Crews resume excavation at Aleutian archaeological site
MONICA SOUTHWORTH
The Dutch Harbor Fisherman
UNALASKA - In May, an archaeology crew that began work last summer resumed digging at the South Channel Bridge site on Bunker Hill.
The primary ruins being recovered are the walls of about three houses of Unangam Aleuts.
"It's really a nicely constructed wall, and there was sod in between the rocks," said Mike Yarborough, head archaeologist at the site.
"What's left was dug into the slope, everything else collapsed and fell down the slope," he added, pointing out the slope facing Henry Swanson Drive.
"We followed the natural soil horizon up the hillside," he said.
Currently, carbon dates on samples are in the same range as the ones taken in 2003 by Rick Knecht, the original archaeologist at the site, before he moved away from Unalaska. Yarborough said they haven't found anything older but are planning on testing for younger dates.
"We suspect we'll find samples pointing to about a 1,000-year occupation," Yarborough said.
In 2003, archaeologist Knecht from the University of Alaska Anchorage and Richard Davis from Bryn Mawr College directed a field crew that excavated about one-third of an ancient village site.
The artifacts discovered provided information pertinent to the research of prehistoric Eastern Aleutian cultural history, household archaeology, subsistence technology and adaptations to environmental changes, according to Knecht.
Last fall, the crew didn't begin work until late August. Two things prevented the digging crew from accomplishing a lot. The first was the weather, and the second was when beginning the dig, the crew discovered that the site was approximately double the size they expected.
In September, it began to rain, and Yarborough said it was too muddy in October to get anything accomplished. At that point, a second season was planned.
"The more we dug, the more there seemed to be," he said.
After recalculation and several tests, the crew determined the original estimate done by Rick Knecht in 2003 was under the actual volume.
The crew is funded by the state of Alaska for two months, until the end of July. The bridge construction crew is scheduled to begin work on Henry Swanson Drive on Aug. 15. A two-week buffer window was left in case something unexpected came up.
"Everything is basically the same as last year," Yarborough said. "The only difference is we went from digging on OC (Ounalashka Corp.) land to state land, but that doesn't affect anything we're doing."
When returning to the site in May, Yarborough said it had remained "pretty dry," but after beginning, it rained for about the first two weeks.
Despite a rough beginning because of the weather, the group didn't have the same startup lag experienced last August. Yarborough said it took about a week to get going and become accustomed with the site.
From Henry Swanson Drive, a backhoe has reached up as far as possible, and no more work on the North Face can be done. Now the crew is working on the top of the site.
Last week, the crew reached a milestone when the backhoe was able to get to the eastern edge of the site.
"We're still finding a lot of house features from the top. We're collecting artifacts and sending them to the lab," Yarborough said.
Local archaeologist Jason Rogers has been creating extensive maps of the site throughout the whole process.
"It's good stuff pirate treasure," Rogers joked at the end of a long day.
Aleutian Archaeology, from east to west.
Archaeological research in the Aleutians is currently fluorescing with investigations by many researchers. From the various research projects that are ongoing, on the Alaska Peninsula, in the Shumagins, in and around Unalaska, and in the central and western Aleutians, new light is being shed on the prehistory of the human occupation. For instance, we now know that Aleutian occupants constructed rectangular houses as well as round houses around 3000 years ago (Figure 1). Such rectangular houses had previously been thought to only date to after the time of contact with Russians. In addition, the rich and diverse material culture indicates a very complicated and interesting origin and interaction with other arctic and subarctic occupants. Relying on these recent investigations, my research focuses on how people made their chipped stone tools (for harpoons, knives, points, and what ever other tools they needed) and how this changed through time.
Since stone technology has survived whereas softer materials (such as bone, grass, and skins) survive less often, archaeologists must rely on chipped stone technology to characterize cultural change through time. Based on this, what we know today is that people have been living in the eastern Aleutians at least since 9000 years ago and have continued to live here until modern times. The central and western Aleutians are less well known but, so far, the central Aleutians appear to have been occupied only 6000 years ago and the western Aleutians as late as 3500 years ago.
In the eastern Aleutians, between 9000 and 7000 years ago, people were using very delicate blade tools, which are difficult to make, for hunting, fishing and cutting and used ground stone technology for lamps and abraders. Sometime after 7000 years ago, a new kind of chipped stone technology appears, bifacial technology, and is used along with blade technology suggesting the same population in the islands chose to adopt a new technology. This may signal new interactions with other groups or just a good idea by a local person that spread across the islands. We also see bifacial technology and some blade technology in the 6000 year old site in the central Aleutians, although this is a small sample.
Between 4000 and 3000 years ago, Aleutian sites continue to have bifacial and blade technology, but bone technology becomes more common (perhaps only because they are preserving given that they are younger) and the style of tools are notable similar to traditions in interior Alaska. There is considerable stylistic differentiation along the island chain that has yet to be studied in a systematic manner. After 3000 years ago, we see the increasing elaboration of the bone tools and ground stone and slate tools (made into ulus) and less use of chipped stone technologies with blade technologies completely disappearing. Bifacial tools and very expedient tools made on flakes continue to reflect the continued use of chipped stone technologies.
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS AN ALEUT
Western Aleutian Archaeological and Paleobiological Project
