The Archaeology of Inner Uyak Bay

 

a small eroding shell midden - this was the typical site we found

On our archaeological survey of inner Uyak Bay we found 12 new sites and documented another 4 sites that were already known. So basically we quadrupled the number of known sites at the head of the bay. Most of the sites were small and lacked structure depressions. We did find one big site at the head of the bay but it was a Fall fish camp. There were also a few sites with just a few structure depressions. It looks like people went up there in the Fall to fish and then again in the spring. I think in the spring because so many of them were shell middens - and the best time for shellfish is in the spring. The big Fall fish camp lacked shells.

I also saw more erosion than I have been seeing on the last few surveys, and some of the sites were eroding quite severely. A lot of the sites had also been damaged by digging bears. This is not surprising considering how many bears we saw.

Now that we are back the work continues. I have to write up site descriptions for all the sites, report and get State inventory site numbers for the new sites, and organize and catalogue the photos.

Patrick

This site had numerous slate boxes on the surface and no house depressions

another shell midden

a large single room house depression that lacked built up walls 

multiroom house depression

house depressions - hard to see in photos!

a small netsinker

eroding fish camp deposits with no shell

an ulu for processing fish

a single multiroom house depression