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| Finishing up removal of 1912 Katmai ash at start of dig |
Since a week ago Monday, when the rain allows it, I have been leading an archaeological excavation. We had 7 days to investigate what we hoped was a simple fish camp near a creek with a big silver salmon run. A year ago when we dug a test pit at the site we had found a pile of netsinker preforms - beach shingles in the process of getting notched so they could be fitted along the bottom of a net to serve as a 'leadline' and hold the bottom of the net on the bottom. Hence the name of the site - Kugyasiliwik - a place to make nets. At the site we had hoped to investigate an aspect of the Alutiiq seasonal round - the fall fish camp by the seas. In the past, we have already investigated fish camps found on Kodiak's interior lakes and rivers but the fall fish camp by the sea has not been documented all that well.
Right away, on removal of the 1912 Katmai volcanic ash, we found an exposed hearth. We determined that it was inside a simple 'lean to' like structure that probably had a sod roof. The only artifacts that we found were net sinkers, ulus for splitting fish, and an adze. Fish camp at its simplest.
What makes the site easy to interpret is that it looks like it was only occupied once for a short while. The features and the story has not been confused by repeated use of the locality. Anyway, today we hope to finish up at the site, and I'll report on more of what we found in a post to follow!
Patrick
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| Excavation begins - the hearth was partially exposed right below the Katmai Ash |
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| View of hearth looking towards entrance to structure |
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| Netsinkers and ulu found in place right next to the hearth |
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| Libby excavated the hearth |
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| Molly with an adze used for carving wood |
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| Libby in the doorway of the excavated structure |
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