April is Archaeology Month

Alaska archaeology, going back at least 14,000 years, is highlighted by these April events in Alaska for the National Park Service archaeology month. IN CONTEXT: Community-Based Archaeology April 4, 10 a.m. to noon Anchorage Museum, Reynolds Room, 625 C Street, Anchorage, AK 10 to 11 a.m.: Hear from Rick Knecht, PhD, via WebEx, about the Nunalleq archaeological […]

Mammoth Ivory at the Holzman Site in Interior Alaska

 Kathryn E. Krasinski at the Alaska Anthropological Association Conference in Anchorage, Alaska. Krasinski is in front of a poster titled “Pleistocene Mammoth Ivory Use at the Holzman Site in Interior Alaska.” Photos below show the uncovering of the Mammoth Ivory in 2016. by Liz O’Connell, University of Alaska Anchorage

Ancient dinosaur newly discovered: Ugrunaaluk kuukpikensis

Bone specimens at the University of Alaska Museum of the North once belonged to members of a newly defined dinosaur species: Ugrunaaluk kuukpikensis. So far nearly 6,000 individual bones have been cataloged from a group of mostly juvenile dinosaurs of U. kuukpikensis that died on the Arctic flood plain 69 million years ago in a place […]

Kodiak Island grass bluff view bay

Ancient footprints on Beringia

You can see the depressions in the earth when the archaeologists point them out. Each house had a central room connected by tunnels to side rooms. Female relationships guided living arrangements: in a grandmother’s house, each of her daughters’ families would occupy one of the small side rooms. When they gathered there in rooms partially […]

Telaquana Mountains, Alaska

AAA Conference Gives Life to Ancient Stories and New Revelations

Liz O’Connell for Frontier Scientists – “Ancient ice is melting and yielding many things we haven’t seen before,” said Jeanne Schaaf, National Park Service archaeologist,  at the Alaska Archaeological Association Conference in Anchorage. Three antler arrow points, rare organic artifacts of a type not seen in the area previously, were found at two remnant ice […]

Bison Bob steppe bison skull

Bison Bob a big discovery on the North Slope

As she scraped cold dirt from the remains of an extinct bison, Pam Groves wrinkled her nose at a rotten-egg smell wafting from gristle that still clung to the animal’s bones. She lifted her head to scan the horizon, wary of bears that might be attracted to the flesh of a creature that gasped its […]

Dinosaurs in the Wrangell Mountains

The more Tony Fiorillo explores Alaska, the more dinosaur tracks he finds on its lonely ridgetops. The latest examples are the stone footprints of two different dinosaurs near the tiny settlement of Chisana in the Wrangell Mountains. Fiorillo, a dinosaur hunter with the Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas, recently wrote of the foot […]

Dig Afognak: Revealing the Past, Strengthening the Future

Play in the dirt with Dig Afognak Laura Nielsen for FrontierScientists If uncovering archaeological treasures and exploring local culture appeal to you more than simple sightseeing, you’ll want to check out the Kodiak Archipelago the next time you can make it to Alaska. The Afognak Native Corporation’s program Dig Afognak has visitors, archaeologists, and Native […]

Tools of ancient Alaskans emerge from ice

Ned Rozell for UAFGI – On a late summer evening a few years ago, a scrap of birch bark caught William Manley’s eye as he walked along the edge of an ice field in the Wrangell-St. Elias Mountains. The geologist yelled to nearby archaeologist Jim Dixon and Ruth Ann Warden of the Ahtna Heritage Foundation. […]

Memories from Lost Villages

Laura Nielsen for FrontierScientists World War II brought conflict and trial to Alaska. Unalaska, located in the Aleutian Islands, had served as a trading hub for local villages. Native people from Biorka, Kashega, and Makushin would bring goods like fox pelts and baskets via boat and hiking trail to Unalaska to trade. In June 4, […]

New videos about archaeology findings in Northwestern Alaska area

February 28, 2012– Bureau of Land Management archaeologist Bill Hedman cries out in amazement as he uncovers a prehistoric tool from a small hole he has dug in a treeless expanse of tundra. As the lone BLM archaeologist for 12 million acres of public land in northwestern Alaska, Hedman covers a gigantic area, nearly all […]

Archaeology at Raven Bluff, Northwestern Alaska

Archaeologists continue excavating a 12,000 year old prehistoric site overlooking the Kivalina River, yielding evidence of generations of wandering hunters. During the 2010 summer season, what they have found is contributing new insights– and contrary new evidence– into the thinking on how humans spread throughout North American at the close of the Pleistocene. The Raven […]