We are all making bets on what the site was used for- what people were doing here and why and how the ancient Alutiiq were using Women's Bay over time. Nearby sites give us an interesting picture that sheds some light on the prehistoric seasonal round.
Bruhn Point is a 7000 BP-3000 BP fish processing site dominated by an assemblage of ulus and netsinkers used for processing large amounts of fish. Salonie Mound, which proved to be dated to the same time period was a winter village with house features, hearths, and other finds that indicated a substantial settlement at the site. The Amak site, with oldest dates of around 5000 BP, is dominated by an assemblage of ground slate bayonets and other gear that would have been used for seal hunting, likely out of a temporary camp where hunters brought their kills for drying and smoking. So far, three sites spanning from the Ocean Bay (7500 BP-3500 BP) to Kachmak (3500 BP-1000 BP) eras have been used for different functions in the same Bay.
What does that say about what people were doing here and why they chose this particular bay for these different activities? The hope is that excavating at the Kashevarof site will help us complete the picture- one more piece of the puzzle to complete the story of the ancient Alutiiq and their way of life.
Prehistoric archaeology on Kodiak is unique in the fact that most of the island was covered in white volcanic tephra in 1912 from the eruption of Mt Katmai on the Alaska Peninsula. When we excavate just under the modern soil horizon, the presence of the volcanic tephra tells us that the site has not been disturbed after 1912. This can be an issue in areas that may have been plowed in WWII for roads or other engineering projects. So, we have good piece of mind that what we excavate under the Katmai ash is prehistoric, although keeping in mind the hundred or so years before 1912 that there were cattle ranchers in the area--and almost immediately we found what look like cow bones. Large, robust, and weathered, the bones are almost from the lumbering bovine beasts that once populated the small valley.
As digging progressed and the in situ living surface was taken down into the first cultural layer of the site, it became apparent that a large square depression at the West section of the site was a house. A clear wall cut was evident when the Katmai ash was taken off, but it wasn't until post-holes and a door appeared that it really came together as a correct hypothesis. A little later, ulus and red chert flakes were found associated with the house feature.
There are a few things we can hypothesize about the house feature given the artifacts found with it so far. First, that it is at least 1000 years old. Chipped stone technology indicates an older site and the Koniaq did not utilize it like the Kachemak Bay or Ocean Bay traditions did. Also, that the house and the site in general is probably associated with fish processing activities. Ulus, or women's knives, were ground slate knives used to process a large amount of fish with less maintenance than chipped stone tools. Ulus, ulu preforms, and worked slate in larger proportion than red chert artifacts suggest a Kachemak era site over Ocean Bay. The presence of red chert flakes throughout the site does indicate chipped stone technology as well, but we have not yet found evidence for men's tools or knives that would be more associated with sea mammal hunting, an earlier adaptation.
This is not to say that we will later find evidence of Ocean Bay era activity at the same site! The upper layers indicate early Kachemak activity (around 3500 BP) because of the presence of chipped stone technology along with ground slate technology. Ground slate working was probably integrated over time and definitely not all at once-it would have been a gradual change in response to more of a reliance on fishing. People probably developed a reliance on fishing because hunting individual sea mammals no longer supported populations which were growing more concentrated into villages, no longer mobile hunter-gatherers.
It will be interesting to see what develops over the next few weeks at the Kashevarof site, hopefully it will give us a more complete perspective of the prehistoric Alutiiq seasonal round over time!
Kashevarof site excavated to bottom of Katmai Ash, 1912 marker
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Outline of house feature at the top of the prehistoric surface
House feature with Jill for scale
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