Nuna Nalluyuituq/The Land Remembers
A new way to investigate archaeological landscapes in Alaska's Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta
Kindly note: Precise archaeological site locations have been obscured, to protect the heritage of the Quinhagak community. All photos and videos were taken by the author, unless otherwise stated.
The Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta
This is one of the largest river deltas in the world. For only four months a year its rivers, plains and coasts are teeming with wildlife and lush vegetation.
Quinhagak, Southwest Alaska
A Native Alaskan community of 700 people by the coast of the Bering Sea...
24th July 2019, 2 miles up the winding Arolik River...
Our boat barreled down the river at terrifying speed. Between the cold subarctic wind whipping past my face and the relentless puttering of the outboard motor, I could barely string together a coherent thought. Nevertheless, I found myself grinning like an idiot. For months I had been staring at the endless maze of waterways that comprise the Arolik (Agalig) River using satellites in space, and it was a sheer joy to finally see it at eye level.
Our boat of archaeologists was piloted by James Williams, a Native Alaskan of the Yup’ik people, and I have heard it said that very few people alive know these waters as well as he— like many folk in the nearby village of Quinhagak, James has relied on this river for subsistence his entire life.
Today, we were on the hunt for sod houses. Past Yup’ik people would construct semi-subterranean structures out of wood and sod blocks to shelter from the elements in this often harsh subarctic tundra. Once abandoned, these often collapse into themselves and become frozen into the ground, becoming rich repositories of culturally important artefacts and environmental data. We were pursuing a lead given to us by Quinhagak local Frank Matthews, who stated he came across the remains of such structures somewhere in this area while hunting ptarmigan many years ago.
We berthed the boat beneath the steep banks of the river, and clambered ashore into the tall grass. There was an eerie stillness in the air, and I remember reflecting in that moment on how far I was from home...
After a short hike through a near-impassable thicket of scrub and small trees, we emerged into a picturesque grassy clearing containing a vast oxbow lake.
We fanned out and, after a brief search, we heard James yell “MOUND! There’s a mound over here!” from somewhere behind a copse of trees. After making our way to him with all due haste we were indeed met by a large natural mound, capped with tall grass and a crown of purple fireweed.
To be sure, there were many such natural hillocks in the area; however, we later learned James had called us to this one specifically because the oral histories of his people states that fireweed always grows on ancestral sites. Above the mound, hidden amidst the tall grass, were a series of banks and depressions— telltale signs of at least three caved-in sod structures. Our test pits confirmed we had just found the only other known prehistoric site in the area, besides the venerable Nunalleq (trans. "Old Village") site near the mouth of the Arolik. Clearly bemused at our giddy excitement, James remarked that this was a perfect place for a fishing camp, assuming the course of the river ran right by it in the past. Later in the day I would examine the site using multispectral satellite imagery; the pattern was subtle and not readily visible to the human eye, but the vegetation here was definitely different from the surrounding areas.
This is only one of many striking examples of how landscape archaeology in the tundra is enhanced through collaboration with local Native communities. Without them, we would never have thought to survey here. Without a local guide knowledgeable in the oral traditions of his people, we would never have spotted the site, nor would we have understood its role in the larger cultural context of the region.
Landscape Archaeology for Native Descendent Communities in the Y-K Delta: A New Way Forward
Photo credit: Dr Rick Knecht, 2018
My name is Jonathan Lim, and I am a DPhil student in Archaeology at the University of Oxford! My research involves the development of a new investigative framework for understanding the cultural landscapes of the Yup’ik people in Southwest Alaska’s Yukon-Kuskokwim (Y-K) Delta. My work is built on the acknowledgement that conventional archaeological techniques in the Y-K Delta is insufficient by themselves for fully understanding the rich cultural complexity of these landscapes. Working alongside the local community and the University of Aberdeen’s Quinhagak Archaeological Project, I will be deploying ethnographic techniques in tandem with spatial technology to understand how the past and present Yup’iit of the Quinhagak region lived their lives here. Using an early iteration of this technique in 2019, we identified dozens of cultural places of importance to the Quinhagak people.
My first fieldwork season to test this research framework is planned for May 2021, with a focus on 29 sites that are known or suspected to contain substantial archaeological structures.
Together with my external supervisor Dr Sean Gleason (Hampden-Sydney College, Virginia, USA), we will conduct ethnographic interviews with the people who know these areas the best, like hunters, fishermen, gatherers, and owners of nearby Native Allotments.
This will allow us to understand how space was utilised and perceived on residential sites, and their spatial relationships with nearby sites. Interviews will be conducted using both physical and GIS maps as memory aids and discussion prompts, and their hand gestures will be recorded to preserve the nuances of their narrative.
We will interview Elders in their native Yup’ik language using a professional interpreter and translator to ensure the meaning of their words are maintained as authentically as possible for their descendants.
Aerial survey of abandoned semi-subterranean sod structures near Quinhagak (Orange arrows at 0:02). Note the vegetation differences on these mound-like structures versus the surrounding grassland.
The next element of the research framework will utilise remote sensing techniques to corroborate assertions made by the interviewees about the landscape. It works on the notion that the vegetation on archaeological sites in the Y-K Delta is often different from the surrounding tundra— human activity, like waste disposal and food processing, enriches the soil in this nutrient-poor environment, making it conducive to the growth of certain species of plants.
Meet Mr Zoomy, an older but nigh-indestructible Phantom 3 drone specially modified to carry a Parrot Sequoia multispectral camera.
In order to quantify this data, I will be taking aerial photographs of the sites and the surrounding landscape with a drone mounted with a specialised camera. This device captures light in the visible, Near-IR and Red Edge spectra of light, allowing me to highlight vegetation changes through the calculation of vegetation indices like NDVI and RENDVI. Multispectral satellite imagery may also be used for areas not accessible by the drone. I will attempt to determine if different types of sites (for example, hunting camps vs winter villages) have contrasting vegetation patterns, which may reveal how they were used by past Yup’iit. Eventually, this may lead to an algorithm to automatically locate unrecorded archaeological sites in the landscape and monitor known sites, giving local communities in the Y-K Delta a powerful new tool for managing their heritage in the face of modern challenges like rapid climate change and territorial litigation.
This is a logistically complex and ambitious undertaking that will likely take some years to complete. However, we are not alone in this endeavour. I am profoundly grateful to have recently received an Emslie Horniman Scholarship from the Royal Anthropological Institute, as well as a Heritage Seed Fund grant from the Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH). Furthermore, I have received Meyerstein Award grants from the School of Archaeology for field equipment, and my initial 2019 exploratory field season was fully funded by the Keble Association. The generous support of these organizations means that we now have the resources to carry out this project in a manner that does justice to the wonderful and resilient people of Quinhagak.
Quyana (thank you) for your interest in my research! I am always happy to discuss my work, and can be contacted at jonathan.lim@ arch.ox.ac.uk . Please do peruse the following links to learn more about the ongoing heritage efforts at Quinhagak:
- A 2017 National Geographic article on the Nunalleq site: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2017/04/artifact-melt-alaska-archaeology-climate-change/
- Children of the Dig, an award-winning short film on the Nunalleq site and Quinhagak by Joshua Branstetter (Branstetter Films): https://vimeo.com/channels/branstetter/284313360
- The University of Aberdeen's Quinhagak Archaeological Project blog: https://nunalleq.wordpress.com/
- Hillerdal, C., Knecht, R. and Jones, W., 2019. Nunalleq: Archaeology, Climate Change, and Community Engagement in a Yup’ik Village. Arctic Anthropology, 56(1), pp.4-17. https://doi.org/10.3368/aa.56.1.4
