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| articulated salmon bones |
For the 2024 Karluk Lake excavation our plan had been to excavate parts of 2 structures in a small village. As part of the plan we wanted to excavate into the midden down on the bank of the river below the structures. We knew from a test pit back in 2009 that the inhabitants had thrown their trash out the front doors of their houses and that it had accumulated on the bank below. In 2009 we had found preserved bones from the meals they ate in the midden.
Excavating in the midden would tell us what the inhabitants had been eating. And what we found could also indicate what season of the year people were at the site. There is a lot we could learn from the midden. In 2019 just across the river from where we dug this year we had also recovered fauna from a midden in front of a house (click here and here for posts). We even found herring bones in that midden which hints that people were there in the spring when herring are available on the coast.
This year our midden excavation ended up over a meter deep. It also looks like it accumulated over a very long time period. At the very bottom we found artifacts typically found only in sites over 6000 years old. Near the top we found 2 layers associated with fauna (bones). The top layer was mostly clams, blue mussel shell and clams while the lower layer had more cod bones. But we also noticed the bones of other species like sea mammals and birds. It is amazing how much of the midden was imported from the distant coast. The bones will be analyzed and it will be interesting to see what we learn from them and how they compare with the fauna from the midden just across the river.
Patrick
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| cod vertebrae |
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| blue mussels |
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| marine mammal bone |
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| clam shell |
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| midden down by the river |
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| nearing the bottom of the midden |
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