More Field Season!

 

I thought archaeology field season was over way back in August when I got back from Karluk Lake. It was a VERY busy field season with 2 excavations, 3 major land surveys, and numerous small, 1-day surveys.  We found over 100 new archaeological sites. But it is not quite over.

On my return from the elk hunt my co-worker Molly informed that we still had money for some helicopter time and that two of our earlier surveys could use some additional work.  We plan on returning to Sitkinak Island to catch some of the areas we could only 'lightly' check due to an impending storm that cut our initial survey (click here) a little short.  And we have also heard about additional petroglyphs on Afognak to check on and add to our earlier work there this spring (click here).  

And so this past Thursday Molly and I were off with Keller to check on reported petroglyphs on Afognak Island.  We had actually planned on going to Sitkinak Island but bad weather on the south end precluded that idea. So our switch to petroglyphs was a last minute thing and we did not really think about the tides. ... .

We arrived and found the petroglyphs.  More pits and slash lines cut into rock like what we have found elsewhere near salmon streams on Afognak.  However, these are one of the two best examples of this type of petroglyph that I know of - they are not very weathered at all.  They are also sort of hidden and on rock faces that slant away from the open ocean. I had actually already surveyed this area - spent 3 days there! - and had NOT found them back in 2013.

We do not understand exactly what this style of petroglyph represents but based on where we find them and what sorts of archaeological sites we find nearby - we do have some ideas.  However, I will not go into them in this post -  Click here for more on my thoughts about this style of petroglyph.  In short, these new slash and pit petroglyphs match up perfectly with our emerging pattern on their associations. They are a GREAT discovery.

But we did not have a lot of time to document them because the tide came in while we were there.  We scrambled to draw them while they slowly receded under the water.  Ordinarily we like to match our intertidal petroglyph surveys to  low tides.  But this time of year with all the storms you got to grab your weather windows!  

Patrick

Almost under water!