Back from some more time in the field

On survey I still enjoy the non-archaeological discoveries!

Yesterday I returned from yet another archaeological survey.  This spring has been a particularly busy field season.  On this past survey I travelled with my co-worker Molly to 2 different localities on the North end of the archipelago to documents fish traps that we had found found on prior surveys (click here and here for links to blog posts about the prior surveys).  At one of the localities we had found petroglyphs associated with the petroglyphs, and so we were hopeful that we would find more petroglyphs at the second fish trap locality.

The fish traps are rock walls built in the intertidal zone and are designed to trap fish on a falling tide.  The fish float in above the traps at high tide and then when the tide drops the fish are trapped behind the stone walls.  The stone walls sort of remind me of the old New England stone walls I remember from my childhood that were once used to contain sheep.  Fish traps are a fairly common find in Southeast Alaska, but until recently had never been found on Kodiak.  It was Molly and I's job to better document the recently discovered features.

We spent 2 full days at each locality and used a float plane to move camps.  For the most part we experienced pretty bad weather.  We spent a lot of time in waders knee deep in the ocean examining old weed covered walls - in heavy rain.  We were both a little insecure about how to document the fish traps because neither of us had ever done anything like it before.  Give us a big village with housepits to map, and it is easy!  Collapsed weed covered walls half buried in muck are far more difficult to draw and document.  But we did our best and both agreed (jokingly) at the end of the survey that we are now the foremost authorities on Alutiiq fish traps.
Patrick

Molly looks down a seaweed covered fish trap wall

This was the view from our second camp

Molly writes notes about the fish trap in front of her