Army Corps of Engineers Makes Important Archaeological Find
05-25-07 - North America — , Alaska
Contrary to popular view, Inupiat Eskimos may have lived on the Snake River Sandspit in Nome, Alaska, long before the late 1800s Gold Rush brought thousands of people to the area. New evidence of early Native culture was recently uncovered by Alaska District.
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A construction contractor, working on a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers project to improve navigation at the Nome harbor, exposed a semi-subterranean house in 2005. Alaska District archaeologist Margan Grover excavated a second semi-subterranean house and trash midden (garbage dump) in 2006, recovering tools, pottery, carvings, and animal bones radiocarbon dated at about AD 1700.
While not old compared to other parts of the world, the 300-year-old find is significant because it reflects Native culture before contact with other people. Alaska was discovered by Russian explorers in 1741, at least 40 years after the Inupiat built these houses and crafted these tools. The archaeological evidence indicates that Native people lived at Nome long enough to build homes rather than just camping to hunt and fish.
"Until this find, people said that there were no Inupiat living on the site until after the Gold Rush," said Ms. Grover. "This confirms they were there before."
The Gold Rush started in 1898, quickly bringing more than 20,000 prospectors and opportunists to the northern beaches that became Nome. Today Nome, a community of 3,500 located 539 air miles northwest of Anchorage, is the supply, service, and transportation center of the Bering Strait region. Since Nome and 26 outlying villages are not connected by road to the rest of the state, the city's harbor is an important link in the region's supply chain.
Nome Harbor was one of the Corps' first navigation projects in Alaska. It was authorized in 1917 and construction of the original project began in 1919. In 2005, Alaska District started a $36 million project to relocate the harbor's entrance channel. The project also included building a new breakwater, adding a spur to the end of the causeway, building a sediment trap, and replacing the existing causeway bridge.
When the contractor cut through the Snake River sandspit to create the new entrance channel, he discovered the first house pit in the middle of the channel in July 2005. The second house pit and a trash midden near the house were uncovered in 2006 beneath seven feet of overburden on the east side of the entrance channel.
While contractors lined the entrance channel with rock in 2006, Ms. Grover began excavation. The National Historic Preservation Act requires that historical and archaeological discoveries at construction sites be removed, catalogued and conserved. "
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