THE RESILIENCE OF DENE GENERATIVE GEOGRAPHY, CONSIDERING “THE NEN’ YESE’ ENSEMBLE” James Kari Alaska Native Language Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks, P.O. Box 757680, Fairbanks, Alaska 99775-7680;
[email protected] abstract Te Proto-Dene Lex Loci (‘word/law of location’) is a theory of Dene prehistory that is a composite of geographic information (in Dene place names networks) and Dene lexicographic-etymological infor- mation. To investigate Dene prehistory in the Copper River and circum–Glacial Lake Atna (GLA) region, I present a selection of 67 Dene place names from seven Dene languages in four Alaska river basins. Te names are in three diachronic tables and marked with a battery of time perspective traits. A bipartite sign(+generic) generative geographic formula underlies the Dene place names networks in our study area. Dene geolinguistic data are information-rich. Especially noticeable are various wa- tershed tenure devices (hydronymic districts, patterned duplications, geoduplicates) that refect Dene vernacular collaborations to facilitate landscape recognition. In Table 2B we present 15 names termed the “Nen’ Yese’ Ensemble” (NYE) that seem to have been coined collaboratively from the vantage point of Nen’ Yese’ or ‘land ridge,’ a former island near the Tyone Spillway of GLA. In the summary I identify nine names that plausibly were coined prior to, during, and after the names of the NYE, in the time frame when the GLA drainage pattern shifted from the Susitna River to the Copper River (9000 to 11,000 years ago). As p aleo-environmental and archaeological work on GLA advances, some approximate geotemporal benchmarks may be attainable.