Afognak Day Two - Zip, Hike and Fish

On our second day at Afognak, Patrick and Matt set up a zip-line that went from tree to tree across the beach at Lipsett Point. To be honest, my stomach was a mess of nerves as they set it up. I loved the concept of setting up a zip-line for the kids, but as it came together, the reality of my kids flying across the terrain on a cable frightened me.

At one point I said to Patrick, "You know Patrick, if its too hard to set up or you don't want to do it, thats ok with me." He replied, "No, no...not at all. We'll get this set up!" I smiled and said, "OK!" but inside I continued to be a mess of nerves, and secretly wished it wouldn't come together. I was afraid of someone getting hurt.

Matt offered to be the tester, to go across first. I think he went without  the helmet. Bless his heart. And then the kids. They were harness and carabeener-ed in to the handle, which was comforting.

The kids and adults enjoyed it! It wasn't too steep or too fast and felt very safe. The landing pad on the end was a bed of seaweed, which was nice and soft and squishy. No possibility of anyone running into the tree at the end!

One of our friends, Andy who was there used to set up zip-line courses and made  a few modifications to the system for back-up safety, which was fabulous!

Ziplining on the beach

Then we took a walk along the beach and looked at the petroglyphs....

Andy, Pauline and Piper with the petroglyphs on the rocks behind. 

And then fishing! The silvers were jumping right off the beach and within 45 minutes we had 3 fresh silvers for dinner. Pauline caught her first silver!

Reelin' it in together

Nora's first Silver!

Matt and Rachel ran back to camp, got the boat and skiffed over to pick us up, as it had been nearly a 2 hour walk to get to the fishing beach.

A crazy hair pic!

The girls on the boat ride home from fishing!

Zoya

A deer for Thomas

The last two times I've been out hunting we got to the top and the fog came in and we did not get deer. So this morning at 5 AM when Thomas and I left the house in a downpour I did not have high hopes for getting a deer.  I figured we'd go up, get soaking wet and bat about in the fog for a few hours.  We even brought a small tarp and stove so that we could create a shelter and have some tea while waiting for the fog to lift.

But before we even got to the alpine it did clear!  And right away we started to see deer.  Lots of does and fawns, and then before we had even been hunting for 15 minutes Thomas spotted this guy.  Almost too quick - we sort of wanted to keep hunting and look for more deer.  But hey, after 2 unsuccessful trips I'm just happy with a fat deer!  Patrick

Afognak Day One

Packing up the plane at the float plane dock

Flying into Lipsett Point

The cook tent...sawing wood for the wood stove inside the tent.

Friends arrived via boat later in the day! 

Enjoying a one-pot dinner made by Patrick-Rice with cabbage and chicken and salami. 

Cooking marshmallows in the wood stove after dinner. 

Day 1- We arrived late morning and it took several hours to set up the sleeping tents, saw wood and get camp set up. After lunch we ventured out on the trails for a hike to see what was new in the forest and beaches since we were there last summer. The trails were in good shape, tides were low and not too much sign of recent bears in the area. (and this was a very good thing-as we didn't' bring out electric fence on this trip)

In the evening, Patrick cooked up dinner and right when it was ready, friends arrived via boat. Rachel, Matt, Pauline, Andy and Piper pulled up on the beach after a 45 minute trip from Anton Larsen Bay. Dinner was served and shortly after, smores.

Prepped the kids for bed-had to do a VERY thorough job of combing Stuey and Nora's tents for spiders. Once the kiddies were tucked away and sleeping, grown ups stayed up around the wood stove in the darkness sharing stories and laughing into the night.

Zoya

Back from Afognak

A quiet moment on the beach

Yesterday we barely beat the weather and came back from Afognak a day early.  We did not plan on leaving so early and had just finished a leisurely breakfast when Rolan flew over in the floatplane to take us home.  He had come early because he knew that the weather was turning and that if he did not pick us up early we might have been stuck out there for another 2 or 3 days.  So with a rush we broke camp and came home just before the weather got really nasty.

While we were out there we had great weather and a great time.  We fished, hiked, had barbecues on the beach with friends, and the kids learned a lot about camping.  While we were out there Zoya kept a daily journal that she plans to put in blog form.  So I'll keep this one short and let the pictures do the talking.  There will be more to come from Zoya.  Patrick

Thomas adds Old Bay to his alder smoked grilled fish

Zoya writes in her daily trip journal

Stuey on the Zip line

Nora needs help reeling in a large silver salmon

Nora and another silver salmon that I caught

Cooking salmon on the beach

Lunchtime Nap

Lunchtime nap on the creek by the site

This picture is from early in the dig when it was very hot and we often ate lunch down by the creek in front of the site.  Directly in front of our gravel bar is a deep hole, and on the hottest days some of us even went swimming.  And then after lunch the adults generally took a cat nap while the younger members of the dig stayed up.  John S caught our lunch time ritual on his iphone while visiting the site with Ryan to do the GPR work.  Patrick

Dig All Done

Getting close to the bottom on the second-to-last day

Yesterday was the last day of Community Archaeology at the Kashevaroff Site.  The site turned out to be very deep and far more complex than expected.  It's ironic that I lost sleep the night before the dig began worrying that we would not find anything. Alutiiq people used the site from about 7000 years ago right up to the end of the prehistoric record.  There are very few sites on Kodiak where you can find the entire prehistoric record represented.

However, it was a short 3 week excavation and the weather was pretty bad for the last week - so we did not get to finish our excavation.  We did manage to dig a trench down to the bottom of the site along one wall and next year we hope to return to excavate the rest of the lowest layers of the site, as well as, explore other areas of the huge site.  It is clearly a very significant site and warrants a lot more investigation.  So yesterday we covered the site with tarps and backfilled the excavation to protect it until we can get back to it next summer.

The site is significant because it is so different from the normal village sites that us archaeologists usually excavate.  Instead of manufacturing, household and cooking tools - we only found tools related to hunting, maintaining gear and processing food.  And clearly the location was an important part of the Alutiiq seasonal round - they kept returning to the same spot for almost 7000 years.  Hopefully in the next few years we will learn why it was such an important place and better understand what exactly they were doing there.  This year's excavation has just whetted my appetite to learn more.  Patrick

Jesse's family visited right at the finish

Our backdirt pile got pretty tall

All done but the backfilling

Final Profile - 7000 years old at the bottom and 300 year-old housepit at the top

Profiling before we backfill - we will finish next year

Digging in the rain

No digging today - we're working in the lab

It's raining hard today on Kodiak.  Way too hard to even attempt digging, but yesterday we did manage to dig for the entire day despite intermittent rain and a persistent mist.  By the end of the day the steps up our backdirt pile had gotten very slippery, and it was getting difficult to see the artifacts and features as the soil turned into muck.  So today we stayed in the lab and washed and catalogued what we have found so far on the dig.

Out at the excavation we are getting down to the lowest layers at the site.  The red ochre floors in this layer do have some ground slate on them.  The earliest sites on Kodiak do not have any ground slate.  But the style of some of these bayonets is similar to those we found on a 6300 year old housefloor out at Zaimka Mound (KOD 013).  So it is still pretty darn old. Also we have found what appears to be an intact white ash with cultural material underneath it.  At other sites this white ash has dated to about 7100 years ago - so I am hopeful we might have some even older material at the very base of the site.

We have also been excavating a smoke processing feature from the late 'Ocean Bay II' era.  It appears to have lacked a sod roof and does not appear to have been associated with many posts.  Also the hearth is fairly expedient.  We found burned bone and fired sods in the hearth area, and it looks like they put sods on the fire to slow it down and keep it burning longer.  This would have conserved fuel.  The feature is no where near as elaborate at the one we excavated last year at the Amak Site (click here).  Patrick

Lab work - cataloguing the artifacts

Leslie with a huge bayonet base found on a red ochre surface

Red ochre surface from the lower levels of the site

Excavating another smokehouse feature - we've been excavating a lot of these lately

Digging in the rain - we made it through the whole day

Andrea and the smokehouse hearth feature

GPR at the Kashevaroff Site

John S and Ryan C and the ground penetrating radar set up 

Last week Ryan and John visited the site with ground penetrating radar and looked for sub surface features.  Ryan is a geologist who does remote sensing work for a company called TerraSond.  He is married to Molly Odell (the Community Archaeology PI for the last couple of years) and has visited our excavations in the past.  His visits piqued his interest in how well his remote sensing equipment would work at picking up underground archaeological features.  Could ground penetrating radar find buried features and help us archaeologists decide where to dig?

So last week he dropped in with his ground penetrating radar gear to give it a try.  Northwest Geophysics kindly loaned Ryan the gear free of charge.  I showed Ryan the site and pointed out that we had only excavated half of a late prehistoric house.  Outside of our excavation the rest of the depression and a possible small side room are clearly visible.  It was a perfect opportunity to see how the GPR worked.  

So Ryan and John dragged the sled across the ground in a 6 by 6 meter grid and imaged what was below the surface.  It matched up pretty well with what we expected to find - and even shows a potential rock pile associated with the side room.  Side rooms often have rock piles of firecracked rock that represent the remains of saunas.  Water was thrown on hot rocks to create steam.  However, the GPR did not see much in the underlying deposits.  We also had him scan the surface of our excavation - and he really did not see anything.

Ryan and John then went exploring about the site and found another slight depression 60 meters or so to the southwest of our excavation.  We determined that it is cultural when a soil probe turned up charcoal.  Now to see what the GPR could see.  And it did pretty well.  It looks like another late prehistoric house depression!  Next year we hope to excavate this feature and see exactly how well the GPR did at outlining the depression.

I was pretty happy with how well the GPR mapped out the late prehistoric houses.  But a little disappointed with its abilities to find older features (and it turns out it missed one in the southeast corner of our excavation).  I still think that good old fashioned test pits and soil probes are the best way to find archaeological sites, and the limits of sites.  But the GPR does 'see' rock piles and house depressions pretty well and I can see using one in the future to help position excavation blocks. 

I am very happy with Ryan, TerraSond, and Northwest Geophysics for giving us the opportunity to use ground penetrating radar.  Thank YOU!

Patrick

A figure from Ryan's report that shows how the GPR did with the unexcavated sideroom

GRP results of the new house depression that John and Ryan found (seen in top photo)

Hunting Season Begins

Instant mash potatoes and canned salmon for breakfast

And so it begins.  Deer season opened here on Kodiak August 1rst, but Gregg and I did not get out hunting until yesterday.  The weather did not look good, but we hiked up the mountain anyway and camped in the rain.  We woke up to rain and mosquitoes on our faces but at least it was not foggy outside.  And then the weather actually did improve.  The sun even came out for a bit.  We saw lots of deer out for their breakfast graze, and finally opted to harvest a big guy all alone out in the middle of big bowl.  It's hunting season.  Patrick

Deer down by 9 AM

Whoo hooo - now we only got a 3 1/2 hour hike home to go!

Getting back deep in time at the Kashevaroff Site

Ashley and an ulu from near the top of the site

 It has been a super busy week at the Kashevaroff Site.  On Monday we still had some deposits that dated to the last 500 years or so, but by yesterday our entire block was back to at least 5000 years.  I do most of the screening and I can tell you that we have moved A LOT of dirt.  Our backdirt pile is beginning to look like a Mayan temple.

Today it rained and we did not dig.  This was not such a bad thing because it gave us a chance to clean artifacts, dry samples, start cataloguing, and to assess where we are at on the excavation.  And for me it was a badly needed day of recovery - I'm exhausted from all the screening!

The site is turning out to be far more productive than anticipated.  It is really deep.  So far we have found 3 components each representing a different occupation at the site.  We have found a 300 to 500 year old late prehistoric fish camp complete with ulus and a small house at the top of the site.  A 2 to 3 thousand year old hunting and/or fishing camp - we did not find any features associated with this layer.  And finally, a 4 to 5 thousand year old hunting camp complete with lots of bayonets for hunting sea mammals and some sort of processing structure.  And we are not even close to the bottom and oldest layers of the site.  We have also found some chipped stone lances that hint at another, much earlier occupation at the site.  I am hopeful, and keeping my fingers crossed, that we may have the entire gamut of Alutiiq prehistory from 300 to 7000 years present in one spot.

For such a small creek (Salonie Creek) at the head of a fairly non-descript bay (Womens Bay) the number and variety of prehistoric sites we have found in the area is surprising.  I am beginning to wonder if perhaps there once was a lake behind the beach berm in the Salonie Creek Valley - maybe with a run of red salmon?  I think we need a geologist to help us reconstruct the geomorphology of the valley.  It is becoming clear that the area was the focus of a great deal of prehistoric activity - far more than I would expect for such a small creek valley.

I have also been struck by the number of complete lances we have found thus far at the site.  Usually almost all of the tools you find at a site are broken, but not at this site.  We are not finding a large variety of tool types - mostly just hunting gear - so it looks like it was mostly a hunting camp.  I am wondering if the prehistoric inhabitants were simply leaving their gear at the camp and coming back for yearly visits.  And that often they would not return to collect it or it would get lost in a run down shack etc.  At a continuously occupied village such tools would not get a chance to get 'lost' and would only be discarded when they were broken.  It's something to think about.  Patrick

Ryan of Terrasond and John came by on Monday to do some ground penetrating radar at the site (I'll be doing a full blog post on this shortly)

Ariel and a bayonet from deeper down in the site

A large, complete lance with an incised design

Chipped stone lances from the deeper layers of the site

Another complete ground slate lance

Many of the bayonets have bases with serrated stems