Old Dirt – New Thoughts

My archaeology lab class has been busy cataloging these last couple of weeks. They had two artifacts from Aniakchak that I find particularly interesting.

One “find” is a miniature bifacial “point”. It’s even smaller than the one I highlighted from this summer. I’ve seen small points like this one described in archaeological reports as “toys”. I suspect, though, that the Aniakchak miniature points are functional tools because we have so many (and virtually no larger points).

 Miniature biface of black chert.

The other find is a piece of copper sheet rolled into a tube. I’m assuming it is a “bead”. We found this bead near the site surface, but I believe it is native copper and from a precontact context.

 Copper bead.

  I have further information on the Kanei Tsuho coin we recovered from Unimak. The mark on the coin’s reverse side indicates it was minted in Edo (Tokyo) between AD 1668 and 1673/1680. This date means that the coin was in circulation for 80 to 100 years before it was deposited on the Unimak house floor. How it got to Unimak is a fascinating question. The scenario I believe most likely is that a Russian/Siberian fur hunter picked it up in the Kuril Islands or the Kamchatka Peninsula and then carried it with them on a voyage to the Aleutians. (A less likely scenario involves a Japanese vessel lost at sea and drifting to Alaska). How the coin actually ended up on the house floor is harder to explain. Possibly it was lost during the Russian attack on the Unimak household. Whatever the real story, this coin is fascinating evidence for Old World – New World contact in the north Pacific.

I had the coin identified by posting it on a website dedicated to numismatics. Check it out at http://www.zeno.ru/ . The site’s moderators identified the coin within hours of my posting it. You can see the Unimak coin and their comments by typing 34481 into the site’s search box.