Last week we got back the radiocarbon dating results from last summer's archaeological survey on Karluk Lake. We sent off the charcoal we collected from the prehistoric hearths to a lab in Florida and they tell us how long ago the charcoal was part of a living plant. I'm all excited because the dates came back perfect - just what I wanted/expected. I found out that the new sites I found on the pea gravel beaches are about 1600 years old. We also found a 5000 year old house, and even a 3000 year old village.
If you reread my post from last May
http://saltonstall.blogspot.com/2009/05/karluk-survey-archaeology.html
you will see that I predicted that the villages on the pea gravel beaches would be 1500 years old. Whoo hoooo I love being right. Too often when I get radiocarbon results back I am crushed by the cold light of reality. If the dates had been different all that I wrote last May could have been wrong.
Anyhow - here are some pictures of Karluk Lake for you to enjoy. These are where those 1600 year-old villages are located. Patrick
3 comments:
Patrick, which house was 5000 years old?
Rose
The second test pit up on Thumb Creek that Mark and Aubrey dug. We thought it was an Early Kachemak house and it ended up older. And the one we thought was an Ocean Bay II midden ended up Early kachemak at 3500 BP - go figure! The village at the outlet up on the hill ended up 3000 years old. Patrick
It's kind of beautiful to think of folks in a village here on the island, living peacefully off the land back in the year 400.
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