Old Dirt – New Thoughts

Dave McMahan, an archaeologist with the Alaska SHPO office, and I are completing the final touches to a paper we have written on the Japanese coins recovered from our excavations (Unimak for me, Castle Hill, Sitka for him). We think it’s remarkable that both sites produced Japanese, but not Chinese coins. In looking at other archaeological and historical data we argue that

[T]he regional distribution of coins suggest two distinct patterns for the Russian-American period. In the north and west, coins are relatively rare and generally of either Japanese or Russian mint. The more abundant coins in the south and east are predominately of Chinese mint, but include the occasional Japanese specimen (Beals 1977). This archaeological distribution is in accordance with what we know regarding the economic history of Russia-America. During the early period (1741-1785), most trade goods arrived in the north Pacific after an arduous and expensive transport from Russian controlled territory. Currency of any type was difficult to obtain, and probably of less utility than beads and bullets. With the entry of British and American traders after 1785, the greater availability of all trade goods, but especially Chinese copper coins, is reflected in the Northwest Coast’s relative abundance of archaeological finds.

So the reason Chinese coins were relatively abundant (at least as documented historically) was because British and American merchants could sail their vessels to the port of Canton, load up on inexpensive manufactured goods, including trinkets like copper coins, then cross the Pacific to trade with the Northwest Coast natives for highly profitable sea otter pelts. The Russians were never allowed such easy access to Chinese manufactured goods. Instead they were required to trade with the Chinese at the isolated town of Kiakhta located in the middle of nowhere on the Siberian-Mongolian frontier. You can image that the Russian traders never wanted to carry much weight in Chinese copper coins when returning to their north Pacific trade.

We think our Japanese coins made their way to Alaska through some poorly documented, but historically fascinating mechanism – possibly a disabled Japanese fishing vessel drifted ashore near our sites, or some illegal trading between the Russian and Japanese started the coins on their journey. In any case, we are looking for more archaeological finds of coins in 18th and 19th century north Pacific sites. I especially think there must be more sites in Washington, Oregon, and British Columbia that we need to add to our analysis. I pasted at the bottom of this post the citations we already have. Any one know of sites we can add?

^{Chinese coins from the Yakutat site of New Russia. The upper coin dates to the Ching Dynasty (1723-1735). Dave recently “discovered” the lower coin when he was reexamining this collection for our paper. We have not positively identified the damaged coin, but we believe it is of Chinese origin.}

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  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.

Paul Storch, the Senior Objects Curator at the Minnesota Historical Society, recently completed cleaning and conserving a Japanese bronze coin recovered from Unimak.

This coin was found on the floor of the medium-sized house (D-50) at Agayadan Village. I believe this house was abandoned early in the 1760s making this coin among the earliest documented in Alaska. Similar coins are found in earlier sites in the Kuril Islands and Kamchatka. Thousands of Chinese cash coins (along with a few coins from other Asian countries) are found in later 18th and 19th century sites in the Northwest Coast.

The Unimak coin is a Kanei-Tsuho from the Tokugawa Shogunate period. These coins were first manufactured in 1626 AD and continued to be made into the 1860s. Based on several characteristics, this coin is of the ”new style” manufactured after 1688 1668. I hope that we can better identify this coin now that it is clean and legible. I will update this blog when we get further information.

Coin before cleaning -

and after cleaning (Photo by Paul Storch)