analyze archaeological and environmental data in tandem. Her study will focus on a concentration of archaeological sites near Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, on the southeast coast of Victoria Island. Archaeological data will come from the Iqaluktuuq Project, a cooperative venture between Elders of Cambridge Bay and Dr. T. Max Friesen of the University of Toronto. Environmental data will be based on pollen and sediment analysis from lake core sampling conducted by Ms. Ross herself.
Dr. David Morrison, Curator in Charge of the Archaeological Survey of Canada at the Canadian Museum of Civilization, noted that Ms. Ross’s project builds on research begun by William E. Taylor himself in 1963 and continued in the 1980s. “Not only was her submission the best in terms of methodology, but it was by far the most relevant to Dr. Taylor’s work. Her research has the potential to contribute to our general understanding of human-environmental interaction,” he added, “and to address some of the modern concerns related to global warming and its potential consequences for Northern communities.”
Ms. Ross said she was very excited when she learned she had been chosen to receive the award. “Most importantly, it is an indication to me that my work has been deemed worthy and useful,” she said. “I hope that the research can give something back to the people and the landscape of the North that has meant so much to me.”
Ms. Ross was born in Alberta and obtained her graduate and undergraduate degrees at the University of Alberta.
William Ewart Taylor was a renowned archaeologist and a tireless proponent of public education. In the 1960s, he headed the Archaeology Division at the National Museum of Canada and helped found the Canadian Archaeological Association. Between 1967 and 1984, he was Director of the
National Museum of Man (a precursor of the Canadian Museum of Civilization) and oversaw the renovation of the Victoria Memorial Museum Building. Later in his career, he spent five years as President of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Dr. William E. Taylor died in 1994.
This is the fourth annual William E. Taylor Research Award. Last year’s winner was Lisa Stevenson, a Canadian studying medical anthropology at Berkeley University in California.
The William E. Taylor Research Award was created in memory of Dr. Taylor’s lifelong achievements and to support outstanding efforts in the fields of archaeology, anthropology and museology.
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Canadian Museum of Civilization
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Canadian Museum of Civilization
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