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| We collected charcoal from this house in 2009 and radiocarbon dated it - that's how we knew it was 1600 years old |
This past summer at Karluk Lake we excavated a 1600-year-old fall fish camp. We found and dated the site back in 2009 when we first surveyed the lake. At the time we noticed a number of these small sites on small points around the lake beside pea gravel beaches. And they all seemed to date to around 1500 years ago. These sites were not located near the tributary streams into the lake where we generally expected to find sites. I later found out that these particular pea gravel beaches are where the late run sockeye salmon spawn. The early run sockeye spawn in the tributary streams during the summer while the late run fish spawn at the pea gravel beaches in the late fall.
So before we started we expected to find a Fall fish camp. But why are so many of the sites at the pea gravel beaches the same age? And what exactly were they doing at the pea gravel beaches? It is one thing to suspect what the sites represent, but you never know the true story until you excavate one. The most rewarding discoveries are the unexpected discoveries - when you find what you don't expect to find.
The landowner Koniag has supported our archaeological research. Our longterm plan is to study how Alutiiq people used the lake and river through time. So we have been excavating at different types of sites from different moments in time. A 300 year old village at the outlet to the lake, a 1000 year old village with a ceremonial house a little ways down the river, a 3000 year old village at the outlet to the lake, and, last summer, a site just downstream from the outlet where we found evidence of occupation all the way from 7800 years ago to present. This year we wanted to look at a 1500 year old fish camp on the lake - to write another chapter in the Karluk Alutiiq history book so to speak.
For our excavation we decided to open up and excavate one entire house, to partially open up the other 3 structures, and to also open up a sizable area outside of the structures. We ended opening up 45 square meters of the site. We wanted to see what the structures represented and also to find out what was going on outside of them. Are they all houses. Are there smokehouses? Are they tending nets and processing fish outside of the structures?
And so what did we find? A late Fall fish camp! Unlike in the past couple of years, this year we actually found what we expected to find. We know it is a fish camp because for artifacts we found mostly net sinkers and ulus. They used the net sinkers to keep the bottom of the net on the bottom when catching fish and the ulus to cut up and process the salmon that they caught. What is unusual is that we did not find a single artifact associated with hunting. It seems the inhabitants were very focused on just fishing.
Weirdly enough we also found quite a few finely made planing adzes. These are not usually a very common artifact and we found 7. What's cool is that the bit shape for the adze blades varied. Some were steep, others sharp - it looks like they used the differently shaped blades for different purposes.
The house ended up quite clear and very well built. They basically dug a foundation, built a wood frame, and then stacked up sods and dirt against the frame for the walls and to cover the roof. We found the empty holes were their posts had once been but had since rotted away and left the blank space. We put willow tree posts in these holes so that you can see them better in the photo of the excavated house. The house also had a long entrance tunnel that was lined and paved with rocks, and there was a raised, cold-trap bar between the entrance tunnel and the main room.
One of the other structures that we tested looks very similar - it too had a nice box hearth. This house burned down and it lacked artifacts in the roof and walls. This indicates that it was built prior to the other house. So it looks like there was only one house at the site at any one moment in time. One of the other structures looks like it was for processing and storage, and another turned out to not be a structure at all. The latter looks like it was a sod quarry for building the other structures - but it was also an area of the site where we found post holes and piles of net sinkers. We think there were fish and net drying racks in this area of the site.
In any case, it was a very successful excavation.
1600 years ago there was a fish camp by the lake. An Alutiiq family stayed at the camp in October when the late run red salmon spawned in front of the site. But they had a very well built house to return to every year. The family would beach seine in the shallow waters by the beach and then process their catch on shore. The fastest family member probably raced with the end of the net around the spawning sockeye to catch them all in the net. Then the family cut up and processed the captured fish on shore, and they then took the dried and smoked fish back home to their winter village on the coast.
Patrick
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| A sketch map of the village from when we first found and tested the site in 2009 (north arrow is 90 degrees off) |
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| The pea gravel beach in front of the site |
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| Net sinker (L) for weighting down the bottom of nets; Ulu (R) for cutting up and processing fish |
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| The house depression prior to excavation |
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| Alex excavates the house hearth |
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| Excavating the floor deposits and tunnel to house |
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| The house had a rock line and paved entrance tunnel |
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| Mapping the feature |
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| We tested another one of the other depressions and it looks like it is similar to the one we completely excavated |
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| Wesley with a planing adze for working wood |
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| An incised pebble front side |
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| Incised pebble back side |
