Patrick Saltonstall, curator Alutiiq Museum, describes community archaeology in his talk at the Alaska Anthropological Association March 23, 2018. Saltonstall’s talk titled Fish Traps, Fox Farms, and Petroglyphs: The Afognak Land Survey is archaeology with locals. Saltonstall says “Archaeology isn’t just for Archaeologists.” By Liz O’Connell, University of Alaska Anchorage
Category: Petroglyphs
For thousands of years, Alutiiq people lived in sod houses and hunted sea mammals, relying on special technologies, ancestral knowledge, and spiritual assistance to care for their families. The Cape Alitak petroglyphs are one of the only written records of their way of life. Pecked into Kodiak’s granite bedrock, images of people and animals preserve customs from the Alutiiq past.
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 […]
Ancient Alaskan Labrets: jewelry that spoke louder than words
Merry Ann Moore for Frontier Scientists – Labrets, ornamental lip plugs worn through a perforation in the lower lip or cheek, are a frequent find in coastal Alaskan archaeological sites. From prehistoric times, members of Aleut, Eskimo, and Indian hunter-gatherer tribes wore them for personal adornment, to reflect social affiliation, and to broadcast hereditary rank. […]
Cross-Cultural Art, a view of the Cape Alitak Petroglyphs
Laura Nielsen for Frontier Scientists – At the southern end of Kodiak Island, like gems hidden among the rocks of Cape Alitak, you can find petroglyphs carved into stone. These petroglyps are engraved images of faces, people, animals, spirals and shapes. Sven Haakanson, the executive director of Alutiiq Museum, works to document these petroglyphs. You […]
Shaman Whalers of Ancient Kodiak Island
Merry Ann Moore for Frontier Scientists – Until the jet age, human survival in the unforgiving climate of the Gulf of Alaska’s islands was a matter of what sustenance could be drawn from the sea. Ongoing research into petroglyphs found on Kodiak Island’s rocky shores is adding to understanding of a fascinating whaling culture that […]