Anthropological Survey in Alaska

NOTES ON THE ARCHEOLOGY OF THE WESTERN ESKIMO REGION

Archeological work in the vast area of the western Eskimo is still in its infancy. Until the 1926 Smithsonian expedition nothing whatever had been done in this line in the Eskimo parts of the southwestern coasts of Alaska[46] or on the Kuskokwim or Yukon Rivers.

Some time between 1877 and 1881 E. W. Nelson made limited excavations on St. Michael Island[47] (see p. 170) and also dug on Whale Island.

In 1912 V. Stefánsson excavated at Barrow.[48] Having two months to spend at this place he engaged numerous Eskimo of the village and had them excavate the native village sites in the neighborhood. He says (p. 388): "It was a small army that turned out to dig wherever there was a ruin or a kitchen midden, and they worked energetically and well. While the excavations were not done as methodically and scientifically as could have been wished, still we were able to get from them a collection of over 20,000 archaeological specimens within the space of six weeks. This collection (which is now safely stored in the American Museum of Natural History) brings out many significant and some revolutionary ideas with regard to the prehistoric history of the Eskimo. My method was to dig as much as possible myself, and to go around as best I could to see the others at work. In many cases I was able to see the exact position from which the important finds were taken." The specimens have since in part been described by Wissler.[49] Stefánsson brought also some archeological specimens from Point Hope, where, however, no excavations were made; and collected a valuable series of crania from Point Barrow.

In 1917-19 excavations near Barrow were conducted by W. B. Van Valin, leader of the John Wanamaker expedition to northwestern Alaska, for the University Museum at Philadelphia. The excavations were made in some mounds located about 8 miles southwest of Barrow and about 1,000 yards back from the beach on the tundra, and uncovered six old igloos containing, aside from many cultural objects, the skeletal remains of 83 individuals. These remains have since been found to be those of an intrusive group of people and to be of special interest.[50]

In 1924 Rasmussen during the last parts of his great journey gathered numerous archeological specimens at Point Hope and from other localities along the west coasts of Alaska.

In 1926, finally, the year of my survey, some careful initial excavations, with very interesting results, were carried on at Wales and on the Little Diomede Island by Dr. D. Jenness, of the National Museum of Canada, Ottawa. A preliminary report on the results of this work has been published in the annual report of the National Museum of Canada for 1926.

Besides such more professional work a good deal of archeological collection has been done in the regions under consideration by local people, particularly traders and teachers; and the demand for specimens has made assiduous excavators of some of the Eskimo themselves, particularly at Point Hope and at St. Lawrence Island.

Beginning with the north, the first white man to be mentioned in this connection is Charles Brower, the well-known trader at Barrow. Mr. Brower has not only aided all the explorers who have reached this northernmost point, but he has also been directly instrumental in excavating and the making of archeological collections, though, regrettably, some of these have been scattered.

During 1925-26 there lived at Point Hope a very active and interesting man, sent there by the Fox Film Co. to photograph the Eskimo—Mr. Merle La Voy. La Voy, whom I met at Point Hope and who for a time became our fellow-passenger on the Bear, had not only succeeded remarkably in his own line, but had also amassed during his stay a large archeological collection. He did not excavate himself, and unfortunately paid no attention to the scientific side of the case; but by offering the natives sugar, tea, chocolate, chewing gum, tobacco, etc. in exchange for specimens, he so stimulated them that they engaged most assiduously in the excavation, or rather picking over as they thawed, of their old ruins, and brought him thousands of objects, some of which are of considerable interest. At the time of my visit there were several barrels full of specimens, largely of stone and ivory. Skulls and bones, regrettably, were neglected and reburied in the débris. Later this collection was transported to San Francisco, where it remains at the date of this writing, in Mr. La Voy's possession.

At Kotzebue Mr. Tom Berryman, the trader, has made some collections of Eskimo archeological material, from which I benefited for the National Museum; and the local teacher, Mr. C. S. Replogle, informed me that he had a large collection at his home in the States.

At Nome I found a valuable lot of specimens in fossil ivory, pottery, and stone, in the possession of the well-known Lomen brothers, members of one of the foremost families in Alaska. The best parts of this collection I was fortunate to secure for exhibit in the United States National Museum.

A large and valuable collection of western Eskimo archeological material was made some years ago by Dr. Daniel Neuman. A part of this collection is in the museum at Juneau; the whereabouts of the rest and of Doctor Neuman himself I was unable to discover. There are several collections of archeological material from the western Eskimo region at Seattle and San Francisco, but none represents scientific excavation.

The names of Joe Bernard, Prof. H. N. Sverdrup, and O. W. Geist should be mentioned in this connection, all having collected archeological objects in the western Eskimo region. Many specimens of value collected by these men and others are in various museums or in private hands in Fairbanks, along the west coast or in Europe.

My own small part in the archeology of Bering Sea and the northwestern coast of Alaska was, as already stated, mainly that of making a survey of conditions. The object was to obtain a good general view of what there was in the line of archeological sites and remains, and thus help to lay a foundation for more organized research in the future. In addition all possible effort was made to collect and obtain specimens of distinct archeological value. Both of these endeavors met with results of some importance.

Old Sites in the Region of the Western Eskimo

The shores of the Alaska rivers, the littoral parts of Alaska, the more northern Bering Sea islands, and those portions of the Asiatic coast that were once or are still occupied by the Eskimo, are strewn with "dead" villages and old sites. Many of these dead villages or sites are historic, having been abandoned, or very nearly so, since the coming of the whites; some are older, in instances doubtless considerably older. Collectively they offer a large, almost wholly virginal and highly important field to American archeology. They may contain much of the secrets of Eskimo origin and of his cultural, as well perhaps as physical, evolution. But these secrets are not to be given up easily. They are held within a perpetually frozen ground, which on one hand preserves everything, but on the other will not yield its contents except to assiduous and prolonged labor.

Ruined or "dead" villages began to be encountered by the earliest Russian and other explorers. Beechey (1826) tells us that between approximately the latitude of Nelson Island and Point Barrow (60° 34´ to 71° 24´ N.) they noticed 19 (Eskimo) villages, some of which were very small and consisted only of a few huts, and others appeared to have been deserted a long time.[51]

Hooper, in 1884, reports Eskimo ruins on the Asiatic side:

"Near the extremity of the cape [Wankarem] we found the ruins of houses similar to those now in use by the Innuits, half underground, with frames of the bones of whales. Probably they were former dwellings of Innuits, who for some reason crossed the straits and attempted to establish themselves on the Siberian side. These houses have been found by different travelers at many places along this coast, and various causes assigned for the abandonment of the attempt to settle here by the Innuits. * * *

"At Cape Wankarem and at other places on the Siberian coast we found the ruins of houses similar to those now in use by the Innuits. These houses, which have been found by different travelers at many places along that coast, are not at all like those used by the Tchuktchis, which, on account of the migratory habits of the reindeer tribes, are so constructed that they can be taken down and put up again at will."[52]

Ray and Murdoch both speak of old sites. The very spot they selected for their observatory at Barrow was one of these. Ray says of it:

And farther on:

The village of Sidaru, southwest of Cape Belcher, which in Ray's time had a population of about 50, has since gone "dead."

The most direct attention to this subject has been given by Nelson. In his excellent large memoir on "The Eskimo about Bering Strait"[55] he states as follows:

"Ruins of ancient Eskimo villages are common on the lower Yukon and thence along the coast line to Point Barrow. On the Siberian shore they were seen from East Cape along the Arctic coast to Cape Wankarem....

"On the shore of the bay on the southern side of St. Michael Island I dug into an old village site where saucer-shape pits indicated the places formerly occupied by houses. The village had been burned, as was evident from the numerous fragments of charred timbers mixed with the soil. In the few cubic feet of earth turned up at this place were found a slate fish knife, an ivory spearhead, a doll, and a toy dish, the latter two cut from bark. The men I had with me from the village at St. Michael became so alarmed by their superstitious feelings that I was obliged to give up the idea of getting further aid from them in this place. I learned afterward that this village had been built by people from Pastolik, at the mouth of the Yukon, who went there to fish and to hunt seals before the Russians came to the country.

"On the highest point of Whale Island, which is a steep islet just offshore near the present village of St. Michael, were the ruins of a kashim and of several houses. The St. Michael people told me that this place was destroyed, long before the Russians came, by a war party from below the Yukon mouth. The sea has encroached upon the islet until a portion of the land formerly occupied by the village has been washed away. The permanently frozen soil at this place stopped us at the depth of about 2 feet. Here, and at another ancient Unalit village site which was examined superficially, we found specimens of bone and ivory carvings which were very ancient, as many of them crumbled to pieces on being exposed.

"Along the lower Yukon are many indications of villages destroyed by war parties. According to the old men these parties came from Askinuk and Kushunuk, near the Kuskokwim, as there was almost constant warfare between the people of these two sections before the advent of the Russians.

"Both the fur traders and the Eskimo claim that there are a large number of house sites on the left bank of the Yukon,[56] a few miles below Ikogmut. This is the village that the Yukon Eskimo say had 35 kashims, and there are many tales relating to the period when it was occupied. At the time of my Yukon trips this site was heavily covered with snow, and I could not see it; but it would undoubtedly well repay thorough excavation during the summer months. One of the traditions is that this village was built by people from Bristol Bay, joined by others from Nunivak Island and Kushunuk. One informant said that a portion of this village was occupied up to 1848, when the last inhabitant died of smallpox, but whether or not this is true I was unable to learn.

"Another informant told me that near the entrance of Goodnews Bay, near the mouth of the Kuskokwim, there is a circular pit about 75 feet in diameter, marking the former site of a very large kashim. A few miles south of Shaktolik, near the head of Norton Sound, I learned of the existence of a large village site. Both the Eskimo and the fur traders who told me of this said that the houses had been those of Shaktolik people, and that some of them must have been connected by underground passageways, judging from the ditch-like depressions from one to the other along the surface of the ground. The Shaktolik men who told me this said that there were many other old village sites about there and that they were once inhabited by a race of very small people who have all disappeared.

"From the Malemut of Kotzebue Sound and adjacent region I learned that there are many old village sites in that district. Many of these places were destroyed by war parties of Tinné from the interior, according to the traditions of the present inhabitants.

"On Elephant Point, at the head of the Kotzebue Sound, I saw the site of an old village, with about 15 pits marking the locations of the houses. The pits sloped toward the center and showed by their outlines that the houses had been small and roughly circular, with a short passageway leading into them, the entire structure having been partly underground.

"The Eskimo of East Cape, Siberia, said that there were many old village sites along the coast in that vicinity. These houses had stone foundations, many of which are still in place. There is a large ruined village of this kind near the one still occupied on the cape.

"On the extreme point of Cape Wankarem, and at its greatest elevation, just above the present camp of the Reindeer Chukchi, a series of three sites of old Eskimo villages were found."

To this, on pages 269 et seq., Nelson adds an account of the villages that "died" on St. Lawrence Island during the winter of 1879-80. Capt. C. L. Hooper, in the "Cruise of the Corwin in 1881, Notes and Observations" (published in Washington, 1884, p. 100) gives the date as 1878-79, and adds further details about these villages.

Present Location of Archeological Sites

Through personal visits, wherever possible, and through information from all available sources, an effort was made to locate and learn the character of as many of the old sites as could be traced. In this endeavor I was aided by many whose services are hereby gratefully acknowledged. Especial thanks are due to Captain Cochran with the officers and men of the Bear, particularly Boatswain H. Berg; to the Lomen brothers and their esteemed father, at Nome; to Father B. La Fortune and the Reverend Baldwin at Nome; to Mr. Sylvester Chance, superintendent of the northwestern district, Bureau of Education; to Mr. Charles D. Brower, trader at Barrow; to Mr. Jim Allen, trader at Wainwright; and to Dr. E. P. Walker, head of the Biological Survey of Alaska. The list to follow, supplemented by maps, will give in brief the name, location, and description of the remains.

The old sites occur, (1) in the form of refuse heaps; (2) as late village sites, smaller or larger areas of ground covered with mostly circular elevations and depressions, with occasionally the wooden remains of igloos or kashims, or only partly ruined dwellings; such remains are the most common; (3) as old village sites in the form of a long irregular ridge mound or of more or less separate heaps; (4) as heaps or "mounds" of individual structures. And as "passed" sites, covered completely by sand or silt and unknown until uncovered through the washing away by the sea or rivers of some of the deposits.

In addition there are the remains of burial grounds which are occasionally marked by small low mounds or hummocks produced by decayed burials that have been more or less assimilated by the tundra. Stony beaches with chips, implements, etc., such as are found off old sites on the Yukon, have not been seen in the region now dealt with in any instance.

The ruined dwellings and communal houses throughout this region, with a few minor exceptions, were of one general type. They were circular, yurta-shaped, semisubterranean structures, with a more or less subterranean tunnel approach, built of hewn driftwood and earth. These dwellings, when the wood decays and the dome falls in, leave characteristic saucer-and-handle-like depressions. But where such dwellings were close, and especially where they were heaped up or superimposed on older ones, the remains, together with the refuse, may form an irregular elevated ridge or a large irregular mound.

On the Diomede Islands the dwellings are built of stone, and ruins of stone houses have been reported to me from inland of the westernmost parts of the Seward Peninsula. Stone dwellings were also known on Norton Sound.

Some of the ridges and heaps, as at Shishmaref, Point Hope, one of the Punuk Islands, etc., are large and may be up to 15 feet and over in depth, but mostly the remains are of moderate to small size. The latter sometimes could easily be confounded with natural formations. The older remains may superficially be indistinguishable even to an experienced observer; and if there is anything still more ancient, it lies somewhere in the old sands and beaches where, except through some fortunate accident, it can not be discovered. Except for their surface, the remains are generally frozen hard, and no excavation is possible except through gradual exposure and the melting of layer after layer by the warmth of the sun or a melting of the ground with water or by some other artificial means.

Some at least of these ruins are rich archeologically. They greatly exceed in this respect a large majority of village ruins and mounds in the interior of the continent. This appears from their gradual excavation by the natives at Barrow, Point Hope, St. Lawrence Island, and elsewhere. The natives have now for many years been selling thousands of articles thus obtained to traders, teachers, and crews of visiting vessels. A regular and growing trade detrimental to archeology is now being carried on in "fossil ivory," which generally consists of pieces showing human workmanship and occasionally includes specimens of rare beauty and importance.

The archeological contents of such old sites as that near Savonga on the St. Lawrence Island, or those at Wales, Point Hope, Barrow, etc., are varied, and in instances exceedingly interesting. They comprise a large variety of objects of stone, ivory, bone, and wood, while in the more superficial layers are also found occasionally glass beads or objects of metal. Some ruins, such as those at Point Hope and Kotzebue, are very rich in stone objects; others, as those at the St. Lawrence Island, are rich in articles of ivory and bone. Pottery is generally scarce. Articles of stone comprise mainly points, knives, adzes, and lamps; those of wood, goggles and masks; of bone, various parts of sleds, a large assortment of snow and meat picks, and scrapers; of ivory, barbed points, harpoons, and lance heads, and a large variety of tools, fetishes, and ceremonial objects; of clay, a few dishes and pots for culinary purposes. Traces of objects made of whalebone or even birch bark may also appear.

The stones used were mainly slate and flint, but there may also be met with quartz, quartzite, and especially the Kobuk "jade." The workmanship is as a rule good to excellent. The arrow points show a number of interesting, not yet fully known, types, the long blade with parallel sides predominating. The stone lamps and rare dishes also need further study. The knives all approach the Asiatic semilunar variety.

The bones and wooden objects and the pottery from this region are fairly well covered by the writings of Ray, Murdoch, Nelson, Rau, Thomas, and others; the masks need further study.

The most interesting archeological specimens from the region of the western Eskimo, however, are some of those in "fossil ivory," the term being applied to walrus ivory that through long lying in the ground has assumed more or less of a pearly yellow, variegated, sepia-brown or black color. These objects are known as yet very imperfectly. They are scarce at and especially north of Point Hope, and again along the west coast south of Norton Sound. Their center of frequency comprises seemingly the St. Lawrence Island, some parts of the Asiatic coast, the Diomedes, and parts of the Seward Peninsula. But they occur at least up to Point Hope, while west of Bering Strait they are said to appear as far as the river Kolyma.

Some of the objects in fossilized ivory show the well-known Eskimo art, with geometrical design. But besides these there occur here and there beautiful specimens, harpoon heads, figures, needle cases, etc., which are of the finest workmanship and which both in form and design differ from the prevailing Eskimo types. They are examples of high aboriginal art; and their engraved decorative lines are not geometrical but beautifully curvilinear. (Fig. 12.) The accompanying illustrations of specimens I succeeded in obtaining from different sources will show the nature of this art. (Pls. 19-26.) Isolated specimens of this nature have been secured before by Nelson, Neuman, Sverdrup, Stefánsson, and others. Jenness in 1926 dug out a few from the old sites at Wales. There are several in the Museum of the American Indian in New York. But the largest and best collection of these remarkable articles is now that of the United States National Museum.[57]

The large fossil ivory figure (20.3 cm. maximum length, pl. 26) collected by Mr. Carl Lomen and now in the National Museum is of special interest. It comes from the Asiatic side. It is a handsomely made piece, belonging in all probability to the high fossil ivory culture. Its peculiarity is the bi-bevel face, a face made by two planes rising to a median ridge. It is so far a unique specimen of its kind. But with the aid of Mr. H. W. Krieger, curator of ethnology, United States National Museum, we found similar bi-beveled faces in wooden figures from northeast Asia, in wooden Eskimo masks from the Yukon, and in wooden ceremonial figures from Panama. The latter are shown herewith. (Pl. 27.) The whole presents evidently a nice problem for the archeologist and student of culture.

I had further the good fortune to secure, through the kindness of Reverend Baldwin, two handsome and remarkable knives from fossil mammoth ivory. These knives were said to have been made recently by the Eskimo of the Seward Peninsula. They are shown in Plate 28. They each bear on the handle a nicely carved crouching animal figure. With them are shown, somewhat more reduced, two probably ceremonial knives from Old Mexico; and also the handle of a late palaeolithic poignard from France, illustrated by De Quatrefages.[58] Regarding the latter form we read the following in Mortillet:[59] "D'autres poignées de poignard, faites dans des données pratiques et artistiques analogues, ont été recueillies dans diverses collections. Les plus remarquables sont deux poignées en ivoire trouvées par Peccadeau de l'Isle, à Bruniquel. L'une se rattachait à la lame, comme dans la pièce précédente, par le train de derrière; l'autre, au contraire, par la tête." Knives with similar crouching animal figures on the handle are being made by the King Islanders.

Here, evidently, is one more interesting problem for the archeologists.

The art shown by these objects, the conventionalization, and especially the decorations, appear to show affinity on one hand to deeper eastern Asia and on the other to those of the American northwest coast and even lower. This may prove to mean much or little. The fact that these specimens establish beyond question is that at one time and up to a few hundreds of years ago there existed in the lands of the northern Bering Sea native art superior to that existing there later and at the present, and comparable with the best native Siberian or American.

The meaning of this fact seems to me to be of importance. The evidence suggests, aside from other things, that American cultural developments may after all not have been purely local or even American, but that they may, in part at least, have been initiated or carried from Asia. In view of these and other recent developments it seems rational to consider that America may have been peopled by far eastern Asiatic groups that not merely carried with them differences in language and physique but also in some cases relatively high cultural developments. But these for the present are mere hypotheses.

There is no definite indication as yet that the people of the high fossil ivory art in the northern Bering Sea and neighboring parts were any others than the ancestors of the Eskimo. The skeletal remains from these regions, as will be shown later, rather support this view. But those ancestors may not yet have represented the characteristic present type of the people. Here, too, nothing definite can be said before the results of sufficient scientific excavations become available.

Sites and Villages

The location of the western Eskimo villages has received more or less attention by most of the explorers in their region from the Russian time onward; but such efforts are generally limited to the living villages in the area visited by the observers.

Perhaps the earliest Russian map of value in this connection on the Bering Sea region is that which I find in Billings and Gall's Voyage or "Putěshestvie" of 1791, printed in St. Petersburg 1811. The map bears no date, but is evidently quite early. It gives three villages on the western point and north coast of the Seward Peninsula, namely Kiemile (later Nykhta, now Wales), Chegliukh, and Tykiak. (Pl. 29.)

The most notable and valuable of the Russian contributions to this subject is that of Zagoskin. This refers to the period of 1842-1844 and is contained partly in his "Peshechodnaia Opis," etc. (St. Petersburg, 1847), but especially on his maps. There are, I find, two of these maps—the "Merkatorskaia Karta Časti Sieverozapadnago Berega Ameriky" and the "Merkatorskaia Generalnaia Karta Časti Rossijskich Vladěnii v Amerikě." I came across the first in one copy of Zagoskin's invaluable account, which should long ago have been translated into English, and the other in another copy. Part of the second is here reproduced. (Pl. 30.) Both bear the statement that they were made by Zagoskin as the result of his explorations on the Yukon in 1842-1844. The second ("general") map is much the clearer and richer. Both maps, but especially the second, give a good number of villages, especially about Norton Sound and along the southern shore of Seward Peninsula. The orthography differs somewhat on the two charts.

The Tebenkof Atlas of 1849 includes a remarkably good map of the St. Lawrence Island. As on other Russian maps it gives the Punuk Islands, that later are lost by most map makers, and indicates the location of what probably were all the living settlements of that time, except on the Punuk. (Fig. 27.)

Finally, in 1861, Tikhmenief, in his "Istoričeskoie Obozrenie" (history of Russian America) gives a detailed map with many locations of Eskimo villages.

The Aleutian Islands and Kodiak are excellently dealt with by Veniaminof and also Tikhmenief, though little special attention is given to the location of the settlements.

None of the Russian explorers, regrettably, report verbally on the deserted sites or ruins. But their registration and location of many villages that have since become "dead" is of much historical as well as anthropological value.

Of later and particularly American authors who gave attention to the location of the western Eskimo settlements, the foremost is E. W. Nelson. Beginning in 1877 with the St. Michael Island and ending with the cruise of the Corwin in 1881, Nelson made trips down the coast to the Kuskokwim, up the Yukon to Anvik, over the Bering Sea, the St. Lawrence Island and parts of the Chukchee Peninsula, and finally, with the Corwin, along the northern coasts to Point Barrow. And these journeys were devoted largely to biological and ethnological observations and collections, the latter including the location of the western Eskimo habitations of that time. His locations are given on the accompanying map (fig. 15) taken from his classic memoir, "The Eskimo about Bering Strait," published in 1900 in the Eighteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology. This memoir contains a section of "Ruins" (pp. 263-266), a brief account of the recently dead villages on St. Lawrence Island (p. 269), and an instructive section on Eskimo burials (pp. 310-322). Nelson brought also the first more substantial collection of Eskimo crania.

The next deserving man in these connections is Ivan Petrof. Of Russian-American extraction, Petrof was charged in 1880 with the census enumeration of the natives in Alaska, and he later published[60] a valuable report on his work, together with detailed demographic data and a map on which are given all the living settlements of his time. Nelson's map is partly based on Petrof's data.

Since Nelson and Petrof but little has been done in this field. But the maps of these two observers have been utilized more or less by the map makers of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, the Geological Survey, and other Government agencies concerned with Alaska. The result is that some of these charts are exceptionally useful to the anthropological explorer in Alaska; nevertheless the data they carry are incomplete and the locations or names are not always exact, a good many of the villages shown are now dead, and old ruins, as usual, have received no attention.

A very valuable supplement to all the maps has in 1902 been published by the United States Geological Survey. It is the Geographic Dictionary of Alaska, by Marcus Baker. This volume, besides brief but serviceable historical data, gives in alphabetical order nearly all the then-known names of localities in Alaska, including those of the Eskimo and Indian settlements; and each name is accompanied by brief but in many instances most helpful information. This highly deserving volume, indispensable to every student of Alaska, has for many years been out of print, but it is understood that a new revised edition is slowly being prepared.