Some of what we found in 2024

 

A utilized blade - these are usually only found in sites older than 7,000 years on Kodiak

Artifacts are an important part of any archaeological story.  They indicate what people were doing at the site.  This summer we found a lot of net sinkers and ulus.  Net sinkers are notched stones used to hold the bottom of nets deep in the water while ulus are ground slate knives with handles parallel to the blade and used to cut up fish.  So Alutiiq people were catching and processing fish at the site - not a huge surprise given the location of the site at a prime fishing locality.

Artifacts also help archaeologists get an idea of when people were at the site.  Metal objects, glass and rifle cartridges (see photo below) on the surface of one of our excavations indicated that people probably used the location for a hunting camp shortly after WWII. The ratio of chipped stone to ground slate is also a raw indicator of age - lots of chipped stone indicates the site is on the older side while lots of ground slate is generally younger.  Also certain technologies are more popular at various times.  Netsinkers and fishing with nets is more popular in sites 1,000-4,000 years old whereas weirs and fish harpoons were more popular in the last 1,000 years.

And then there are specific artifact styles or technologies that indicate more specific dates.  For instance blades (see above) are only found in Kodiak sites that are on the order of 7,000 year old.  Slate that has been 'saw and snapped' (see below) is a technology that was popular until about 4,000 years ago.

The artifacts that we found in the various features and different layers of dirt that we excavated gave us a rough idea of when they were created.  We found artifacts that appear to be over 4,000 year old at the bottom of the site, net sinkers and ulus in the middle layers, and just ulus in the top layer.  And then we found 20th century trash in a few places on the very top.  People have been using that spot on the river for a long time.

The next step is to radiocarbon date samples of charcoal from the various levels and features at the site.  Radiocarbon analysis tells us when the carbon was created and provides an absolute date.  Hopefully our radiocarbon dates back up how we interpret the site stratigraphy and the temporal artifact types.  

Patrick

A chipped stone knife from the oldest house floor

Site stratigraphy - note 2 pit features on right

chipped red chert bi point

Post WWII camp trash from the top of the multiform house pit

Albert and ulu

Netsinkers found all together - probably from one net

ground silicified-slate knife

ulu and a netsinker

chipped basalt point tip

saw and snap ground bayonet preform - these are typically found in sites older than 4000 years ago

base of basalt chipped point