One of my favorite artifacts from our last field season is this small face. It is obviously broken in half, but the face still resonates a kind of quiet presence. I’m not sure whether this object served a utilitarian purpose. It appears to have been a hollow tube made from cancellous sea mammal bone. Pronounced polish on the bottom edge of this artifact is suggestive of use-wear.

In an earlier post, I argued that the excavated art assemblage from Aniakchak differed from other published assemblages from the region. I’m less convinced of this claim the more I study the matter. The Aniakchak assemblage has strong parallels to the contemporary Kachemak tradition artwork, particularly the assemblage from the Uyak site on Kodiak Island occupied around AD 1-1100. Both Uyak and Aniakchak have small, ivory maskettes, animal figurines (including whale and caribou imagery), and other decorative pieces (Heizer 1956).

The maskettes from Aniakchak include this half face from the 2005 field season. This ivory maskette reminds me somewhat of the Phantom of the Opera mask. Recovered from a house floor occupied around AD 630, this perfect little carving is only 16.2 mm tall and 2.5 mm thick. The back side of the maskette is curved as if intended to be worn by a doll. Upon close inspection of the facial features I can see pronounced cheeks and shallow nostril holes. Faint tool marks suggest the face was polished, especially compared to the reverse side of the ‘owl face’ described in an earlier post. The hole above the left eye on the ‘half-face’ maskette indicates this artifact was attached to something else. A nearly identical hole can be observed on the maskette from Uyak. A somewhat similar maskette with suspension hole from Amchitka Island is illustrated in Lydia Black’s classic study: Aleut Art: Unangam Aguqaadangin, demonstrating these ivory maskettes had a wide distribution in the north Pacific (2003: Figure 46).

It’s interesting that the Aniakchak half-face maskette was unbroken and found on a house floor, while the other two ‘ancient faces’ from the site were both broken and recovered from midden deposits. As a small collection, the three faces display some of the variability in the Aniakchak artwork, with the ivory half-face maskette showing detailed work and careful finishing. The broken bone face is more simplistic, but also made of a porous material that limited the carver’s ability to add fine detail.

I plan to expand on these ideas regarding technique and condition, including looking at tool marks, use-wear, and breakage patterns when I discuss the remaining ivory pieces from Aniakchak. I’ve been inspired by the work of Randall White (2003, 2006) and his studies of ivory carvings from the European paleolithic. His strategy is to combine the study of iconography and context with a chaîne opératoire approach. Although our ability to interpret the symbolic meaning behind the ivory carvings from Aniakchak is limited, I’m hoping a thick description of these objects, following White’s approach, will lead to insight into the cultural practices associated with this artwork.

Ultimately, I think the most interesting aspect of the Aniakchak art assemblage are the similarities to artwork from the neighboring Kodiak Archipelago and Aleutian Islands. The cultural groups living throughout this part of the north Pacific differed substantially in many aspects of their utilitarian cultures, but apparently shared aspects of their artistic traditions. The ‘ancient faces’ of Aniakchak are a part of these traditions.

Update – Check out the artifact photographs from the Hot Springs Village Site (just across and down the Penninsula from Aniakchak) if you want to see more ‘ancient faces‘.

References

Black, Lydia T. 2003. Aleut Art: Unangam Aguqaadangin. Second Edition ed. Virginia Beach, VA: The Donning Company Publishers.

Heizer, Robert F. 1956. Archaeology of the Uyak Site, Kodiak Island, Alaska. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

White, Randall. 2006. The Women of Brassempouy: A century of research and interpretation. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 13, (4): 250-303.

———. 2003. Prehistoric art: The symbolic journey of mankindHarry N. Abrams.

The field phase of our Methodist church excavation is officially done. Yesterday, Hamline’s Grounds Services hauled back all our excavated dirt and filled in our trench. No backfilling by hand for us. My students will never truly appreciate their luck in missing this traditional part of archaeology.

We are now in the lab phase of our project. Our first step is to clean and inventory our collections. What to do with mortar? What to do with lumps of oxidized iron and sand? These are the “fire-cracked rock” of modern urban sites.

The stained glass shards are still my favorite artifact. The splash of color catches my eye as I move around the lab, especially compared to the earthy bricks, limestone, and rusty metal that dominate our collections. We are also finding some dramatic evidence of the fire that destroyed the church, especially as captured in the fusion of melted glass, nails, and wood. Once we finish the inventory we will begin the analysis phase. That’s when we make the real discoveries in archaeology.

^{Stained glass shards found along the church foundation.}

We’re finding a lot of small shards of colored glass. We believe these are from the rose windows. The interesting aspect is the diversity of colors – mostly greens and yellows, but also blue and amber colors. I just held them up to the sunlight a few minutes ago as I photographed some of them for this blog.  While snapping this picture I realized the symbolism. After 80 years of darkness, sunlight is again shining through the church’s stained glass windows.

^{BAG #001 – The first bag of excavated artifacts from our 2007 dig.}

We excavated the first level at the Hamline Methodist Church site today. We’re digging through a layer of rocky fill with a light scatter of 20th century artifacts. Some nails, slate shingle fragments, a limestone suggest we have building demolition debris, but are these from the church or some other structure? We need to keep digging to find our answer.

Ryan made the find of the day – a white ceramic sherd with a prominent maker’s mark. It’ll be interesting to see if we can identify the mark.

This Saturday is our first open dig. Stop by between 9 AM and 3 PM if you want to check out what’s happening.
^{Ryan’s find of the day}

I found this object in the last hours of my last day on the site, so it was a very gratifying way to end my time at Aniakchak. The artifact is broken making it a little difficult to say exactly what it represents. I believe it is a carving of a face (some say an owl’s face) broken just below the nose. It seems like you can even discern faintly scratched eyebrows. It has a hole drilled through from front to back at the top of the head. This hole would have allowed the object to be suspended like a pendant. The hole also would enable one to tie it to or otherwise affix it to another object (possibly a doll or figurine).

Jeanne Schaaf, a National Park Service archaeologist working with us in Aniakchak, thinks this object may have been a labret. Neither of us, though, can remember seeing any similar labrets in any archaeological reports for the region. In fact, this object along with the other carved ivory pieces from Aniakchak are largely unique for the Southwest Alaskan archaeological record. Aniakchak’s occupants, at least at 1300 BP, seem to have had an artistic tradition that differed from their contemporaries in the eastern Aleutians to their west and the Kodiak Archipelago to their east. When asking the question “Who lived in Aniakchak Bay 1300 years ago?”, analysis of the artwork may ultimately provide one of the clearest answers.

I and my crew actually heard news of this find shortly before we left Anchorage. The mask displays quite sophisticated bone carving technique and will certainly add an important dimension to our understanding of eastern Aleutian artistry.

The excavation itself has been somewhat controversial. An earlier dig at the site in 2003 produced an amazing collection of artifacts, faunal remains, and features. They found at least 10 houses; some with their lower walls formed of massive stones and sub-floor channels that may have served as “heating ducts”. The faunal remains include sea ice-loving species like polar bear and bearded seal, which today are found far to the north – a clear indication of the colder, neoglacial climate of 3000 bp.

A need for an expanded bridge at the site is what created the controversy. Preservationists and developers obviously had different opinions. But the decision to expedite the excavations (which have a budget of $950,000) by using backhoes was a major concern for many. Rick Knecht, one of the principal investigators of the 2003 excavations and quoted in an Anchorage Daily News story on the mask explains

“I shudder to think what’s been damaged or lost. I know they’re being as careful as they can given the limitations of digging with heavy equipment. But inevitably there’s a price to be paid in history and culture by taking that shortcut.”

The goal of the backhoe operation is principally to find burials and houses, not relatively small bone masks. It will be interesting to find out under what conditions the mask was found. I especially want to know how much contextual information was captured and/or lost.

Here is the end result. I’m using a digital Nikon D70s with an old 105 mm macro lens (the lens doesn’t work with any of the camera’s electronic functions). We have a pretty basic photo stand and lamp set up in our lab. I use a frosted glass plate to lift the artifacts above their shadow. For editing the images I have an old copy of Corel Photo-Paint left over from my dissertation days. I’d never stitched images together before – so I felt pretty pleased with myself that I could figure it all out.

I know I’m behind the times when it comes to artifact illustrations. I’m always really impressed by good illustrations. Some of the best work I’ve seen recently is being done by people using scanners. I like the idea of using scanners since you’d get images of a uniform size. One of my goals for the King Salmon photo documentation is to be able to combine into a single image what ever set of artifacts that I want. My results today will work, but I’m sure there are easier ways to get the images. Any ideas?

I’m actually very intrigued by the interplay between art and science, especially when it comes to illustrations in archaeology. I like crisp, simple photographs and drawings when I am documenting my work. But on this blog and in my talks I want illustrations that capture both the objects and sites, but also people. The photograph of the basalt point is effective at capturing the object’s details, but is otherwise a boring image. I much prefer photographing objects being held by a human hand and with a natural background when I want a more interesting image. I feel the same way about field photographs. Stratigraphy profile shots are a part of virtually every archaeological report and conference presentation. Pictures of very dark brown soil grading into dark brown soil aren’t all that exciting to look at, even for other archaeologists. Having a crew member working off to the side, though, and the image has some zest. Like most archaeologists, I take some boring pictures for documentary purposes only. But I like to add a little something for the astute observer. Take a close look at this profile of shell midden lenses at Aniakchak and you should be able to spot a Star Wars Boba Fett doll with his arms raised in triumphant celebration of a nicely cleaned wall.

For another view of archaeology and photography check out this note by Michael Shanks of Standford University. If you just want to see some amazing photographs of archaeological sites check out James Jacob’s Archaeoblog.

 Bone artifact from Aniakchak.

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.