The Archaeology of Zachar and Spiridon Bays

These days in archaeology it is rare that one gets to survey a huge area all at once.  For one thing, in the USA, outside Alaska, most places have been surveyed. For another, it is rare to find a landowner who controls a large, contiguous swath of land that needs surveying.  What's cool about surveying a large area is that you get to see how people used the landscape.  You get to see spatial patterns - how certain types of sites are located in different places.

On our survey we got to investigate 2 large bays (Zachar and Spiridon), and it was interesting how we found different types of sites in the different parts of the bays - and how both bays, in turn, pretty much exhibited the same pattern.

The basic pattern was that we found large 'winter villages' on the outer coasts between the bays.  Then along the coastline in the outer bays we found practically no sites.  In the middle Bay area we started to find small settlements of 1 or 2 houses - these are seasonal camps.  Then in the outer inner bay we found lots and lots of 'fire reddened rock and charcoal stained soil' sites with no house depressions.  I interpret these as sites where people were catching a lot of something (likely either seals or cod) and smoke processing it. And some of these sites also had a distinctive type of fire reddened rock - round greywacke cobbles rather than slate.

Then in the inner bay at the boundary between the deep water and the mud flats that extend a couple of miles more to the head of the bays we found a few small villages - the villages tended to be older than 1000 years.  Finally at the heads of the bays near the outlets of the large salmon streams we found fairly large 'fish camp villages'.  These sites tended to be younger than 1000 years and were probably occupied all Fall.

Another interesting pattern is that the 'processing' and 'fish camp' villages tended to lack shell middens while the 'seasonal camps' and 'winter villages' were almost always associated with thick shell middens.

Anyway, interesting patterns!

Patrick

Fire reddened cobbles exposed in bird burrows and no house depressions.  This was probably a site where Alutiiq people smoke processed sea mammals and/or fish

U-shaped cobble spall - typically found at 3-4K year old smoke processing sites

Close up of fire reddened cobbles

Typical small 'fire cracked rock and charcoal' type site - a travel/camp site?

Close up of eroding fire cracked rock and charcoal stained soil

Positive probe test. I found charcoal stained soil - hence, it is a site

Small single room house depressions indicative of a circa 2000 year old small village

Large village with very lush site vegetation

An eroding shell midden composed of the remains of past meals (I see cod, clams, blue mussel, salmon and moon snail) - shell middens are easy to spot!

This one stumped us - some sort of prehistoric fish trap or a modern day breakwater built to protect a beached boat?

Notched cobbles used to weight the bottoms of nets at a 3-4K old site that presently is no longer located on the water

Last fall's colors and this spring's plague

Climbing up Pyramid to go skiing I noticed that the plants melting out from under the snow are already fully grown.  They seemed to have stayed alive under the snow.  Some of them are even still wearing their bright red fall colors.  These plants are fully grown and ready to take advantage of their 5 months in the sunshine.

Meanwhile down at sea level my once brown lawn has turned green and a plague of dandelions are popping up everywhere.  I know they are beautiful, medicinal and nutritious, and feed the bumblebees, but they are also a plague and because of their tap root very hard to weed. I spend hours pulling them from the lawn and garden beds.  I fully realize that I will never get rid of them - I just hope to contain their population to a manageable number.

I've learned to live with dandelions and appreciate that they do have some benefits.  I also know it is futile to go the 'scorched earth policy' and use unhealthy herbicides.  I'd have a lawn free of dandelions for perhaps one summer - and then they'd be back.  And meanwhile the herbicides would have had unintended unhealthy consequences.

I can live with a few dandelions.

Patrick

club moss and crowberry - all ready to go once the snow melts

Last of the snow

The snow has disappeared super quickly this year.  Less than a month ago we were skiing to the road and there was deep powder.  Now in mid May the skiing is getting down to end of days - at least on Pyramid.  Generally we ski through June - but not this year!

Still, there is enough snow to make the climb up worthwhile.  And it is beautiful up there.  And nothing beats the exercise.  I'll probably continue to climb up for another week or so just because I know it will not be until November until I can ski again.
Patrick

Landscape Panoramics

I got back a week ago from my archaeological survey of Zachar and Spiridon Bays but I still have lots of pictures I want to post.  It was spectacularly beautiful down there.  Looking back through my photos I see that I took most of them for site documentation purposes (post to come on the archaeology), and they are pretty boring.  Photos of site erosion, site vegetation, what the site looks like from the water etc.  But it was so beautiful that even some of my standard archaeological site pictures look pretty good.

This post shows some of the best landscape panoramics that I took.  If you look carefully you can see archaeological sites in a lot of them - look for enhanced vegetation and humpy bumpy ground.  I was trying to show the sites in the landscape.

Later  when I write up a report for the survey each one of the site descriptions will have a photo - they will help later researchers find the various sites.  I know I could have used some old site photos to help me re locate a few of the sites.  Some of the sites were first found in the 1970s when they did not have GPSs, and they were often poorly located on the maps.  Often the site was actually located up to a mile away and I had to use the site description to match them up with reality.  A good photo would have really helped!

Patrick

On Survey

I love kayak surveys.  I love the self sufficient feeling of paddling along with my home on board.  Wherever we go - there we are!  Everything for the 8 day survey fit into our inflatable kayaks - tent, food, wood stove, kitchen.  At the start we landed at the beach at Carlsen Point and had over a 100K of coastline to survey on the way to Chief cove.  Each day we sort of had a plan of how far we'd get, but things came up.  Low tides at the head of bays slowed us down considerably as did finding inordinate numbers of sites that I had to document.  But it really did not matter - we camped where we ended up at the end of the day.

It's a good way to do an archaeological survey.  There is not a lot of gear and it is far cheaper than most other options.  It is also one of the best ways to find sites.  You are always really close to the shore and it is easy to spot the likely spots for sites.  Also just being in the kayak helps you understand the shoreline in an analogous way to the people who created the archaeological sites.  They too paddled the shoreline in kayaks - it helps if you are kayaking to see where a kayaker would have liked to land!

Patrick

Check out the goats on the beach in the background!

Cliffs, Cottonwoods, and Black Birch

The theme of the trip was lots of cliffs and cottonwood and black birch trees.  Or to put it another way - blue skies, bare trunks, and stark cliffs.  Without leaves the trees were silhouetted against the blue sky, and the cliffs loomed overhead as we paddled along the shore.  If you looked closely at the cliffs there were all sorts of different lichens and ferns growing on them.  On the outer coasts there were less trees and the cliffs had less growing on them.

Many of the cliffs had birds nesting on them.  We saw goshawks, eagles, kittiwakes.  All would circle us and scream.  The scenery was pretty spectacular and very different from what you find near town or on Afognak.  Philip made a video of the trip that captures the scenery quite well. Click here for link.

Patrick

Fieldwork!

Tuesday night I got back from an 8 day archaeological survey of Zachar and Spiridon Bays on Kodiak's west side. Philip and I used inflatable kayaks to survey over a 100K of coastline.  The point of the trip was to help the USF&WS inventory and document the conditions of the archaeological sites on land they manage.  An archaeologist had never surveyed Zachar Bay or the south shore of Spiridon Bay - so, as far as the archaeology goes, it was pretty much 'terra incognita' or 'unknown land'.

We carried all our gear with us in the kayaks and would camp at a different place every evening as we made our way around the bays.  As we kayaked along we'd check on every likely spot and I'd use my binoculars to closely examine any of the underlying soil exposed in animal trails or on eroding banks.  If I saw charcoal, fire reddened rock, or bright white clams shells - bingo! I'd found a site. Most times I'd know if there was a site in the 'likely spot' before we even went on shore.

On this trip I got in and out of the kayak a lot and found 82 new sites and all but one was a prehistoric site.  I believe that this is the most sites I have ever found on a single survey - I was finding so many sites my fingers hurt from taking notes.  At times I'd go on shore praying I would not find a site. I also documented another 20 or so sites that had already been known about (I still have to add them up).

For each site I'd create a sketch map and draw in any old house depressions etc that I saw on the surface.  I'd also carefully document the site's condition - how badly is it eroding?  Are animals digging in the site?  Have humans damaged the site?  Such information helps the USF&WS preserve and protect archaeological sites in their care.  I'd also document the plants growing on the site and come up with a general summary for what I'd found.  Each site was also photographed and, in addition to paper notes, I took video notes for each site as well.  I shot over 1200 photos and video clips on the trip!

We had amazing weather and it was a hugely successful trip - more to come in future blog posts!

Patrick

An old village site

This is what I was typically looking for - pitch black soil and/or fire reddened rock and clam shells