Newsletter Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History February 2008 www.mnh.si.edu/arctic Number 15 NOTES FROM THE DIRECTOR By William Fitzhugh As in American politics and economics, 2007 was a watershed year for the ASC – a year of great change in our own programs, in the Smithsonian, and in the North. While I have been writing about Arctic warming for several years, a lecture cruise to the Chukchi Sea with Smithsonian Journeys on the Kapitan Khlebnikov in the middle of July (see story in Bergy Bits) brought the reality of change before my eyes. This is no longer talk and theory; it is real, and it’s having real impacts. The ‘steady-state’ Arctic we thought we knew is gone, and in the decades to come a real cause for the dynamism we have been discovering archaeologically will be played out in modern environmental and social change. How we will respond is the million-dollar question. It is remarkable that the coincidence of these changes is occurring together with the International Polar Year 2007-08. As the Smithsonian’s contribution to IPY/4 Igor Krupnik and I helped organize “Smithsonian at the Poles,” a 3-day conference of historians, anthropologists, biologists, and astronomers in early May. Assisted by Michael Lang and Scott Miller and others, and supported by SI central funds, the meetings were exciting and well-attended, and the anthropology and culture proceedings are already in press with articles by our entire ASC staff and research associates. Krupnik also has been a key fi gure in the international activities of IPY/4. A series of articles in the American Anthropological Newsletter (AN48(9):9-13 of 2007) by Myanna Lahsen, Timothy Finan, and Kathleen Galvin, raises interesting issues about anthropology and climate studies. Finan notes the failure of anthropologists to engage with cultural and social issues of climate change, perhaps due to social pressure and the stigma left over from the excesses of past environmentalism. These are interesting and provocative questions. It is clear we should be doing more, and we must. The ASC is exploring ways it can become more engaged in the climate-culture research and education enterprise. To date our most successful activity has been the exhibit Arctic: A Friend Acting Strangely, which closed at NMNH in early 2007 but has been touring in Canada as a PDF panel exhibit, with great success, and has a popular website at www.forces.si.edu/arctic. We are also exploring a more focused program of conferences, integrated fi eld programs, and publications linked to IPY/4 activities. On other fronts, the year has seen the departure of Larry Small and many senior Smithsonian offi cials in a ‘house-cleaning’ that has shaken the Institution to its foundations. Fortunately most of the loose mortar was in the Castle and not in NMNH or other bureaus, which remain strong, but struggling. The appointment of Cristián Samper as Acting Secretary has brought cheers and relief from all quarters, and re-direction to our core mission: research and education (see next article). Once again we feel welcome in the Castle and look forward eagerly to changes ahead, including the appointment of a new Secretary, possibly a new museum director, and four new curators in Anthropology. The year has also seen major progress in Anchorage. The building expansion of the Anchorage Museum is in full swing, and plans for transferring collections from NMAI and NMNH for the new galleries being planned by Aron Crowell with Ralph Applebaum Associates, to open in 2010, are well underway. This year Patricia Wolf retired as director of the Anchorage Museum and welcomed Jim Pepper Henry, formerly of NMAI, as her replacement. In recognition of Pat’s contributions to the SI and ASC, she was awarded the Smithsonian Bicentennial Prize. I’d like to close by thanking our entire staff and friends for the support and encouragement you have provided during the past year. As you will see from the reports in this issue that follow, there have been many accomplishments. We look forward to many more in the coming year as we approach our 20th anniversary year in 2008. Kapitan Khlebnikov at anchor off the north side of Wrangel Island July 13, looking north into an ice -free Arctic Ocean. FROM THE SECRETARY: LIVING UP TO THE HIGHEST STANDARDS By Cristián Samper, Acting Secretary, Smithsonian Institution One of my priorities since becoming Acting Secretary has been governance reform at the Smithsonian. As you know, in June, the Board of Regents adopted a comprehensive reform agenda as a result of the problems that were identifi ed by internal and external reviews earlier this year. These changes are taking place at a time of new practices and higher standards for corporate and non-profi t governance across America. The Smithsonian is respected because 2of our long history of excellence in research and education; we must also represent excellence in management, operations and oversight. We have an opportunity to become a leader in good governance, and I believe we are well on our way to achieving this goal. In this column, I want to give you an update of our progress and the priorities in coming months. I am pleased to report that 11 of 25 recommendations adopted by the Board of Regents have been completed, or are substantially complete, and we are on schedule to complete the rest by mid-2008. The specific changes that are being implemented are detailed in a “Governance Scorecard,” at www. si.edu/about/regents/scorecard.htm. Most of these changes relate to three areas: reforming the operations of the Board of Regents, improving communication and transparency, and reviewing existing policies and controls. A large number of the reforms relate to the duties, structure and operations of the board itself. The Regents amended their by- laws to create a new position for a chairman of the board that is separate from the position of chancellor [Roger W. Sant has been appointed to this position – ed.]. The chancellor has traditionally been the Chief Justice of the United States and presides over meetings of the full Board of Regents, whereas the chairman will serve as the main contact between the Regents and SI management. The board also established a new Office of the Regents that is independent of the Office of the Secretary. At the same time, the Regents have established two new permanent committees on governance and facilities, and leadership of all the board’s committees has changed. There is also an on-going, comprehensive review of governance models that may result in additional changes in the composition and operations of the Board of Regents next year. I have always felt that good communication is an essential part of good governance. This is why I have held so many town hall meetings in recent months and meet with SI’s directors on a regular basis. We have promoted more interaction between the Board of Regents and the directors of Smithsonian units and have begun holding meetings on key topics, such as the selection of the next Secretary. We have completed an overhaul of the Regents’ Web page, and the minutes of all board meetings are now available to the public. We also will be issuing a new policy on how the Institution responds to requests from the public and the press for records and documents. We are currently working on a comprehensive communications plan to make sure we reach our key audiences effectively, including advisory boards, members of Congress, donors and collaborators. Many of the problems identified revealed weaknesses in our policies and internal controls. Earlier this year, we adopted a number of interim policies and practices for travel and expenses to make sure we use our funds efficiently. I have heard it said that the concern with governance is a distraction from our core mission. But it is important to remember that our mission to increase and diffuse knowledge is best achieved when the activities that carry out and support this mission reflect fiscal responsibility, accountability, clarity and the highest ethical standards. Our unique status as a federal trust instrumentally makes the Smithsonian part of both the governmental and nonprofit worlds, both of which currently are experiencing decreased resources and increased public scrutiny. Because of the special place the Smithsonian holds in the hearts of Americans, we will always be held up to the highest standards as we strive to live up to our long-held reputation for both good quality and integrity. Good governance is not about imposing new rules or generating additional paperwork. It is about supporting and sustaining our mission. By effectively and responsibly managing our resources and operations, we will enhance our mission and better serve the public. This past year has been a difficult time for all of us who love this great Institution, and while change is never easy, it is made easier knowing that it will lead us to a better, stronger Smithsonian. [Edited and reprinted, with permission, from the December 2007 issue of The Torch newsletter for SI staff.] TABLE OF CONTENTS ASC Anchorage................................................................................3 Living Our Cultures, Sharing Our Heritag Pepper-Henry Appointed Head of Anchorage Museum Searching For Yalik, a “Lost” Alutiiq Village Journey to a Siberian Conference Living Our Cultures Conservation Project Patricia Wolf Receives Smithsonian Award 2007 Interns at ASC Alaska Exhibits..................................................................................8 Friend Acting Strangely Exhibit Returns to its Roots Gifts from the Ancestors The Lure of the Arctic Exhibit in Cincinnati Thin Ice Exhibited at Dartmouth Ocean Hall Update Basque Whaling Exhibit Opens in Boise Genghis Khan and the Mongol Empire Research..............................................................................14 International Polar Year 2007–2008 Steams Ahead! Project Siku Skin Boats in Siberia Aberdeen Initiates Northern Studies Fieldwork............................................................................19 Hare Harbor Basques: 2007 Excavations Nature Along the Gateways Corridor The Search for a Past Wraps Up Exploring Wider Deer Stone Horizons Bronze Age Burial Mound Excavation in the Hovsgol Aimag Ovoos and Ongons: Worship in the Darkhat Valley Documentation of Mongolia’s Deer Stones 2007 Outreach..............................................................................32 Return of a Killer Whale Crest Archaeological Conservancy Lecture Series Smithsonian at the Poles Greenlanders Demand Greater Support for the Arts Broadbent Lectures Jodie Ashini Visits Smithsonian Innu Collections Alaskan Iñupiat Visit British Museums Culture On Cloth Rides Again! Greenland National Day/Inuiattut Ullorsiorneq Interns..................................................................................40 Bergy Bits............................................................................42 Transitions...........................................................................46 Publications.........................................................................50 Thanks to our Sponsors, Interns, and Volunteers...........51 ASC Newsletter 3 ASC ANCHORAGE Glass facade partially covering the newly constructed addition to the Anchorage Museum. The Arctic Studies Center exhibitions and offices will occupy the entire second floor. Photo: Brian Steele. Jim Pepper-Henry An innovative new phase of this connection has been Alaska Native consultation during the conservation process. Involved so far in the conservation consultations have been Yupik skin sewer Elaine Kingeekuk from St. Lawrence Island, mainland Yup’ik cultural advisors Chuna McIntyre and Vernon Chimegalrea, Tlingit beader Cass Pook, and Tlingit carver Tommy Joseph. Jim Pepper-Henry LIVING OUR CULTURES, SHARING OUR HERITAGE: THE FIRST PEOPLES OF ALASKA ANCHORAGE EXHIBITION PROJECT REPORT By Aron L. Crowell The huge collaborative effort to create an Alaska Native cultural exhibition and Smithsonian research center in Alaska continues at an accelerating pace, with the 2010 opening only two years away. A new wing of the Anchorage Museum that will house the facility is now an elegant concrete skeleton, rapidly sheathing itself in fritted reflective glass. In October, we were able to take a hard-hat tour of the second level, where the Arctic Studies Center exhibit gallery and offices will be located. Amidst the beams and columns of the raw space, still exposed to the sky and dripping with rain, we could see the shape of things to come. Floor-to-ceiling glass cases will house almost 600 Alaska Native heritage objects from the collections of the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) and National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI). All will be on exhibition for the public, and at the same time available for hands-on examination and discussion by Alaska Native elders, artists, and scholars. A consultation room and recording studio for this work will be integrated into the gallery floor. The project is intended to provide an unprecedented level of access and interaction between Smithsonian collections and indigenous source communities, at the same time that it brings the results of this engagement to the visiting public through the exhibition, associated media, and web site (Sharing Knowledge, http://alaska.si.edu). Much of the current work in support of the project is taking place in Suitland, MD at the collections facilities of the NMNH and NMAI. At the Museum Support Center (NMNH), conservators Michele Austin-Dennehy, Landis Smith, and Kim Cobb are preparing the objects for travel and display, working in concert with registration technician Ryan Kenny. Anthropology Collections Director Jake Homiak is overseeing the NMNH loan preparation process, which is unprecedented in scale. At NMAI’s Cultural Resource Center, preparations for the exhibition are the responsibility of Project Manager Betsy Gordon, conservator Kelly McHugh and registration technician Heather Farley. The two teams will begin working with mount maker David LaTouche and his team from Benchmark in March. Anthropology curator Igor Krupnik is closely involved in review of the loan arrangements and conservation proposals. One of the signal principles of the project has been a high level of coordination with Alaska Native communities, from elders who advised on selection and who documented cultural meanings of the objects to the Alaska Native steering committee that has worked with curator Aron Crowell, assistant curator Dawn Biddison, and the Anchorage Museum to develop the design and content. PEPPER-HENRY APPOINTED HEAD OF ANCHORAGE MUSEUM By William Fitzhugh In October Jim Pepper-Henry left his Assistant Director’s post at the National Museum of the American Indian to take the position of Director of the Anchorage Museum. Jim’s work at NMAI had included extensive contacts and programs in Alaska, and so he hit the ground running, with the museum in the middle of its building expansion, about to open its new NSF-supported Yup’ik Science exhibit and preparing to receive the first of the Smithsonian’s collections. Jim’s experience in community programming, fund-raising, and administration gives him strong support for the new position. Shortly after his installation, a reception welcoming him featured his former boss, Rick West, the recently-retired founding director of NMAI. The scene marked a generation of change that began with the Indian Museum’s arrival in Washington and ended with one of its curators appointed to lead a museum that has given life to the Smithsonian’s new vision of cooperative research and shared knowledge. 4 ASC Newsletter SEARCHING FOR YALIK, A “LOST” ALUTIIQ VILLAGE By Aron L. Crowell Fieldwork by the Kenai Fjords Oral History and Archaeology Project focused this year on the rediscovery and testing of Alutiiq (Sugpiaq) village and camp sites in Nuka Bay, a deep, 25 km long embayment in Kenai Fjords National Park on the glaciated southern coast of the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska. The area, about 120 km west of Seward, is remote from any modern settlements. The rocky coast is cloaked with thick, old-growth spruce forests and the waters abound with sea otters, humpback whales, porpoises, seals, and sea lions. Four weeks of survey by small boat allowed us to map, test, and describe some 15 coastal sites up to 1000 years old, including six that were previously unknown. The Arctic Studies Center research program, developed in cooperation with Alutiiq descendant communities in Cook Inlet (Nanwalek, Port Graham, and Seldovia), is comparing archaeological data with oral traditions about former lifeways on the Kenai Fjords coast. Nuka Bay, the focus of our 2007 study, is remembered as a rich maritime hunting area where hundreds of people lived until the late 19th century. These included the great-grandparents of people who reside today at Nanwalek and Port Graham. Nuka Bay residents were traditionally called Ipugiakqak, meaning “sharp rocks” in reference to black slate from the area that was used to make knives and weapon points. We were especially interested in relocating and examining the village of Yalik, which figures prominently in the oral narratives. For example “The Hero of Yalik,” told by the late Walter Meganack, Sr. of Port Graham, relates the prowess of a warrior who sank enemy kayaks by swimming under them to pierce their skin covers with his knife. There are references to Yalik in historical documents as well. Alaska Commercial Company records refer to the village (there was an ACC store at Yalik in the early 1870s) and it is mentioned in parish records of the Russian Orthodox Church. According to the United States Census, there were 32 Native people living at Yalik in 1880, but none in 1890 – the settlement had by then been abandoned. A fold-out map that accompanied the 1880 census report shows a dot for the village on the south side of Yalik Bay, a small western arm of Nuka Bay. However, this location was unconfirmed. As part of our work in 2007 we carefully surveyed the shores of Yalik Bay, visiting and testing five archaeological sites in search of the historic village. The results of our investigations were both intriguing and enigmatic. All but one of the Yalik Bay sites is very small, and none appear to have been occupied during the 19th century. The only real candidate is located on the north shore, on land now owned by the Native village corporation of Port Graham. Here, half a dozen large, deep pits can be seen in the forest floor, the remains of semi-subterranean winter houses. Scattered smaller depressions represent underground food caches. However, none of our surface collections or test excavations (three 1 x 1 m test squares and 25 shovel tests) produced artifacts that would indicate that people were living at this village at any time during the 1800s. With the exception of one copper ring – which if made of native metal from the Copper River could easily date to the period before Russian and European contact – all of our finds were of traditional stone tools. Both here and at the other Yalik Bay sites there were no trade beads, imported ceramics, glass containers, buttons, iron tools or any of the other artifacts that would be expected in large numbers at a typical late 19th century Alutiiq village, particularly one with its own Alaska Commercial Company store. There were no log cabin ruins, only traditional semi- subterranean houses. Although radiocarbon dates are still pending, we expect to learn that all of the Yalik Bay settlements fall between about A.D. 1200 - 1800. There are several possible explanations for this apparent disjuncture between oral history, historic documents, and archaeology. Perhaps our archaeological work, which was a reconnaissance survey that did not include any intensive, large- scale excavations, simply failed to uncover historic evidence that is actually present. Further testing at Yalik Bay is certainly warranted, and we will ask Port Graham and the National Park Service for permission to conduct this work in 2009. Another possibility is that the sketchy historical records and century-old oral traditions are misleading. We do know that the Ivan Petroff, who complied the 1880 Alaska census, never traveled to the outer Kenai coast and that his data for the area can scarcely be considered reliable. None of the other Russian or American period documents describe the location of Yalik in any detail or show it on a map. And no elders alive today have personal familiarity with the outer coast region, except through recent visits sponsored by our project. Stories about Yalik have been passed down orally for several generations, losing specificity in the process. The most likely explanation lies in a confusion of place names. Elders acknowledge that the oral histories are unclear and that “Yalik” may be the same as “Aialik,” the name of an entirely different bay that lies much closer to Seward. In 2004, we excavated an Aialik Bay village site with abundant late 19th century trade goods and log cabin remains that would appear to be a perfect match for the “Yalik” of historic record. It may well be that some oral traditions (including “The Hero of Yalik”) date to pre-Russian times and genuinely refer to Nuka Bay and the old pre-contact village we investigated in 2007. Others of more recent vintage, about the lives and travels of great-grandparents, might very well refer to Aialik Bay and to the historic period village where we worked in 2004. Loading Zodiac for a day of coastal survey, Nuka Bay. Left to right: Forest Kvasnikoff, Aron Crowell, Rita Eagle. Photo: Mark Luttrell. ASC Newsletter 5 Future research in cooperation with the Native villages will continue to explore outer coast history, attempting to utilize and reconcile different strands of knowledge about the past. The story of Yalik/Aialik is one part of an emerging picture of indigenous culture, demography, migration, and adaptation in a coastal region where archaeology is still in an early exploratory phase. The research has been supported by the National Park Service, Wenner- Gren Fund for Anthropological Research, and Smithsonian Small Grants program. Members of the 2007 field team included: principal investigator Aron Crowell, Mark Luttrell (Seward), Rita Eagle (University of Alaska Anchorage), Forest Kvasnikoff (Port Graham and University of Alaska Southeast), Tim Johnson (Chugachmiut), Ann Ghicadus (Seward), and Gale Parsons (Pratt Museum, Homer), with help from Alutiiq student interns Josh Anahonak and Justin Malchoff. Crew on beach, Nuka Bay. Left to right: Mark Luttrell, Rita Eagle, Tim Johnson, Forest Kvasnikoff. JOURNEY TO A SIBERIAN CONFERENCE By Dawn Biddison After a few days navigating Moscow – meandering the streets, visiting museums and not eating at the McDonalds outside the Kremlin – and four nights/three days crossing Russia on the Trans-Siberian Railway, I attended the JSARGRA Third International Conference on Russian America, held in the Irkutsk region of south-central Siberia from August 8-12, 2007. The first two conferences were held in 1979 and 1987 in Sitka, Alaska. Conference sessions were held in Irkutsk, Shelikhov, and the open-air Taltsi Museum of Architecture and Ethnography near Listvyanka. Over 50 papers were presented on Russian and American history, archeology and anthropology by participants from France, the Czech-Republic, the United States, and the Siberian and Baltic regions of Russia. I was one of ten Americans in attendance and presented “Sharing Knowledge: Collaborative Study and Exhibition of the Smithsonian Alaska and Eastern Siberia Ethnology Collections” from the work by Aron Crowell and I on the new Smithsonian exhibit at the Anchorage Museum. Throughout the conference, trips to museums and cultural sites were made during afternoons and evenings, always accompanied by tables full of Russian food and vodka from our unflaggingly generous hosts. Our Irkutsk destinations included the Russian American Company building where American conference organizers Dave McMahan and Ty Dilliplane gave us a tour of an excavation site and the House-Museum of Volkonsky where we were treated to classical piano and song performances in the mid- 19th century salon of this exiled Decembrists home. The last two days of the conference were reserved for excursions. We had a day-long tour of Lake Baikal by train on the Trans-Siberian Railroad line with additional stops by bus at villages, churches and museums. On the last day, we traveled by bus to the village of Anga, childhood home of Saint Innocent of Alaska, in the Buryat Republic. At Anga, in the blazing heat and sun of a Siberian summer day, there was a reception – one of five held for us throughout the day – and traditional Russian dance performances. A stop was also made to view the Shishkino petroglyphs. The day culminated in feast held in a field given by our Buryat and Russian hosts where we battled the gnats to enjoy an abundance of food, including perfect plums and boiled sheep head, and an endless flow of vodka. In a ceremony that evening, Tlingit Kiksa’adi leader Ray Wilson and Tlingit weaver Terri Rofkar, along with three other “elders” from our group, were adopted into the Buryat. In a ceremony on the first conference day, Ray adopted Russian conference organizers Vladimir Tikhonov and Yury Lihkin into the Kiksa’adi Clan. During the course of the conference, the organizing committee drafted and passed by participant vote seven resolutions, including one to hold conferences every three years alternating between Russia and the U.S., with the next tentatively planned for 2010 in Sitka, Alaska. Another resolution was made “to support the initiative of the Taltsi Museum of Ethnography and Architecture in exploring the possibility of the reconstruction and establishment of a museum of the site of the Talicinskii Glassworks, founded by Erik Laxman and Alexander Baranov in 1784.” My journey continued after the conference to visit one of Asia’s nine most sacred places – the Buryat site Skala Shamanka (Shaman Rocks) on Cape Burkhan near the village of Khuzhir on Olkhon Island, Lake Baikal. Leaving behind the cozy 4-plex cabin with no electricity or running water and quiet evenings but for the calls of free-ranging cows and human warbling from a nearby karaoke joint, I made the long journey to St. Petersburg, well- versed in how not to be over-charged by taxi drivers despite my lack of Russian and ready for the grand museums and delicious Georgian cuisine that awaited me. Ty Dilliplane (left) and Dave McMahan (center) at an exca- vation site at the Russian American Company headquarters building in Irkutsk. Photo: Teri Rofkar. 6 ASC Newsletter LIVING OUR CULTURES CONSERVATION PROJECT By Landis Smith [Note: This article serves as an introduction to the project. Future articles will address aspects in depth.] Conservation for one of the most challenging and exciting ASC exhibits, Living Our Cultures, is well under way. Scheduled to open at the Anchorage Museum in April 2010, Smithsonian conservators are working to ensure the long-term preservation of some of the oldest and most extraordinary Arctic collections extant. At the same time, and in keeping with the overall philosophy of the exhibit, project conservators are committed to facilitating an unprecedented level of access to the objects for Alaska Native peoples. Most notably, ASC Alaska Director Aron Crowell is implementing an exhibit program in which requested objects can be removed from exhibit and taken to a specially designated room for close study, consultation, or other purposes. For conservators working on this project, the value of this access is constantly weighed against the physical risk to the objects in determining suitability for long-term loan. It is also recognized that it is often only through access that intangible aspects of objects - their meanings – are preserved. A special emphasis has been placed on finding creative solutions to exhibiting these objects so that they are both accessible and protected. The objects themselves present a great diversity of materials, technologies, histories, and aesthetics. The exhibit includes over 400 objects from the National Museum of Natural History and almost 200 from the National Museum of the American Indian, and represents nine major Alaska Native culture groups. The organization of the conservation project mirrors that of the exhibit; the work progresses by culture group, thus allowing the conservators to become familiar with the particulars of each. Also in keeping with the exhibit project is the centrality of Alaska Native advisors and consultants in the conservation treatment decision- making process. Much of the curatorial work with Native Advisory groups can be found on the ASC Sharing Knowledge website (http://alaska.si.edu/), a major resource for project conservators. Further consultations specific to the conservation of objects are an extension of this kind of collaborative effort and, to date, has been on of the most rewarding aspects of the project. Working with exhibit curators, advisors are located who can best consult on technology, use, care, handling protocols, and other cultural aspects of the objects that may affect conservation decisions and/or accurate documentation and presentation of the objects. Thus far our advisors include Chuna McIntyre, a Central Yup’ik artist, and Vernon Chimegalrea, a Central Yup’ik linguist, who traveled to the Washington, DC area in October 2007 to examine and consult on Yup’ik objects at both the NMNH Anthropology Conservation Laboratory and the Conservation Department at NMAI. Mr. McIntyre and Mr. Chimegalrea’s knowledge of Yup’ik material culture has proved invaluable to our project and understanding of the objects. In particular, the identification of materials in English and Yup’ik was illuminating, as was the contextualization of many of the objects in use. The demonstration of dance fans by a dancer as accomplished as Chuna McIntyre was a highlight, bringing into focus the how these important dance items cannot be fully understood with feathers and plumes missing. In November 2007, Elaine Kingeekuk, doll-maker from St. Lawrence Island, shared her expert knowledge of gutskin sewing in the execution of the repair of a NMAI gutskin parka, bringing with her repair materials as well as insights into the cultural landscape. Other gutskin parkas were viewed and discussed with Ms. Kingeekuk at NMNH, shedding light on the various conditions observed by the conservators. As a dollmaker, she was most excited to see a very old, and rare, dressed doll from her village on St. Lawrence Island, now in the NMNH collections. At her request, the doll is now included in Living Our Cultures. As the Living Our Cultures project continues over the next two years, conservators look forward to similar kinds of mutually beneficial interactions with Native advisors as we continue to learn more in our efforts to preserve the unique cultural heritage of Alaska Native communities. A special thanks to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for their generous grant to the NMAI, making the consultations possible, and to the NMNH Anthropology Department for additional support. From left to right: Vernon Chimegalrea, Chuna McIntrye, Landis Smith with Yup’ik collections at the MSC. Elaine Kingeekuk with Kelly McHugh inspecting dance fans. ASC Newsletter 7 2007 INTERNS AT ASC ALASKA By Dawn Biddison In the summer of 2007, ASC Anchorage welcomed four interns: Abby Chabitnoy, Nadia Jackinsky-Horrell, Alexandra Sprano and Hannah Voorhees. Abby Chabitnoy is currently pursuing a B.A. in anthropology and English at St. Vincent College in Latrobe, PA. Her great grandfather, originally from Kodiak Island, settled in Pennsylvania after attending the Carlisle Indian School. Working with research conducted with Sugpiaq Elders for the Looking Both Ways project, Abby prepared edited object-based discussions for the Sharing Knowledge web site and computer kiosks that will be part of the new Anchorage gallery. Nadia Jackinsky-Horrell (pictured in Interns), originally from Homer, is a doctoral student at the University of Washington, where her research examines cultural revitalization and how Alaska Native identities and memories are communicated through material culture. In addition to a season of archaeology fieldwork in Kenai Fjords, Nadia completed two prior internships with ASC Anchorage. For her third internship, she researched and wrote historical summaries for Yup’ik and Sugpiaq objects that will be in the Anchorage exhibition. Alexandra Sprano, born and raised in Anchorage, has volunteered at the Anchorage Museum since high school. She is currently a senior at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, pursuing a degree in Classics with a concentration in Middle East Studies. At ASC, Alexandra researched historical illustrations to contextualize objects for the Sharing Knowledge web site and computer kiosks in the new gallery. She will return for a summer 2008 internship to continue this work. Hannah Voorhees, a graduate student in cultural anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, spent her time at ASC working with oral history records from Sugpiaq communities of the Kenai Peninsula, collecting memories and knowledge about resource use and migration from Prince William Sound along the outer Kenai coast. This information will be combined with archaeological data to create an in-depth record of the human history of this understudied area. Living our Cultures project conservators: NMNH Anthropology Conservation Laboratory: Greta Hansen, Head of Conservation Michele Austin-Dennehy, ASC/AM Project Conservator Landis Smith, ASC/AM Project Conservator Kim Cullen Cobb, ASC/AM Project Assistant Conservator Molly Gleeson, Intern, UCLA/Getty Program in Archaeological and Ethnographic Conservation NMAI Conservation Department: Marian Kaminitz, Head of Conservation Kelly McHugh, ASC/AM Project Conservator Kari Kipper Undergraduate Intern, ASC/AM Project Abby Chabitnoy Hannah Voorhees Alexandra Sprano PATRICIA WOLF RECEIVES SMITHSONIAN AWARD By William Fitzhugh After many productive years as director of the Anchorage Museum of History and Art, Patricia Wolf stepped down this past fall and passed the baton to a new generation (see photo). Pat has been the ASC’s dear friend since the Inua exhibit was displayed at her museum in 1983 when she was Curator of Education. Pat’s invitation to host the ASC’s nascent Alaska office gave us a home and led to increasingly more robust commitments that now include the rolling loan of major collections from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and the National Museum of the American Indian, and the building of a new wing to display these collections and house the Center’s office (to be completed in 2010). In October, Director Paul Risser, on behalf of Cristián Samper, Acting Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, awarded Pat the Smithson Bicentennial Medal, carrying the following citation: Through her steadfast vision, devotion and skillful planning, Patricia B. Wolf created a permanent home for the Smithsonian in Alaska at the Anchorage Museum. Her tireless efforts revitalized the Institution’s one hundred and fifty year commitment to the study of Alaska Native peoples, cultures, languages, and art and provided new opportunities for Smithsonian collections, scholars, and public programs to inform and be informed by the Smithsonian- Alaska connection. Through these achievements, she has profoundly contributed to the fulfillment of James Smithson’s mandate for the increase and diffusion of knowledge. Pat will be remembered for energetic, feisty leadership which catalyzed museum expansion and delivered a string of fabulous exhibitions, some of which traveled and came to the Smithsonian. Her vision changed the face of Anchorage, advanced its cultural life, and moved Native American heritage and art from the periphery of public awareness to the central place it enjoys today. Pat Wolf (center) received the Smithsonian Bicenten- nial Medal from Paul Risser (right). Also pictured left to right: Aron Crowell and Bill Fitzhugh. 8 ASC Newsletter EXHIBITS ARCTIC: A FRIEND ACTING STRANGELY EXHIBIT RETURNS TO ITS ROOTS – OUTREACH IN THE CANADIAN NORTH By Karen Edwards Canadian IPY Secretariat www.ipycanada.ca The Natural History Museum opened the exhibit Arctic: A Friend Acting Strangely in April 2006 after three years of design, consultation, and development. The core concept of the exhibit was to portray ‘the human face of Arctic climate change’ through indigenous observations of change and how these changes are perceived by and directly affect Arctic residents. Five years ago when the exhibit was being developed, the causes, the drivers, and the prospective impacts of Arctic climate change were far less clear than they are today, after several major international studies, like the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA 2005) and the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC 2007). The name of the exhibit clearly reflects the contributions of Northern peoples. Inuit people often describe someone who is acting strangely as “uggianaqtuq” which is a term also used to refer to the increasingly unstable and unpredictable weather conditions. This type of unstable weather is being observed by scientists and experienced by residents throughout the entire Arctic region for the last several years. The exhibit title paraphrases this vision to show that the Arctic is indeed a friend to those, who live there. But the friend’s behavior is now becoming quite erratic, and it is a matter of growing concern—to indigenous Arctic people and polar researchers alike. Over its seven-month lifetime at the Smithsonian, thousands of visitors had a chance to hear the story of the changes in the distant Arctic areas for themselves from groups of scientists, visitors from polar regions, Congressional staffers, to personnel of foreign embassies in Washington. One of the original intents of the exhibit was to reach communities in the North and through a partnership with the Canadian International Polar Year (IPY) Secretariat in February 2007 this objective was realized. The larger exhibit was paired down to 19 panels and the content was translated into French and Inuktitut in order to be accessible to broader northern audiences. Three locations across the Canadian Arctic (Whitehorse, Yellowknife, and Iqaluit) were selected to host the Arctic: A Friend Acting Strangely Each host site complemented the exhibit with local research updates, art displays, and community network information. Whitehorse, Yukon The Yukon IPY Northern Coordinating Office and the Council of Yukon First Nations (CYFN) hosted Arctic: A Friend Acting Strangely in the CYFN gymnasium between March 12th and 23rd, 2007. Local enthusiasm for the exhibit extended its stay in Whitehorse for Earth Day on April 22nd. The display received approximately 75 to 100 visitors from across the Yukon including school children and local Yukon residents as well as visitors who were participating in the Canada Winter Games. The exhibit was well received by visitors: “Really well thought out! We must all work together to save our heritage and land for our grandchildren’s future.” “What a treat to see this exhibit – impressive to know that First Nations people lead the charge to improve ecosystems.” The exhibit was complimented with local climate change research materials from the Northern Climate ExChange (www.taiga.net/nce) and the Aboriginal and Northern Communities Action Plan as well as contributions from Yukon’s Environment department (www. environmentyukon.gov.yk.ca). There were also public outreach components added to the exhibit including a photographic display of the Porcupine caribou herd by Fritz Mueller (www.fritzmueller. com) and a DVD presentation Through Arctic Eyes: An Athabaskan View of Climate Change. The combination of exhibit and regional based materials were generated interest in school classes and the broader community. Yellowknife, Northwest Territories The Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre (PWNHC) officially opened the Smithsonian Institution exhibit on August 20, 2007 in conjunction with the Government of the Northwest Territories official kick-off of the International Polar Year. The exhibit’s opening also corresponded with the opening of the IPY GeoNorth 2007: The First International Circumpolar Conference on Geospatial Sciences and Applications in Yellowknife and the opening of the Arctic Quest art exhibit (another IPY endorsed education and outreach project - http://www.nwp100.com/) at the Heritage Centre. Thousands of visitors pass though the Centre every year from across the circumpolar regions, and over the summer and fall more than 10,000 visitors saw the exhibit. An unexpected outcome from the exhibit’s display in Yellowknife included interest from the Northwest Territories Literacy Coalition who serve adults across the Northwest Territories struggling with literacy. The Coalition had already decided to do a piece on climate change for their internet based interactive newspaper The Northern Edge and inquired about using the exhibit for their climate change issue. The content was a perfect compliment to create learning resources of interest to and plainly written enough for adult literacy students. The climate change issue will be an exciting resource for adult learners to help them A few of the 10,000 visitors who saw the Friend Acting Stragely exhibit in Yellowknife in Canada’s Northwest Territory. ASC Newsletter 9 GIFTS FROM THE ANCESTORS: ANCIENT IVORIES FROM THE BERING STRAIT By William Fitzhugh Several years ago Julie Hollowell interested the Princeton University Art Museum in mounting an exhibit of early Eskimo ivory art from the Bering Strait region. The PUAM had a small collection of objects from this region that had never been exhibited, so the idea of combining them with objects from other collections was appealing. However, Julie proposed the exhibit should be more than a reprise of earlier art-focused exhibits like Ancient Eskimo Ivories of the Bering Sea organized by Alan Wardwell for the American Federation of the Arts in New York City in 1986. Rather she wanted the exhibit to serve as a local case study in the broader field of ethical issues in the acquisition and use of archaeological art internationally. Bering Sea art is an excellent subject, especially for presentation in a university museum context whose education and preservation mission facilitates discussion about destruction of archaeological sites, looting, private ownership, and market forces. Eskimo art is by no means unique in this contested arena; but it is unusual in that much recent material, including Princeton’s collection, entered the private market after publication of the National Gallery of Art’s 1973 exhibition, The Far North: 2000 Years of American Indian and Eskimo Art, which vastly stimulated interest and sales, and passage of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act which gave Alaska Natives title to many of the lands on which the sites existed. Unlike recent cases of the importation and acquisition of foreign antiquities, the issue for Eskimo art is not its legality, since most of it has been excavated by people who own the sites; rather in this case it involves the ethnics of acquiring, publishing, and exhibiting materials that have been unscientifically excavated and used for personal profit. The burgeoning private excavation of these sites brought large amounts of early Old Bering Sea and Ipiutak art to the market. Initially some of the finest materials were purchased by institutions, but soon most academically-based institutions refused to purchase or accept such materials. Private dealers and collectors continued to acquire, and now some of their collections are coming to private and public museums, raising questions that will be addressed in the Princeton exhibit and its scholarly and public programs, in addition of course to presentation of exquisite art. Gifts from the Ancestors will include objects from the Alaska State Museum, American Museum of Natural History, Anchorage Museum, Eiteljorg Museum, Fenimore Art Museum, Field Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Native Heritage Museum of Anchorage, University of Pennsylvania Museum, Princeton University Art Museum, Russian State Oriental Museum, Sainsbury Center for Visual Arts, and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. Objects from 10-12 private collectors will also be displayed. The exhibit has been supported by a grant to the PUAM from the National Endowment for the Humanities as well as private sponsors and corporations. Educational programs have been planned in collaboration with the Native Alaska Arts Foundation with the generous assistance of Alice Rogoff. The exhibit will open at Princeton in fall, 2009, with a series of symposia and educational programs, including native dance and music performances and artists’ workshops. A comprehensive educational website is planned, and a full catalog will be published by PUAM and Yale University Press, with essays by leading scholars and native contributors. For the past two years William Fitzhugh has provided curatorial assistance to PUAM and to Julie Hollowell, who has done the lion’s share of the project organization and curation. Jonathan Pohl of PUAM was project manager initially and made important contributions until he left for another position. After that, local leadership has been taken on by Bryan Just, with enthusiastic support from Becky Sender, Jill Guthrie, Mary Cason, Caroline Harris, Janet Strohl-Morgan, and other members of the PUAM, led by Director Susan Taylor.Old Bering Sea artifacts from the Museum of Oriental Art, Moscow, Russia understand climate change not only in the NWT but across the Arctic. The on-line newspaper will be launched in Fall 2008. Iqaluit, Nunavut The Nunatta Sunakkutaangit Museum in Iqaluit welcomed Arctic: A Friend Acting Strangely December 15, 2007 and will host the exhibit until the end of February. The exhibit is enhanced with the addition of some of the museum’s collection sculptures as well as a video (provided by NOAA) that walks the visitor through the original exhibit at the Smithsonian. Since the exhibit opened, the museum has received several hundred visitors, a distinct increase from previous years. Two school groups (middle and high school) have toured the exhibit, and they are anticipating at least two more groups in February as well as a group from the Arctic College Environmental Technology and Teachers education programs. There have been many requests from smaller Arctic communities also interested in hosting the exhibit and the Canadian IPY Secretariat will be considering community partnerships, licensing, and funding options in the coming months. THE LURE OF THE ARCTIC EXHIBIT IN CINCINNATI BRINGS ARCTIC BEAUTY, AND A PRIVATE COLLECTION TO PUBLIC DISPLAY By W. Roger Fry [Editor’s Note: Through Glenn Markoe, Igor Krupnik and Bill Fitzhugh were recently introduced to Roger Fry and his exhibition in Cincinnati and were struck by his wonderful collection. We asked him to give us a report, which follows.] My wife, Pat Fry, and I were very pleased to have been able to loan over 200 ethnographic objects from Alaska, Canada, and Greenland from our personal collection to the Cincinnati Art Museum, for display. The exhibit, titled The Lure of the Arctic: Eskimo and Inuit Artifacts from the W. Roger and Patricia K. Fry Collection, was up for almost three months, from October 20, 2007 to early January 2008. This provided an opportunity for us to communicate to museum visitors, through the unique Native objects, something about the people of the Arctic, their sometimes bountiful food sources, hunting, domestic and spiritual life. At the exhibit, we met visitors who had traveled to places as distant as Barrow, the Yukon/ 10 ASC Newsletter Kuskokwim Delta, Greenland and Siberia. People asked great questions about living conditions, schooling, whale hunting and other things. I enjoyed a question from a woman who, after hearing about low temperatures, high winds and long nights, asked why on earth the early inhabitants didn’t simply move south! The Cincinnati Art Museum, through the efforts of Glenn Markoe, Curator of Classical and Near Eastern Art, and Art of Africa and the Americas, Aaron Betsky, the new museum director, and the museum staff, presented the exhibit really well. The lighting, labeling, and object spacing in beautiful glass cases were great. The contrast to the manner in which the collection has been displayed in our small farm house was most noticeable. There were no kayaks, harpoons or seal nets hanging from the ceiling, or serving platters filled with ulus! Most of all, it was an opportunity to tell adults and youths alike something about a wonderful but fragile part of the world and the people who have adapted to it so well. It provided a time to have field scientists like Lonnie Thompson, of the Byrd Polar Research Center at Ohio State University, talk on the subject of our changing world. We also owe a special thanks to Bill Fitzhugh of the Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center who came to the museum in November 2007 for a public talk, sharing his insight and knowledge of the Arctic. Igor Krupnik, similarly, came in December 2007 to see the installation and provide those of us who joined him on the walk-through with yet more valuable, and much appreciated, information. During the course of the exhibit, many asked why we focused on the Arctic. The short response is as follows: Our interest in Eskimo (Inuit) objects evolved from an early fascination with the American West and its indigenous people. With the passage of time, Pat’s and my interest moved further to the North. The Eskimo people of Alaska’s coastal villages and the Inuit people of Northern Canada and Greenland added elements we had not seen before, including an environment uninhabitable by our mid-western standards. Semi-subterranean dwellings of whale ribs and sod, heated by a single dished out steatite seal oil lamp with a saw tooth shaped wick of Arctic cotton, or an igloo of blocks of snow, were home to these people. I had an opportunity to visit the Native people who occupied these homes at an earlier time while in Point Hope in the 1990s. Although it was August, temperatures in that part of the Arctic dipped to the mid 30s and the cold north wind blew a gale. Arriving from the 90 degree temperatures of the Midwest, I brought along a baseball hat and one or two long sleeved shirts for warmth! Even then, the land spit which is Point Hope was eroding into the dark waters of the Arctic Ocean where, someday, it will be no more. It was in this world that these people lived, raised children, honored the spirits, hunted the whale during its annual migration along the coast and created functional and beautiful objects which all relate, in some way, to their subsistence life-ways. Creativity and human ingenuity were limitless. Form and function were in harmony. Life itself, and that of the village, depended upon the construction and utilization of implements that did for these people what they were intended to do. The failure of a harpoon line cut in a spiral fashion from the hide of a bearded seal, or the sinew threads that held together the hides that made up the water tight covering of a kayak, or a bow made of antler strengthened with hind leg sinew of a caribou could mean the difference between life and death, and often did. Almost all of these 18th, 19th and early 20th century objects are now gone from the Arctic and dispersed throughout the modern world, mostly in museum storage facilities, not on display or well understood. We were, however, pleased that the Cincinnati Art Museum included in its Arctic exhibit, eight objects from its holdings that originated from Edward Nelson’s explorations of Alaska in the late 1870s. The Museum received these objects – wooden bowls, grass baskets, and fish skin containers – through exchange with the Smithsonian ‘National Museum’ (today’s NMNH) back in the 1890s; yet they had not ever been on display. It was interesting to learn from Bill and Igor’s stories that only a small percentage of the 8,000 or so objects collected by Nelson have been displayed by the Smithsonian, although representative pieces will be loaned to the Anchorage Art Museum within the next year and should make a wonderful exhibit. Even though the majority of objects brought out of the Arctic are in public collections, a substantial number have remained in private hands. Many were taken to Europe to form parts of curio collections, not valued as art or important ethnographic pieces. By chance, we found ourselves in a unique opportunity at a time when a few older private collections were being broken up and placed on the market. At the time, these objects had not been recognized for their visually pleasing and artistic qualities. Our current Arctic collection now contains many hundred ethnographic objects from the North coming from several places in Alaska, such as Gambell, Savoonga, Point Hope, Nome, King Island, and also from Canada and Greenland. Many of them are true masterpieces of native ingenuity and art produced in the late 1800s and early 1900s. We enjoyed collecting these objects over the years and displaying them where others could learn and better understand truly unique northern cultures and people. We are very hopeful that many enjoyed and learned from the effigies so important in the hunting of whale, the hide scrapers with flint blades for preparing seal and walrus skins for the making of clothing and kayak coverings, snow beaters for removing newly fallen snow from outer garments before entering the warmer semi-subterranean homes or igloos (30 or 35 degrees!), snow shovels made of marine mammal scapulas, snow goggles to prevent snow blindness by reducing the glare of the sun slanting off the snow and ice in the long spring days of the North’s high latitudes, toggle head harpoons which enabled the hunters to retrieve game, ulus, net floats, masks to honor the spirit worlds, and a multitude of other objects of wood, walrus ivory, sinew, hide and bone that made life in the Arctic possible and by some definition hard for us to understand, comfortable and rewarding. Igor Krupnik (left) takes in the Lure of the Arcitc exhibit during his visit with W. Roger Fry (front) and Ed Maruska (right). ASC Newsletter 11 Some photos from the Lure of the Arctic exhibit are available on the Cincinnati Art Museum website at www. cincinnatiartmuseum.org. Individual photos of many of the objects in the exhibit are displayed on the Splendid Heritage website under “Fry Collection” at www.SplendidHeritage.com. Anyone with questions or observations or who would like objects loaned for educational exhibits may email us at wrf7920@aol.com. an Inuit-inspired hunting story, evoking the ingenuity and artistry with which the Inuit make their objects of daily life and their interconnection with the Arctic environment and Inuit culture. At the time of the exhibition’s showing in March 2007, Dartmouth College hosted the 2007 Artic Science Summit week, the main international gathering of Arctic scientists associated with the official opening of the International Polar Year (IPY) 2007–2008. This meeting drew over two hundred scientists, engineers, and policy makers to Hanover to discuss issues and scientific projects affecting the polar region of the north. The opening reception at the Hood Museum helped reinforce that those on the front lines of climate change are the Inuit. Their voices and their observations of the environment need to be part of the dialogue that leads to policy change for not only the Arctic, but for the world. Thin Ice was generously funded by the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding, the Evelyn Stefansson Nef Foundation, the Kane Lodge Foundation, the Ray Winfield Smith 1918 Fund, and the Leon C. 1927, Charles L. 1955, and Andrew J. 1984 Greenebaum Fund. The beautiful 80-page exhibit catalog featuring numerous color illustrations and several text entries has been produced jointly by the Hood Museum and the University Press of New England. THIN ICE EXHIBITED AT DARTMOUTH By Katherine W. Hart and A. Nicole Stuckenberger At the beginning of 2007, the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College, also the home of the Institute of Arctic Studies at the John Sloan Dickey Center of International Understanding and one the world’s most important polar rare book collections, mounted an exhibition on the impacts of global warming on indigenous people of the north. THIN ICE: Inuit Traditions within a Changing Environment celebrated International Polar Year 2007–2008 and presented Dartmouth College’s collection of Inuit art and artifacts—much of which has not been seen by the public for many years. Its purpose was to show these collections within the context of Inuit lifeways, to demonstrate how aspects of their traditional culture—hunting and their relationship to weather and climate, or sila—are being challenged by global climate change, and to explore how Inuit perceive of their environment and changes therein. The Hood Museum of Art worked closely with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History’s Arctic Studies director William Fitzhugh and curator Igor Krupnik in the preparation of Thin Ice, drawing particularly on NMNH’s 2006 exhibition Arctic: A Friend Acting Strangely. The latter phrase referred to one Inuit description of the changes in weather precipitated by recent climate change. The short film that was presented at the entrance to the Hood’s exhibition, Eyewitness to Change: Inuit Observations on Climate Change, was borrowed from the Smithsonian and produced by Random Video for A Friend Acting Strangely. Dartmouth’s Thin Ice was curated by cultural anthropologist Nicole Stuckenberger, who was the Stefansson Post Doctoral Fellow at the college’s Institute for Arctic Studies, directed by Ross Virginia, from 2005 through 2007. Five years before she came to Dartmouth, she spent fourteen months living in the Inuit community of Qikiqtarjuaq in the Canadian territory of Nunavut. While she was there, the people shared their observations and stories and took her on camping and hunting trips out on the land. Drawing on the knowledge they gave her, Dr. Stuckenberger presented Dartmouth’s collections through the prism of hunting, technology, social, and religious life and the profound Inuit connection to sila, and to the animals of the Arctic region. Inuit voices were heard in a series of interviews by a Dartmouth student in the exhibition’s first room and via an interactive computer program in the second. Dr. Stuckenberger further linked the exhibition’s objects through The cover of the beatifully illustrated exhibit cata- log for the Thin Ice exhibit. OCEAN HALL UPDATE By Stephen Loring The public might think, given the imposing façade of the National Museum of Natural History, that a bountiful expanse of exhibition space lay within, not realizing that research and administrative offices, collection storage facilities, and public accouterments like shops and restaurants substantially diminish the available floor-space for displays. Sadly, in recent years, perennial museum favorites, including the North and South American ethnology displays, the North American mammal life-group settings, and the bird hall have all been closed and dismantled. But all is not moribund within the museum’s walls. Far from it! In part the unprecedented deconstruction of the exhibition spaces at NMNH has been to make way for a grand new concept: the Ocean Hall. In collaboration with NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and with significant Congressional support, NMNH has begun the largest renovation of exhibition halls in the museum’s history. Scheduled to open in September 2008 the new Ocean Hall will be the crown-jewel in the museum’s new Ocean Science Initiative, a national science education outreach initiative that will, in the words of former NMNH director (now acting SI Secretary) Cristián Samper, “demonstrate how the ocean is intrinsically connected to other global ecosystems and to our daily lives.” Samper further 12 ASC Newsletter BASQUE WHALING EXHIBIT OPENS IN BOISE By William Fitzhugh This fall the Basque Museum in downtown Boise, Idaho, opened a special exhibit, Basque Whaling. Curated by Loni Manning, with assistance from an enthusiastic team including writer Christine Echeverria Bender, and director Patty Miller, and with encouragement and financial assistance from Ray Aspiri, the exhibit features the Basques’ little-known 16th century whaling enterprise that was one of the earliest successful European commercial ventures in the Americas. Beginning in the 1530s Basque whalers and fishermen visited the coasts of Newfoundland, Labrador, and Quebec each year until the 1590s, when competition from Dutch, French, and English and declining whale stocks curtailed this profitable enterprise. The displays document the rise of Basque ship-building and whaling technology developed during the medieval period as Basque fishermen expanded their nautical skills and equipment in the Bay of Biscay and learned to hunt large whales, becoming the first Europeans to do so. Following the discovery of whaling grounds in the western Atlantic, Basques moved their operations overseas and established scores of whaling stations along the Strait of Belle Island and Gulf of St. Lawrence. A dramatic reconstruction of a Basque harpooner striking a whale provides the exhibit’s central focus, together with an array of replica whaling harpoons and implements from the Basque whaling sites at Red Bay, Labrador. Text panels and illustrations provide background on the history of Basque whaling, enlivened by illustrations from the National Geographic Magazine feature story from the 1970s. The exhibit also notes our excavations at Hare Harbor, Quebec. I visited the exhibit shortly after it opened and met the many wonderful people who helped produce it, including the artists who created the sculpture and harpoon replicas. The museum is located on a street in Boise that has “Basque” restaurants, shops, and other businesses, creating a mini-Basque ‘quarter’ that promotes Basque culture and its cuisine and crafts. Boise has been a center of Basque population since sheepherding began in this part of the West after the 1850s. The museum plans to offer the exhibit to other Basque population centers in western U.S. where this chapter of Basque history is as unknown as it had been previously in Boise. Congratulations to the Boise Basques! Harpooner and whale sculpture center- piece at the Basque Museum in Boise. notes that “there is also growing awareness about the fragile health of the ocean [and that the] Ocean Hall will also address critical issues facing the ocean.” At over 28,000 square feet the Ocean Hall will occupy the largest of the three axial hallways radiating out from the Rotunda. Exhibition design calls for a complex weaving of stories and exhibits about the origins, history, and diversity of life in the world’s oceans many to feature the unparalleled museum collections (perhaps the largest in the world) of marine organisms and fossils. Although it was mostly Anthropology exhibition space that was dismantled to make way for the new Ocean Hall, initial plans did not include any significant anthropology component. Following a reorganization of the upper-echelons in Education and Public Programming at the Museum and after repeated and persistent lobbying by Smithsonian Anthropologists including Adrienne Kaeppler, Dan Rogers, William Fitzhugh and Stephen Loring concessions were forth-coming and have now coalesced around several displays including 1) “Ocean Splendors”, a display of stunning ocean-themed objects from cultures around the world (including Micronesian paddles, Yup’ik masks, African clothing, ship-models and fishing equipment); 2) “The Spirit World of North Alaskan Whalers”; and 3) “The Salmon-Fishing Cultures of the North Pacific”. Of the three, by far the most substantial is the salmon fishing display which is being curated by Stephen Loring and developed in close cooperation with fishery scientists, Northwest Coast and Washington State native communities, and consultation with anthropology colleagues including Charles Luckmann (Skagit Valley College) and Chuck Smythe (NPS). The FABULOUS and never-to-be-sufficiently-praised NMNH exhibition team working on the exhibit includes Jill Johnson (Ocean Hall exhibition manager), Sarah Grusin (writer), David Wiley (exhibition design), and Paul Rhymer (fabrication). “Anchoring” the Salmon Fishing Cultures of the North Pacific display and vying for the attention of all who enter the hall will be a newly commissioned Northwest Coast ocean-going cedar dug- out canoe. Around the world there is a resurgence of interest in indigenous watercraft in communities as widely-dispersed as the Mik’maq, Aluttiq, Native Hawaiian, Maori, and Greenland Inuit. But nowhere has this revival of interest in traditional ocean-going watercraft been as intensive and sustained as it has been along the Pacific Northwest Coast, from Oregon to Alaska, where community commitment and pride has flourished in a renaissance of canoe culture. Recognition of the ancient and intractable links to the Ocean that characterize NWC communities led Stephen Loring to contact long-time Smithsonian ally and associate Dr. Rosita Worl (President of Sealaska Heritage Institute (SHI) and former NMAI trustee) about the possibility of commissioning a new NWC canoe for the Ocean Hall exhibit. Worl’s enthusiasm and support for the project, on behalf the Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian people of Southeast Alaska, has been unflagging. The log for the canoe carving was donated by Sealaska Corporation, which held a tree ceremony when the cedar was felled in April on Prince of Wales Island. During the ceremony, thanks and appreciation were extended to the tree, an offering of food prepared, and a blanket and feathers was set out to catch the tree and ensure its safety in falling. A statement of the Smithsonian’s appreciation and gratitude prepared by Cristián Samper was read at the ceremony. Rosita and the SHI arranged for noted Tlingit artistan and craftsman Doug Chilton (Yaa nak.ch) to receive the canoe carving commission, and he was in attendance when the canoe log was harvested, and he made an address to the tree’s spirit at the ceremony. Chilton lives in Juneau and is a Tlingit of the Raven moiety, Deisheetaan Clan, Raven House of Angoon. Using traditional tools and techniques Chilton, who is being assisted in the canoe construction project by Tlingit artist Donald Gregory, is well on his way towards completion of the canoe. It is hoped that there will be a triumphant paddle of the canoe up the Potomac to its new home in Washington in April 2008. ASC Newsletter 13 GENGHIS KHAN AND THE MONGOL EMPIRE By William Fitzhugh Early in 2007 Don Lessem of DinoDon Inc. posted a website announcing a major exhibit devoted to the life and legacy of Genghis Khan (www.genghiskhanexhibits.com). The posting caught my eye because I had been thinking about how to organize an exhibition on Mongolia for several years. As those familiar with the ASC know, the Smithsonian has been conducting anthropological and environmental research in Mongolia since 2002. An exhibit on Genghis Khan could inform Americans about a little-known historical figure who created one of the largest empires in history. It could also help change misconceptions that nomadic societies have been minor players in world history. As we learn more about the archaeology and history of the steppe, the role of nomadic societies in stimulating widespread change becomes apparent. For too long we have viewed steppe incursions on settled societies as ‘barbaric’ affronts to civilization. As Asian scholarship advances, the depredations perpetrated by nomadic peoples upon settled populations of China, Western Asia, and Europe is becoming balanced by knowledge of how the Mongol Empire enriched these civilizations by sharing ideas, expanding trade, and stimulating the movement of peoples, goods, and ideas. Not being primary producers of materials, Mongols certainly appreciated them and encouraged contacts, exchanges, and innovation. In the early stages of the Mongol Empire, this was experienced by the peoples and societies of Asia and the Middle East. However, it was not long before the Mongol winds reached Europe, shaking its medieval church-bound foundations and stimulating the roots of the Renaissance. In so doing, the Mongols helped lay the foundations of the modern world. Just as the Mongol invasions of the 13th century reprised thousands of years of steppe invasions that came with the domestication of the horse, the world today is experiencing new challenges in this part of the world. As in earlier times, it is perilous for the West to ignore developments in the East or attribute them to the actions of religious fanatics. Genghis Khan and the Mongol Empire will present the latest scholarship about the founder of the Mongol Empire (ca. 1200- 1400) and its influence on the rest of the world. Like the Vikings (ca. 750-1050), the Mongol emergence initially owed much to the development of military hardware – in the Mongol case of horseback cavalry rather than dragon boats – and like the Vikings, their subsequent impact depended on encouraging trade and contacts. There were major differences too. The Mongol empire expanded and governed with a highly centralized leadership and established set of goals and practices whereas Vikings for the most part had little to do with the administration of occupied territories; they merely extracted tribute in the form of wealth and slaves. And there were different endings. Vikings eventually became Christians and grew to be more like their European neighbors than their conquered lands became ‘viking’ while in the Mongol case the conquered lands had little influence on the subsequent history or culture of Mongolia, and the Mongol era did not produce change that drastically altered the later history of those lands. These and other ideas will be explored in the exhibit opening in mid-2009, probably at the Denver Museum of Natural Science, and will travel to Houston, Fort Worth, Seattle, and other locations. Artifacts in the exhibit are coming from collections in Mongolia, Inner Mongolia (China), and Russia to represent the culture of Genghis’ times, the Yuan Dynasty of his grandson Kublai Khan, and the Golden Horde. The exhibit will present the rise of Genghis and foundation of the Mongol state, the expansion of its power throughout Asia and the Middle East, and its legacy in succeeding centuries. The story will be presented with period fabrications and large-scale photography, sound-scapes, and artifacts of ethnography, archaeology, art, and literature. The accompanying publication, which will be more book than catalog, will cover the same material as the exhibit and is edited by Morris Rossabi, William Honeychurch, and William Fitzhugh, with project management from Abigail McDermott and editorial and design assistance from Tish O’Connor, and Dana Levy of Perpetua Press. More than thirty-five authors have prepared texts and contributed illustrations. Negotiations with potential publishers are ongoing, and the intended audience is the general reader and student of history. The exhibit is being organized for a broad public with young viewers in mind especially. The editorial team is also advising the exhibit and its script and is cooperating with public programs being developed by Ganna Natsag and his team of artists, musicians, dancers, and performers. Films, seminars, and symposia will accompany the venues, and we hope the exhibition will stimulate a wide variety of Mongol-related activities, enhancing public awareness and knowledge while also making a lasting contribution to Mongol people and their institutions. Like most Vikings, Genghis may not have been all ‘Mr. Nice-guy’, but he and the empire he founded were not ‘beserkers’ all the time! A reconstruction of the invading Mongol army produced by DinoDon, Inc. Mongolian herdsmen photographed by Dr. James Bosson, one of the publications con- tributing writers, during his travels. Photo: James Bosson 14 ASC Newsletter RESEARCH INTERNATIONAL POLAR YEAR 2007–2008 STEAMS AHEAD! By Igor Krupnik On March 1, 2007, after several years of planning and preparation, the International Polar Year (IPY) 2007–2008 was formally inaugurated at the main Opening Ceremony at the Palais de la Découverte in Paris, France. This update, the fifth in the series published by the ASC Newsletter since 2003, covers major developments in 2007 and addresses some of the planned IPY-related activities for 2008 and beyond. The Opening Events In January 2007, the IPY Joint Committee (JC) inaugurated a new integrative outline of the IPY science program. The 79-page document named “The Scope of Science for the International Polar Year 2007–2008” was co-authored by a 25-member team under the leadership of Ian Allison, one of two JC Co-Chairs. It was published by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in Geneva as its Technical Document No. 1364. The ‘Scope’ document has 12 chapters, including six featuring official IPY science themes (‘Status of the Polar Regions,’ ‘Change,’ ‘Global Linkages,’ ‘New Frontiers,’ ‘Vantage Point,’ and ‘Human Dimension’). It also includes an Appendix listing all 228 endorsed IPY projects, as of February 2007, in science, data management, education and outreach. All sections on social and human studies in the ‘Scope’ document were written by Grete Hovelsrud and myself. The ‘Scope’ document was released in February 2007, on the eve of the official launch day for IPY 2007–2008 (see: http://216.70.123.96/images/uploads/ LR*PolarBrochureScientific_IN.pdf). Since the fall 2006 and, particularly, since the beginning of 2007, the main IPY office in Cambridge, UK, as well as many national secretariats, major funding agencies, and public groups, have been fervently preparing numerous public events to supplement the official IPY opening on March 1st, 2007 in Paris. Eventually, more than 20 countries organized their national launch venues (see the full list at http://www.ipy.org/index.php?/ipy/ detail/launch/) between January 15th and March 15th, 2007. Many nations, like Canada, Norway, and the U.S. held several launches of IPY at various sites that featured public meetings, science sessions, press-conferences, music concerts, life satellite links to the national research stations on ice sheets and vessels at sea. The European Parliament held the European ‘IPY launch’ in Strasbourg on February 26th. The official International Opening Event in Paris on March 1st, 2007 was a joint venture of the IPY Joint Committee and two official sponsors of IPY, the International Union for Science (ICSU) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Readers may check numerous press releases and life reports from the Paris IPY opening as well as from many launch events archived on the main IPY website at www.ipy.org and the national IPY sites. Of the many IPY launches, perhaps of unique symbolic importance was the opening of the ‘Indigenous Peoples’ International Polar Year’ in the Norwegian arctic town of Kautokeino/Guovdageaidnu on February 14th, 2007. The town in the heart of the Sámi territory has a special role in the IPY history as the site of one of the first IPY observation stations in 1882–1883. The launch organized by the Sámi University College, Nordic Sami Institute, International Centre for Reindeer Husbandry, and other local institutions drew a wide range of Sámi visitors, local people, school children, educators, policy makers and researchers (see http://www.ip-ipy.org/programme/cms/109). A beautiful tri-lingual two-year calendar for 2007-2008 in Sámi, English, and Russian, was printed for the event. It was illustrated by historical photographs of the local Sámi people and landscapes taken by the IPY-1 observer in Kautokeino, Sophus Tromholt, during his work in 1882–1883. 2007: The IPY Rising Tide Many IPY 2007–2008 activities started in winter 2007 or even in fall 2006, and planning and logistics for them were put in place even earlier by IPY project teams and national agencies (see: http:// www.ipy.org/index.php?/ipy/detail/has_ipy_already_started/). Still, this IPY may perhaps be remembered for its relatively slow start. The main reason was the delay in funding allocations by many national IPY programs. In fact, funding announcements kept coming during spring and early summer 2007. For example, the official list of 44 funded projects under the Canadian IPY program, the largest in terms of new money, was disclosed on March 1st, 2007, only at the opening ceremony at the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Gatineau, Québec. Many IPY project participants learned about their funding status long after the official IPY opening date. In the U.S., funding for IPY science projects comes from various agency allocations, the last of which, under the NSF ‘Humans in the Polar Regions’, was not announced until August 2007. Overall, some 80 IPY projects, have been funded by various U.S. agencies (primarily by NSF, also by NASA, NOAA, DOI, and others), including over 20 projects, according to the latest count, in social science and indigenous studies (see the full list of U.S.-funded projects at www.ipy.gov, ‘Funded Research’). The implementation of many studies in some other countries was similarly delayed because of the funding uncertainty and several IPY projects did not become operational until late 2007. For more details of the IPY 2007–2008 social science projects see my review of IPY activities published in the IASSA Newsletter, Spring-Summer 2007 at http://www.iassa.gl/newsletter/ news07_1.pdf). In addition, many IPY 2007–2008 activities are currently operating through other channels, like conferences and The new science outline for IPY 2007–2008, The Scope of Science (2007). The official U.S. opening ceremony for IPY 2007- 2008 (February 26, 2007) in the ‘old’ National Academies building in Washington, D.C. ASC Newsletter 15 workshops, student training, educational and public events, and publications. The list of such activities, both already completed and forthcoming is very impressive. For example, in March 2007, the Institute of Arctic Studies at Dartmouth College and the U.S. Army’s Cold Regions Research and Engineering Lab (CRREL) in Hanover, NH jointly hosted a major IPY-related international event, Arctic Science Summit Week 2007. For that meeting, the Institute and the Hood Art Museum in Hanover organized an exhibit titled Thin Ice: Inuit Traditions Within a Changing Environment, and produced a beautiful catalog compiled by A. Nicole Stuckenberger (see http://hoodmuseum.dartmouth.edu/exhibitions/thinice/; see repot also in this issue). In May 2007, the Smithsonian hosted a two-day interdisciplinary symposium “Smithsonian at the Poles: Contributions to IPY Science” in Washington, DC. (Krupnik, this issue). In October 2007, the Institution hosted another international symposium co-funded with NSF, “Making Science Global: Reconsidering the Social and Intellectual Implications of the International Polar and Geophysical Years.” This event focused on the history of IPY science; and was organized by the National Air and Space Museum curators, David DeVorkin and Roger Lanius. The 57th Annual Arctic Science Conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Anchorage, Alaska in September 2007 was strongly focused on IPY; and had four social and human health-oriented sessions. During the same days, the International Polar Heritage Conference, ‘Protection and Preservation of Scientific Bases in the Polar Regions,’ (IPY project #135) took place in Barrow, Alaska, while another polar heritage conference associated with IPY, “Polar Productions - Histories, Concepts and Visions of the North,” was held by the ‘Foreign North’ program and the Bildmuseet at the Umeå University in Umeå, Sweden. Social science topics in IPY were very strongly presented at the “Sustained Arctic Observing Network” (SAON) meeting, organized jointly by the Swedish and Canadian IPY committees in Stockholm, Sweden in November 2007. Numerous thematic sessions associated with IPY 2007–2008, primarily in earth sciences, were run at the Annual Meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in San Francisco in December 2007. The list goes on and on. Overall, there will be plenty of IPY- related meetings and other activities to keep us booked for several years to come (see the IPY calendar at http://calendar.arcus.org/ upcomingevents.html and the official U.S. IPY website at www. us.ipy.gov . What Is Next for IPY 2007–2008? Whereas scientists from many nations worked hard in the IPY trenches, several groups have already started planning for the concluding events of IPY 2007–2008 and even for some post-IPY activities. The key players, again, were the Joint Committee (JC), IPY Program Office (IPO), ICSU, WMO, as well as several national IPY committees. At its fourth meeting in September 2006, the JC agreed that IPY 2007–2008 has to be completed with a series of events in 2009–2011, including a culminating science conference or even an ‘IPY Congress.’ Letters have been sent to the National IPY Committees to solicit ideas for prospective venues for such a conference in 2009 or 2010. The JC also recommended that a major IPY event should be held every two years, with the first to take place in summer 2008 (a ‘mid-IPY’ conference), the next in summer 2010, and a third in 2012. The aim of the first meeting in 2008 is to review the progress in IPY research and to identify key issues in data processing, analysis, and post-IPY publications. One of the already-accomplished achievements of this IPY is the growing partnership between two major polar science organizations, SCAR (Science Committee on Antarctic Research) and IASC (International Arctic Science Committee) both of which have been actively involved in IPY planning and implementation. SCAR had planned to hold its biennial Open Science Conference in St. Petersburg, Russia on July 8-11, 2008 and it agreed to make it a joint SCAR-IASC ‘mid-IPY’ conference titled “Polar Research - Arctic and Antarctic Perspectives in the International Polar Year.” The program will feature over 30 thematic sessions under five major topics, Status and Changes, Polar/Global Linkages, Sense of Discovery, The Poles as a Vantage Point for Observations, and People and Resources at the Poles. The latter theme will include a number of special sessions on economic development, indigenous knowledge, polar archaeology, tourism, history of polar explorations, and the like (see the list of proposed sessions at http:// www.scar-iasc-ipy2008.org/. The main IPY-associated venue for arctic social scientists in 2008 will be the Sixth International Congress of Arctic Social Sciences (ICASS-6) in Nuuk in August 2008. This time, the Congress has been marked as a special IPY event (IPY project #69) and it will have several sessions featuring IPY 2007–2008 projects (see http://www.iassa.gl/icass6/icass6.htm). In March 2007, the JC received and accepted a proposal from Norway to host a major IPY science conference in Oslo in summer 2010. Such a culminating post-IPY event could bring together as many as 3000 scientists, educators, polar agency representatives, and Arctic residents. The Conference is to be held at the new Lillestrom Exhibition Centre and will cover all major research fields and educational/outreach activities advanced during IPY 2007–2008. It will launch the cross-disciplinary evaluation of the IPY 2007–2008 science contributions, including four ‘urgencies’ for Polar Research outlined in the Scope of IPY Science document (2007), such as rapid change in polar regions; linkages between the polar and the global environment; polar communities (human well-being and community adaptations); and ‘new frontiers’ in polar research. A substantial contribution may be also expected from the Arctic Council, which is to be chaired by Norway until early 2010. Simultaneously, plans are being made to host post-IPY sessions and symposia at a number of major disciplinary conferences and congresses to take place in 2009–2011. These include several scheduled meetings of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Tri-lingual IPY calendar for 2007–2008 produced in Kautokeino, Norway. The page for January 2007 features a picture of Sophus Tromholt (1851–1896), the IPY-1 observer in Kautokeino dressed in Sámi clothing. 16 ASC Newsletter and European Geophysical Union (EGU); Arctic Science Summit Weeks (ASSW) and Arctic Council’s meetings; sessions organized by SCAR, including the celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the Antarctic Treaty (1959) in Baltimore, MD in April 2009, and others. The key ‘wrap-up’ event for IPY 2007–2008 is now envisioned as a major public- and policy-oriented forum (‘IPY Science and Policy Conference’) in 2012 to bring together policy makers, government managers, and leading IPY scientists. The main goal for such a broad meeting should be the evaluation of key policy implications of IPY 2007–2008. The list will most certainly include: the impact of rapid climate change in the polar regions; new international regime for collaborative science exploration in the Arctic; strategies for economic development, navigation, and resource access as a result of the diminished sea ice and other environmental changes; the role of polar residents in shaping regional policies, and the like. In fall 2007, the Canadian National IPY Committee offered to host such a major post-IPY meeting in Canada in 2012. The contours of these and other IPY plans will be better seen next year. Stay tuned for more news on IPY 2007–2008. communities of Qaanaaq (Greenland), Clyde River, (Nunavut), and Barrow (Alaska), along with the University of Colorado and ICC-Greenland. Recently, a French SIKU team (Pierre Taverniers, Nicole Térsis) secured funding to conduct studies in Qeqertaq, Northwestern Greenland. Igor Krupnik (ASC) and Claudio Aporta (Carleton University, Ottawa) act as overall coordinators of the SIKU activities. Expanding from Chukotka to Greenland, SIKU is a truly circumpolar effort that embraces over twenty indigenous communities in four countries. Currently, local observations and knowledge documentation studies take place in seven Alaskan communities – Barrow, Gambell, Shaktoolik, Shishmaref, Toksook Bay, Tununak, and Wales; three more, Savoonga, Wainwright, and Point Hope, may join the project in 2008. Seven Canadian Inuit communities collaborate under the ISIUOP project (see http://gcrc. carleton.ca/isiuop), including Igloolik, Cape Dorset, Pangnirtung, Clyde River in Nunavut, and Kangiqsualujjuaq, Kangiqsujuaq, and Umiujaq in Nunavik. The Greenland-SIKU activities will be conducted in four or five communities. In Chukotka work is currently underway in Uelen, Sireniki, and Lavrentiya, with support efforts in the local hubs of Anadyr and Providenya. This update covers primarily the Alaska-Chukotka SIKU activities focused on the northern Bering Sea-southern Chukchi Sea region. Extensive information on the SIKU-Canada ISIUOP efforts is posted on the ISIUOP project site at http://gcrc.carleton.ca/isiuop; the overall review of the SIKU initiative is available at the main IPY portal at www.ipy.org and on the nascent SIKU webpage launched in September 2007 at www.ipy.org/index.php?ipy/detail/sea_ice_ knowledge_and_use. SIKU-Alaska Operations The main SIKU-Alaska ‘hubs’ are at the Arctic Studies Center (Krupnik) in Washington, D.C. and at the University of Alaska (UAF) in Fairbanks. The UAF team at the Geophysical Institute (Hajo Eicken, Matthew Druckenmiller, and Mette Kaufmann) is working in Barrow and Wales; its primary objective is to integrate geophysical methods of studying Alaskan land-fast sea PROJECT SIKU: IPY STUDY OF INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE OF ICE By Igor Krupnik [This report is a part of the International Polar Year 2007–2008, joint initiative of the International Council for Science (ICSU) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Scholars from more than 60 nations and many indigenous polar residents participate in more than 250 projects under IPY 2007–2008 science program.] The SIKU project (Sea Ice Knowledge and Use: Assessing Arctic Environmental and Social Change) was proposed in 2005 as a part of the International Polar Year (IPY) 2007–2008 and was endorsed by the Joint Committee for IPY in November 2005 as ‘IPY Project # 166’. The project’s acronym, SIKU is the most common word for sea ice (siku) in all Eskimo languages from Bering Strait to Greenland, both Inuit and Yupik. The project has two major goals: to strengthen the contribution of Arctic indigenous residents to scholarly studies of modern climate change in IPY 2007–2008 and to document local ecological knowledge and use of the sea ice environment, as well as traditional practices for ice and weather observation, so that it may be preserved for future generations. The SIKU project team includes polar scientists and indigenous knowledge experts from five countries: U.S., Canada, Russia, Greenland/Denmark, and France. This is the first international effort to document Arctic peoples’ knowledge at such a broad circumpolar scale, from Bering Strait to East Greenland. SIKU, like many IPY 2007-2008 projects, is organized as a consortium of local and national initiatives, with their budgets covered by grants from national funding agencies. Presently, the main operational components of the SIKU are the Canadian Inuit Sea Ice Use and Occupancy Project (ISIUOP, Claudio Aporta and Gita Laidler, coordinators) funded by the Canadian IPY 2007–2008 program; the SIKU-Alaska/Chukotka component of several local efforts, with individual funding resources (see below); and the Greenlandic component made of the SILA-Inuk project administered by the Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC)-Greenland (Lene Kielsen Holm, coordinator) in Nuuk, Greenland, and the SIKU-INUIT-HILA project (Shari Gearheard, Henry Huntington, and Lene Kielsen Holm), an NSF-funded effort involving the Anijaarniq – new educational CD-ROM on traditional Canadian Inuit ice navigational skills (2006, Nunavut Research Institute, Claudio Aporta). ASC Newsletter 17 ice with local Iñupiat knowledge of the sea ice dynamics and use. Modern geophysical tools, such as coastal radar to monitor ice movement, SAR satellite imagery, on-ice and air-borne thickness measurements, and detailed monitoring of ice formation, are being interpreted alongside local Iñupiat expertise collected through observation diaries, contextual interviews, and fieldwork consultation. Three experienced hunters, Arnold Brower, Sr. and Joe Leavitt in Barrow, and Winton Weyapuk, Jr. in Wales serve as local sea ice observers. This work is a part of the larger NSF- funded IPY project called SIZONet (Seasonal Ice Zone Observing Network), assisted by the Barrow Arctic Science Consortium (BASC) and the Alaska Ocean Observing System (AOOS). Components of the SIKU agenda are similarly integrated into another NSF-funded initiative, Nelson Island Natural and Cultural History Project (Ann Fienup- Riordan and Mark John, Calista Elders Council, PIs). This three-year study on Nelson Island, Western Alaska, aims at documenting Yup’ik sea ice terminology, local weather and ice observations in the communities of Toksook Bay and Tununak, and extensive interviews with Yup’ik- speaking elders on the changing ice conditions and subsistence hunting practices, both past and present. In July-August 2007, the project team conducted a circumnavigation of Nelson Island, with interviews in five island communities. In March 2007, it held a three-day workshop with Yup’ik elders in Bethel, at which experts from different villages compared knowledge on ocean hunting and sea ice in their respective areas. Local experts from four communities in the Bering Strait-Norton Sound region participate in other efforts under SIKU-Alaska program. Josh Wisniewski, Anthropology Ph.D. student at UAF, works in Shishmaref on his thesis on ecology, knowledge, and social implications of Inupiat bearded seal hunting. He integrates many of the SIKU tasks in his study. In November 2007, Wisniewski organized a two-day videotaped workshop with a group of four elders and the school Iñupiaq language instructor, which produced an initial list of some 60 Iñupiaq sea-ice terms, numerous personal stories and narratives related to specific ice conditions. The group will continue its work on an educational curriculum titled “A Kigiqtaamiut Way of Knowing about Hunting on the Ice” to be produced either as a CD-ROM or a printed booklet for local users. Anja Nicole Stuckenberger from Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, visited in August-September 2007 the Iñupiat community of Shaktoolik in Norton Sound (population 180) and the Canadian Inuit community of Quaqtaq (population 300) in Nunavik. She aims at comparative study of modern Inuit/Iñupiaq cultural dynamics and adaptation to climate/environmental change. The people of Shaktoolik expressed great interest in joining the SIKU project to ensure the preservation of their knowledge of sea ice and weather and the use of their observations of environmental change in school/heritage curriculum and scholarly analysis. Finally, Krupnik is working with local sea ice observer Leonard Apangalook, Sr. in Gambell on St. Lawrence Island. Apangalook, 69, experienced hunter and whaling captain, is a nephew of Paul Silook (1895–1948); and he continues a long tradition of his family’s collaboration with Smithsonian scientists that now reaches back to the visits by Riley D. Moore and Henry Collins almost 100 years ago. Starting from spring 2006, Apangalook supplies systematic daily records of sea ice, weather conditions, and local subsistence activities in the community of Gambell. He now continues his second year of observations under the IPY 2007-2008 program. In fall 2007, Igor visited Gambell and also Wales to work with Winton Weyapuk, Jr., and Herbert Anungazuk (now with the National Park Service in Anchorage) on the Wales Inupiaq Sea-Ice Dictionary (Kingikmi Sigum Qanuq Ilitaavut. This heritage booklet covers over 80 local Iñupiaq terms for various types of ice, with extensive comments and explanations. It is illustrated by several dozen color photos taken by Weyapuk on his ice-hunting and fishing trips, as well as by historical black-and-white photographs taken by biologist Alfred Bailey in Wales in 1922 (the original photographs are at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science in Denver, CO). Igor also collaborates in portions of Stuckenberger’s work in Shaktoolik, including ongoing local ice/weather observation (by Clara Mae Sagoonick). SIKU-Chukotka Activities in 2007 The SIKU-Chukotka team includes Russian scientists at the Institute of Cultural and Natural Heritage in Moscow (Lyudmila Bogoslovskaya and Boris Vdovin); local Chukchi researchers at the Chukotka Branch of the Far-Eastern Research Institute (SVKNII) in Anadyr (Nadezhda Vukvukai and Victoria Golbtseva); partners from other local agencies; and Chukotka indigenous participants from the communities of Uelen, Sireniki, and Lavrentiya. The activities under the SIKU-Chukotka project were started in late 2006. In Uelen, Roman Armaergen, a senior hunter and renowned ice expert, began recording ice and weather observations in his native Chukchi language. Victoria Golbtseva (also from Uelen, now at the SVKNII in Anadyr) made a field trip to Uelen in spring 2007 to interview local elders about their knowledge on weather and sea ice-related phenomena. Golbtseva recorded her interviews in Chukchi language from Armaergen, Tatyana Pechetegina, Ivan Seygutegen, and other experts and produced Russian translations to elders’ stories. Many elders’ narratives were illustrated by pencil drawings or relate to the engravings on walrus Leonard Apangalook, Sr., from Gambell, Alaska is a crucial partner in the SIKU IPY project. The cover image from the new heritage booklet illus- trating local knowledge of sea ice by the Alaskan Iñu- piat community of Wales. 18 ASC Newsletter tusks produced by local ivory carvers. Armaergen continues his observations in Uelen during the second IPY winter 2007/2008. Igor Zagrebin at the Russian ‘Beringia’ Park office in Provideniya contributed his decadal observations of ice conditions in Provideniya Bay to the SIKU ice database. The Park office in Provideniia has a small ongoing program of monthly environmental reports by local village rangers from Chukotka communities that it pledges as a contribution to the SIKU project. Bogoslovskaya summarized her extensive field interviews with local elders on their knowledge of weather, wind, and sea ice phenomena, ice hunting and navigation skills collected since the 1970s. These data will be used in the new Russian ‘sourcebook’ on indigenous marine hunting practices in Chukotka currently in preparation. Vdovin analyzed historical climate records from several dozen weather stations in Chukotka; the data indicate strong warming trend in the region over the past decades, particularly in spring and fall months. The early instrumental records (often coming from the 1930s and 1940s) will be matched with indigenous observations. The Russian SIKU team also produced three papers that will be published in 2008 in the bilingual volume of the Alaska-Chukotka ‘Beringia Days 2007’ conference proceedings. Russian SIKU partners are also actively documenting indigenous sea ice terminologies. A joint team from the Russian Institute of Cultural Heritage (Bogoslovskaya and Petr Aleinikov) and the ‘Yupik’ Society of Chukotka (Lyudmila Ainana) produced a large dictionary of traditional subsistence terminology in the Chaplinski Yupik language. It includes several hundred Yupik terms associated with weather, ice, snow, and other environmental phenomena. Three local sea ice ‘dictionaries’ are currently in progress: in the Naukanski Yupik language (about 80 terms collected by Boris Alpergen and Elizaveta Dobrieva in Lavrentiya); in the Chaplinsky or Central Siberian Yupik (about 60 terms; compiled by Aron Nutawyi in Sireniki); and in the Uelen Chukchi language (a joint effort by Armaergen and Golbtseva). The Naukanski Yupik dictionary is illustrated by pencil drawings by local Native artists. These dictionaries will be published as bilingual educational booklets in 2008–2009. No effort should be spared to make the SIKU project materials available to local indigenous residents, polar scientists, educators, agency, and museum workers. ABERDEEN INITIATES NORTHERN STUDIES By William Fitzhugh Following a visit by Neil Price, newly-appointed Chair of the University of Aberdeen’s Department of Archaeology, the ASC and Aberdeen signed an agreement for a five-year program of circumpolar research and scholarly studies. The Aberdeen program comes with several new archaeology positions to be filled in the next few years. The circumpolar studies program will feature ethnology, archaeology, ecology, history, literature, religion, folklore and mythology of circumpolar regions and will include geographic areas of northern North America, Russia, Scandinavia, Scotland and northern Britain. Aberdeen’s long history of Arctic and Subarctic whaling provide an obvious focus for northern studies, and its museum and archives house important collections from these regions. The program may begin with conferences to identify prospective research topics and themes, followed by joint research programs and scholarly exchanges. Neil Price SKIN BOATS IN SIBERIA By Harri Luukkanen and Nicki Bertsch While exploring a photographic collection based on the Russian 1926-1927 Turukhansk Polar Census Expedition, Harri Luukkanen recently stumbled upon a rather fascinating find. The Turukhansk Polar Census Expedition was an effort to count West Siberian people and describe them in pictures, and in the process produced unique and rare photos of deerskin canoes along Yenesei River tributaries. The resulting photographs were released in 2004 by the British Academy and Krasnojarsk Museum. The photographs are the first to show the presence of deerskin canoes on inland waterways in the region, and will greatly contribute to the current understanding of northern Eurasian bark and skin canoes and their use. These photographs are detailed enough to allow the informed viewer to see the construction of the deerskin canoes, including details of the skeleton (i.e. ribs and stringers inside), which were not previously documented. These deer skin boats are about 5m long and .7m in beam, and are half-decked semi-kayaks, or canoe-kayaks. The semi-kayaks look surprisingly similar to the decked ‘Eskimo-type’ canoes found in the Bering Strait. The design of these semi-kayaks may have originally allowed for speedy pursuit of reindeer when they were swimming across rivers. These deerskin canoes were recorded east of Yenisei River, along both the North and South Tunguska Rivers, in the Evenki Tungus region. This area is mainly Samoyed territory, so it seems likely they also used similar boats. This territory is well connected to the western Lena River and its tributaries, where similar canoes have been found. We could also say with some confidence that that this skin canoe type was in use along the Ob River, which is well connected to the Yenisei by many waterways, and where earlier travelers recorded skin canoes and kayaks. Bill Fitzhugh also observed their remarkable similarity to Athapaskan birch-bark canoes from interior Alaska and Cananda. Despite no concrete link between the two regions, many scholars have thought that the western Athapaskans are the most recent Siberian immigrants to North America, and have pointed out other similarities in the material culture of the two groups. The photos can be viewed by following this link: http://www.abdn.ac.uk/polarcensus/index_engl.htm Photo titled “On vetkakh [small skin-covered boats] near u. Uchami.” June 1927. Photo: N.P. Naumov. ASC Newsletter 19 FIELDWORK HARE HARBOR BASQUES: 2007 EXCAVATIONS By William Fitzhugh In 2007 the Pitsiulak team returned to Petit Mécatina to continue our studies at the late 17th century Basque site on the Quebec Lower North Shore. Our primary objective was to expand tests of the underwater deposits and continue work on the land site’s smithy. Work was conducted at Hare Harbor in August by a team of Americans and Canadians from the University of Montreal, which is partnering with the Smithsonian in the underwater portion of the project. Smithy Excavations Unlike the wet conditions of the previous year, this season’s work on land was facilitated by a drier climate. We were able to expand the excavations by two meters beyond the stone pavement on the west, north, east, and south sides of the structure. The eastern squares revealed a pavement of spruce poles laid down outside the paved floor of the smithy, and on this surface we found a flint- lock mechanism and French and English gunflints, lead musket balls, barrel staves, a concentration of nails, and parts of a wood spoon or ladle. The northern squares abutted the hillside to the north, and here we recovered thick deposits of charcoal, a few iron artifacts, and remains of a mustard-colored glazed platter or plate. Rock clusters in situ above these squares suggest the possibility of furnace features on the lower slopes of the hills. Leading from the smithy to the lower portion of the site we uncovered a pathway paved with broken roof tiles. While draining water from the smithy floor we discovered charred planks beneath the paving slabs. This floor was supported by wood beams and joists whose upper surfaces were heavily charred and between the two we recovered a navigator’s lead sounding weight. The charred floor timbers extend to the margins of the stone floor, where we had previously observed charred timbers. It appears that an earlier wood-floored structure on this location had burned to the ground before the laying of the final stone floor pavement. Underwater excavations Last year’s work with a make-shift dredge revealed extensive midden deposits in the central portion of the cove site between 30- 60 feet of water. This year, with two excellent dredges and pumps supplied by the University of Montreal, we opened up four 2x2m squares on either side of our north-south baseline. The eastern unit was in the area where we had observed whale bones on the surface of the sediments; the western unit was in the center of the tile distribution east of Ballast Pile 5. The latter produced a number of nearly complete ceramic vessels, some with makers or shop- marks present, which on general inspection appears to be from southwestern France. Rope, pieces of glass, and large amounts of faunal remains were recovered in the two units excavated here. Nearby we recovered a small porringer bowl. Two units excavated near the base of the shore cliff at the east edge of the cove produced in situ midden and whale remains. One of these produced a whole whale flipper. This part of the cove must have been used for butchering whales. The absence of tail, large vertebrae, ribs or head parts suggests that these parts of the whale were towed off for disposal elsewhere after the butchering process had been completed. The excavations revealed a consistent picture of the underwater stratigraphy. The lowest levels of the deposit contain peat mixed with tiles. This level is overlain respectively by layers of axe-cut wood chips, followed be a layer containing whalebones; then codfish bones with some other fish, seal bones, and bird bones; and finally upper levels of sandy silt, ballast rock, and tile. Tiles, ceramic vessels, and other materials are found more of less throughout the entire sequence. Faunal Analysis A small sample of the 2006 fish remains analyzed by Sophia Perdikaris shows them to be composed almost exclusively of large codfish processed for market rather than for local on-site consumption, since the remains consist almost exclusively of heads and few tail parts. Small amounts of waterfowl and seal bones are also present. Comparison with fish remains from other sites in the North Atlantic region participating in the NABO Program shows Hare Harbor fits squarely in the ‘market fishing’ category of sites dating to post-medieval times. Analysis of whale remains from 2007 is not yet complete. However DNA studies by Brenda McLeod of about a dozen whalebone samples from previous years reveal them to be humpbacks and bowheads, not Atlantic right whales. The DNA Josh Fitzhugh at completion of his first square ever! Divers and captain Perry Colbourne preparing to start the 2007 underwater work. Note the diving flag, Laurie and Michael! 20 ASC Newsletter by extensive wood-working and timber processing; (3) whaling and related activities; (4) a hiatus period; (5) and an extensive cod fish processing enterprise with evidence of local bird and animals (especially seal) procurement. An almost identical sequence of deposits was found in the shore trench excavated at the Red Bay ‘San Juan’ excavation site. Tiles are present throughout the sequence. The storage jars appear to be coming from southwest France; the faience from the Iberian Peninsula; and the limestone ballast is almost certainly of Biscayan origin. Elsewhere, our surveys along the Lower North Shore produced information reinforcing the view of the region as a cultural and economic frontier. Continued testing at the Boulet Tickle site between Mutton Bay and La Tabatiere allowed resulted in pinpointing a Basque component that should provide an interesting counterpoint to Mecatina. Our visit to Belles Amours Point, where we visited two sod houses reported in 1994 by Dumais and Poirier, confirmed that they are Labrador Inuit winter houses. The occupation of this ‘communal house’ settlement, with entrance passages and raised rear sleeping platforms, appears to have been in the early 18th C. Our tests at the nearby Hart chalet site (EiBh-47) revealed evidence of Inuit occupation dating to the 16-early 17th C. This settlement is much earlier than the Belles Amour occupation. The extensive sea mammal and caribou faunal remains and presence of iron nails, European ceramics, and tiles suggests an occupation by 16th C. Inuit who camped here to utilize materials salvaged from a pre-existing Basque site at this location. (See also: http://www.tcr.gov.nl.ca/tcr/pao/Newsletters/ Newsletters.htm) Acknowledgments The 2008 Gateways Project was supported by the NMNH Bateman Fund and donations from Mr. Robert Malott, General and Mrs. Raymond Mason, and the Marine Archaeology Program of the University of Montreal directed by Dr. Brad Loewen. UM provided support for students Frederic Simard, Marilyn Girard-Rheault, and Vincent Delmas. Erik Phaneuf directed the underwater work. Christie Leece from the Smithsonian joined the project for a fifth year. Wilfred Richards provided professional photographic documentation and assisted with excavations together with my brother Josh (John Hardy Fitzhugh), who made his first trip with us into the north. As always, the project could never have taken place were it not for our skipper, Perry Colbourne. I would like to express my appreciation for the support provided my many individuals and communities, including Greg results represent many different individuals and not the remains of just a few whales; so Mecatina Basques were whaling on a regular basis, not just taking the odd passing animal. Absence of shore- based try-works indicates that rending must have taken place aboard ship, not on land as at 16th century sites. Absence of many harp seal bones in the midden levels suggests the crews returned to Europe before the late fall harp seal migration. A curious feature of the larger whale phalanges and flipper parts recovered is that most have been sawn through along their longitudinal axis. Site History The underwater stratigraphy gives a detailed picture of the sequence of activities taking place at the Mecatina site over time The initial occupation involved site clearance and timber and wood-working activities such as construction of shore facilities and perhaps piers or even boat- building. This was followed by a period of whaling, followed after an interval by market-oriented codfish production. Throughout this period ballast piles accumulated, ceramic vessels were lost or discarded, along with shoes, leather garments, glass, and other materials. Tiles were discarded throughout the sequence. The formation of twelve ballast piles suggests that multiple vessels were moored perpendicular to the shore. The larger central piles indicate preferred mooring location; but on occasions when several vessels were present, less desirable berths were taken, resulting in smaller outboard ballast piles. The publication of Cleophas Belvin’s The Forgotten Labrador (2006) documents the conflicts among European powers over the Lower North Shore during the 17-18th centuries. These conflicts must have been serious issues for Basques, who did not have strong firepower at their disposal. American privateers were also plundering here for fur and fish. It is probably only because of the region’s topographic complexity and navigational difficulties that Basques were able to exploit loopholes in French and English naval power. The 2007 Gateways Project produced exciting results that substantially advance our knowledge of the early history of the Lower North Shore. The expanded underwater excavation completed four 2x2 meter pits. In addition to recovering a number of ceramic vessels, including a fine decorated faience porringer bowl and several large storage jars, we discovered whalebones that are stratigraphically linked to the early occupation of the site. Flint, molded glass and other remains were also recovered. We now have evidence of spatial distinctions at the underwater site representing, at least, localization of whale butchery, fish processing, and wood- working activities in different areas of the site. Profiles of the deposits have allowed us to refine the sequence established last year, to wit: (1) initial occupation; (2) site preparation represented Gun part and “French” gunflint from the blacksmith shop excavation. Frederic Simard and Erik Phaneuf display their finds at the end of a rainbow. ASC Newsletter 21 Wood and Joanne Farrell; Kelly and Robert Linfield; Dennis and Stephen Colbourne and the Long Island Ferry crew; Louise Colbourne, Boyce Roberts, Gina and Adrian Noordhof, Christine and Wilson Evans, Helen and Miles Evans, the Harrington Community Seafood Corporative, the Harrington Medical Center, Paul and Cynthia Rowsell, the Philip Vatchers of Mutton Bay, Clifford and Florence Hart of Brador, and the towns of Harrington Harbor, La Tabatiere, and Lushes Bight. All helped make the 2007 Gateways Project enjoyable, safe, and productive. The 2007 dig crew at Harrington with the Pitsiulak in the back- ground. From left to right: Erik, Marilyn, Christie, Perry, Frederic, Will, Vincent, and Josh. which are native to this area, such as moose, caribou, salmon, northern gannet, kittiwake, cotton grass, and various shellfish, publication limits extent of coverage. With this visual record, this year’s ASC Annual Newsletter presents a characteristic sampling of flora and fauna by sea, air, and land along the route of the Gateways Project. About half of our field time involves traveling over water. Along the way, there are many sightings of whales and dolphins. The Strait of Belle Isle with its currents and upwellings is particularly rich in species diversity. My best whale shot is of an orca whale (Orcinus orca) spotted as we crossed the Strait. Two of these animals came right alongside to inspect the Pitsiulak. Although we have had almost annual sightings of these toothed whales, this encounter with the two curious killer whales marks the one occurrence when we were close enough for a detailed image. Sightings of baleen (filter-feeder) whales are much more common than are toothed whales whether on the backside of the Great Northern Peninsula, in the Strait of Belle Isle, or in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. But the most consistent place for sightings is the northeastern end of Newfoundland from St. Anthony to Quirpon. Motoring up the Peninsula in the waters of Cape St. John, we began to have abundant sightings not only of whales but also of dolphins, with the latter running right off the bow as they attempt to better our speed of around 10 knots. Then they play in the boat’s wake. A white-beaked dolphin (Lagenorhynchus albirostris) was photographed from the pitching deck. Cruising at about 9 knots, it took me many frames to succeed in capturing this single image of a jumping dolphin with my hand-held camera equipped with the equivalent of 1100 mm lens. Our 2007 dolphin sightings must have set a record. Both Bill Fitzhugh and I were astonished as we each experienced a dolphin turning on its side as it rode our bow wave and directly looked each of us straight in the eye. That’s clearly a curious, intelligent animal. I find that the more I focus my camera on wildlife, the more I become aware of communications with other species. There is one stop along our route that we unfailingly make both going and returning. Our summer’s expedition would never be complete without visiting Boyce Roberts in Quirpon at the near- northern tip of Newfoundland. Boyce’s home has long been known as “Roberts Rooms.” According to the Dictionary of Newfoundland English (1990) a “room” or “rooms” is a site of stores, sheds, wharves, flakes, and where fish is landed and processed and crew are housed. In 2006, the “recreational/food” fishing season for Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) opened on August 1 for five weeks with a limit of five fish per person per day. Local fishermen report that the decrease in cod, which eat young lobster, has led to more A large male orca whale photographed from the Pitsiulak. Photo: Will Richard. NATURE ALONG THE GATEWAYS CORRIDOR By Will E. Richard [Editor’s Note: Will Richard is an ASC Research Collaborator and a photographer with a “far northeast” bent. You can learn more about his work by visiting his webpage: http://www.wrichphoto. com/wrichphoto/index.htm] The year 2008 will mark the eighth field season of the ASC’s Gateways Project. Each year, we work in the field for five or six weeks. Part of that time includes travel by road in Newfoundland between the airport in Deer Lake and the Smithsonian research vessel the Pitsiulak. Then we travel by sea between Long Island in Notre Dame Bay, Newfoundland and Petit Mécatina on the Lower North Shore of Québec. That route by water is north, up the eastern side of Newfoundland’s Great Northern Peninsula, then west across the Strait of Belle Isle, and finally south along the coast of Québec’s Lower North Shore. Upon completion of our archaeological dig at Petit Mécatina, we usually make landings along the way to dig exploratory test pits. Then it is back to Notre Dame Bay and onto the airport for the trip home. Along the way, we observe an abundance of flora and fauna which is indigenous to temperate and subarctic climates. For six of the seven seasons of the Gateways Project, I have served as Project Photographer making a visual record of sightings on land, at sea, and in the air as well as of the archaeological work. In this piece, I will focus on some of the animals and plants we encounter: whale, dolphin, seal, cod, puffin, arctic tern, sooty shearwater, gray fox, bakeapple, and sundew. Although there are many other species 22 ASC Newsletter lobsters were being caught. Over the last few years, the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans has also opened scientifically selected areas for commercial cod fishery. Early evidence from years 2006 and 2007 is that there is some return of the cod, but it’s nowhere near its historic catch levels. The Gateways Project has afforded me some great opportunities to view avian life as well. During our first year on the Gateways Project in 2001, our survey was in the Mingan Archipelago, a national park reserve on the St. Lawrence, downriver of Havre- Saint-Pierre. Warden Charles Kavenaugh of Parks Canada was our guide. He brought us to some of the more remote islands such as Isle de Maison, a trip which greatly expanded photographic opportunities for observing multitudes of Atlantic puffins (Fratercula arctica). For years, beginning in Antarctica and then on Ellesmere Island, I have been obsessed with obtaining a good picture of an arctic tern (Sterna paradisaea). During five trips with the Gateways Project, I obtained a few but nothing worth printing. Then in 2006, the Pitsiulak was docked along side the fish plant in Harrington Harbour on the Lower North Shore of Québec and we found ourselves in the midst of a maelstrom of arctic terns. They were diving for fish waste running from the fish plant. I was able to generate a stream of images, including this signature photo of the Arctic Tern. On the return trip to Long Island, Newfoundland, I remained on watch on the fore deck, looking for wildlife. The sky was overcast, and it proved difficult to determine color and identity of bird species, as an overcast sky diffuses color and softens shape. At the dig site on Petit Mécatina, we usually see little wildlife. In 2007, only a squirrel was worthy of a photo. However, we do come across life on land that lends itself to photography while digging exploratory test pits or collecting bakeapples. This young gray fox (Urocyon Cinereoargenteus) followed me like a puppy on an island in Baie des Belles Amours. It kept so close to me that I had difficulty getting my camera to focus at close range. The subarctic bakeapple (Rubus chamaemorus) is one of the many ground berries found in Newfoundland, Labrador, and the Lower North Shore. A member of the rose family, there is only one berry per plant. It matures in a short growing season from mid- July to mid-August. Here, former ASC research assistant Christie Leece displays a handful of these succulent berries which can prove to be almost addictive. Once bakeapple plants are ripe, the crew remains in constant search of bakeapples to enhance bannock cake and pancakes (and they are delightful on ice cream). Other common berries include my favorite, partridgeberry or mountain Cranberry (Vaccinium vitis-idaea), and the blueberry (Vaccinium augustifolium). At ground level, the sundew (Drosera linearis) is a bog- dwelling insectivore, indigenous throughout much of the temperate region and subarctic north where there is an abundance of substrate water. Most of its sustenance is derived through its ability to attract, capture, and digest insects. The mirror-like spherical “dew drops” at A dolphin launches itself into the air to get a better look at the photographer. Photo: Will Richard. Boyce Roberts – a fisherman par excellence - proudly displays two impressive cod fish. Photo: Will Richard. Will Richard’s long sought-after shot of an arctic tern. Photo: Will Richard. A young gray fox keeps an eye on the photographer, and the cod fish in the next photo! Photo: Will Richard. ASC Newsletter 23 THE SEARCH FOR A PAST WRAPS UP By Noel D. Broadbent The last of the NSF-funded “Search for a Past project” fieldwork in Sweden was carried out in mid-September 2007. All of the major site areas were revisited, re-examined and re- photographed. The trip was undertaken together with associate editor Zach Zorich of Archaeology Magazine, who will be writing an article on the project in 2008. On the way through Hälsingland, about 250 kilometers north of Stockholm, we stopped off at Enånger Church where there is a wonderful collection of medieval sculptures. For years we have been trying to examine a statue of Saint Olav. This 11th century Norwegian saint is always shown holding an axe and standing on the prostrate figure of a troll representing witchcraft and heathenism. He is a symbol of the Christian victory over paganism. We were curious if the face or even the clothing on this troll were possibly Saami. We were lucky to find a friendly and interested accomplice in this quest, the parish priest Mats Sandström (photo). He took us up into the bell tower and there we found our sculpture. It was beautifully made and carved out of a single piece of wood. However, the troll was just some poor bearded fellow. Also, it seems Saint Olav suffered a double martyrdom, first in AD 1030, and then in the 16th century. After the Reformation, religious zealots cut off the Enånger statue’s hands, and for good measure, took a whack at his groin, in order to demonstrate that Catholic saints were no longer welcome in Sweden. What goes around comes around, even in the treatment of material culture. At the project site of Grundskatan, a 16th century labyrinth overlies one of the Saami huts conveying this same message of dominance. The 16th and 17th centuries were marked by violent suppression of Saami religion and many sites were vandalized and sacred drums destroyed during that period. After Enånger, we visited the site of Hornslandsudde, once at night, and then continued all the way north to Luleå. Zach then drove to Jokkmokk where he visited the Ajtte Mountain and Saami Museum and a rock art site together with Inga-Maria Mulk and Tim Bayless Smith (Cambridge University). Metallurgical analyses of materials from the Hornslandsudde site were completed in 2007 and published in the Geoarkeologi series of the Swedish Central Board of Antiquities (Andersson, David. 2007. Iron-working at Hornslandsudde. Archaeometallurgic analyses. Geoarkeologiskt Laboratorium. Analysrapport number 7-2007. GAL. Uppsala). Three iron forges and their by-products have now been documented and date respectively to AD 100-300, AD 500 and AD 1000. In September soil samples for two of the previous sites, Grundskatan and Bjuröklubb, were examined using magnets. The magnets were used to pick up iron sphericals, ropey iron pieces and iron scales, all measuring under 1.0 mm in size. This evidence, which is barely visible to the naked eye, confirms that iron-smithing had been undertaken in these coastal huts and offers an easy and inexpensive way to test other sites. In fact, the same approach was used this year at historic Jamestown in Virginia (see related article). Zach, Inga-Maria Mulk and Tim Bayless Smith and I later visited Bjuröklubb and Grundskatan in Västerbotten. While at at Grundsaktan, Tim spotted a large lichen growing in the inside wall of a stone circle which we had earlier interpreted as a circular sacrificial feature. Using local lichen growth curves, this 220 mm diameter specimen of Rhizocarpon geographicum proved to be 916 years BP (BP=1950). This dates the feature to AD 1034±31 years, which is very close to the radiocarbon dates from the site and is a remarkable addition to the chronology of the settlement. Thank you Tim! the end of each of each tentacle is not dew. Rather, it is a mucous-like substance that attracts and then holds its prey. My first experience with this plant occurred while putting up a tent on a thick carpet-like mat of moss on the Lower North Shore. After kneeling down to erect my tent, I noticed a squishy pink substance on my pants. Then, looking closer, I was amazed to see these delicate blossoms with their profusion of miniscule reflective orbs. This short photo essay demonstrates that even in the subarctic climate of much of Newfoundland and the Lower North Shore of Québec, there is an abundance of fascinating life forms inhabiting the water, the air, and the land. Mats Sandström, parish priest at Enånger Church in northern Sweden, holding a medieval sculpture of Saint Olav. Christie Leece shows off the fruits of her bakeapple labor. Photo: Will Richard. Tim Bayless Smith and Inga-Maria Mulk visiting the Jungfrugraven site with Noel and Zach in September. 24 ASC Newsletter ceremonial system. Khirigsuurs, even simple ones, have similar astronomical conventions that govern the placement of the horse burials on the east side of the mound. During the past two years new surveys and excavations of deer stone sites in the northern Darkhad valley, as well as around Muren, have produced finds of deer stones that do not conform to the classical ‘Mongolian’ deer stone type with boldly carved deer images on the ‘torsos’ of stones representing stylized warriors shown with belts, weapons, necklaces, earrings, and sometimes faces. The new forms are usually smaller and simpler, often lack deer images, but retain some diagnostic features found on more complex stones, such as a necklace, a simple belt line, and at the top of the stone, circles and two or three slashes which are interpreted as earrings and a face. As in more representational deer stones, the circles are found on the north and south sides of the stone and the slashes on the east side facing the rising sun. This year’s field program was designed to learn more about these simpler and often smaller deer stones in terms of age, design features, and relationships to other deer stones. Are they contemporary, earlier, or later than the classic type? Do they occur in association with the classic forms? Do they have different macro-geographic distributions? Are they also associated with horse burials and hearth features? If contemporary, what explains differences from the highly-styled classical Mongolian deer stone type? Social roles or status? Or other factors? An important consideration was the fact that deer stone numbers and sites decline as one leaves the heartland of the well-watered northern steppe that runs east-west through north-central Mongolia, the region with the best conditions for raising horses today and presumably also in the past. The Darkhad valley west of Lake Hovsgol, an outlier of this productive zone, is surrounded by the Sayan Mountains and is isolated from the main steppe to the south by a range of high hills, making it colder and less suitable for horse-rearing. Only a few deer stone sites are known from the Darkhad Valley, and most are found along its northern fringe. In addition to expanding our work in the Hovsgol region, we also conducted a preliminary survey of Bayan Ulgii in the Altai EXPLORING WIDER DEER STONE HORIZONS By William Fitzhugh For the past several years the Deer Stone Project has been exploring Late Bronze Age deer stone monuments and khirigsuur mound sites in the Hovsgol region of northern Mongolia. Ultimately, project goals include clarifying the relationship of Mongolian LBA art and culture with Scythian, Siberian, East Asian, and North Pacific cultures. The short-term requirement was to date and contextualize the deer stone phenomenon and determine its relationship with khirigsuur mounds, both of which have been ‘floating’ independent of each other in Mongolian prehistory without fixed dates, known function, or cultural affiliation. Prior to 2000 Russian and Mongolian archaeologists approached deer stones from the perspective of iconography and art history. Deer stones were thought to be generalized representations of armed warriors, and the deer images were believed to represent a cultic deer god or master deity. When found in their original settings deer stones are oriented facing east and their ear sides north and south, almost certainly in reference to the rising sun. Khirigsuur mounds were seen as part of the wider geographic tradition of kurgan mound burial known from South Siberia and the Russian steppe. Their use as burial mounds was in dispute due to the lack of human and artifact remains, leading some to assign to them some unknown ceremonial or socio-political function. Crossing dating suggested deer stones and khirigsuurs dated to ca 2500-2000 B.P., making them contemporary with or derived from Scythian, Karasuk, and related cultures of the Altai and western steppe. Contrary to expectation, we have found deer stones and khirigsuurs are not independent cultural expressions but components of a single integrated ceremonial complex central to the spiritual beliefs and ceremonial practices of LBA cultures of Mongolia and neighboring regions. Unlike rock art, which tends to be unrelated to other archaeological manifestations, deer stones – even when found as single stones in isolated locations – occur in complex archaeological settings including horse head burials, feasting hearths, and frequently other types of stone constructions or features. Typically a deer stone setting is surrounded by small stone mounds or pavements about 1-2m in diameter. In a shallow pit or stone enclosure beneath each surface structure one finds a compact bundle containing a single horse head, cervical vertebrae, and a set of hoofs. Beyond the horse burial features one usually finds a series of hearth rings containing calcined remains of caprids and larger mammals. Our radiocarbon dates on horse teeth – the first produced on materials directly associated with deer stones – consistently return surprisingly early dates of 3200-2800 cal. B.P., about 500 years earlier than deer stones were thought to have been created. Our studies also have determined a direct cultural association between deer stones and khirigsuur mounds. While deer stones and khirigsuurs are often found independently, they are also together at many sites. More important, however, is that both follow the same type of concentric architectural plan and share identical horse mound and hearth features. Instead of a central deer stone, khirigsuurs have a stone mound with a sub-mound burial surrounded by a stone-floored ‘plaza’. The plaza is either square or circular in shape and is bordered by a low stone fence line, outside of which are small stone mounds with horse head burials and beyond them, hearth circles with calcined mammal remains. While the central function and construction details differ, the horse ceremonialism and hearth patterns indicated that deer stones and khirigsuurs are closely-related expressions of a single ritual/ The project team enjoyed a warm welcome and fine meal high in the Altai Mountains hosted by Kazakh herder Morelii and his family. Photo: Bayarsaikhan. ASC Newsletter 25 Mountain region of western Mongolia. Here, deer stone and khirigsuur sites are present in smaller numbers and fewer sites than in Hovsgol and central Mongolia; they display different images, forms, and structure, have greater variation, and are more similar to deer stones and khirigsuurs (kurgans) of eastern Kazakhstan and the Russian Altai. The purpose of our visit was to develop a strategy for comparing the deer stone/ khirigsuur complex between central and western Mongolia to determine cultural and chronological relationships: in particular, we need to determine whether the deer stone/khirigsuur complex spread from east to west or west to east. If the former, the deer stone complex and its art may have played a formative role in the development of Scythian culture which developed in the Altai region by 26-2700 cal. B.P. Bayan Ulgii On 24 May, shortly after arriving in Ulaanbaatar, J. Bayarsaikhan, and I flew to Bayan Ulgii with a small team including Boldbaatar, Amaraa, and Ugii. Upon arrival, we met our driver, Berekbol, who like most people in this region of Mongolia was ethnic Kazakh. Stocked with goods from an evening raid on the local black market, we set out immediately across the hills to the south, heading for the small deer stone site of Sariin Tal, previously known but not explored in recent years. Arriving there, we found the wind howling and snow accumulating on the hills, and for a minute I thought I was back in Baffin Island! We spent a very cold day photographing and mapping the site, which was badly disturbed but had several small, poorly-carved deer stones of the ‘simple’ variety, lacking deer images. Khirigsuurs associated with the site were different from the central Mongolian types and had doubled fence lines, radial cobblestone lines extending from the central mound to the border fence lines, and other distinctive features. We were immediately concerned to discover an absence of horse burial features. The next day we returned to BU for supplies and our travel permit and struck off to the west along the south side of the Tsaagan River. Khirigsuurs and Turkic burial sites were numerous everywhere, but we failed to locate deer stone sites. Inquiries with local herders led us on ‘wild goose chases’ hither and yon into gorgeous valleys where camels grazed beneath snow-capped mountains, but deer stones were nowhere to be seen. The van labored over passes and careened down hills, brakes shrieking. When the machine finally gave out near dusk we found ourselves at the hut of a shepherd named Morelii, whose mother, Sayagul, and wife, Jamal, prepared a dinner of ‘aged’ lamb – the prize of their meager larder – for the hungry crew. Here we had a taste of Kazakh mountain country life and the rule of hospitality, and were strongly impressed by how different Kazakh people and their culture was from what we have experienced in the Mongol regions. Unable to cross to the south back of the swollen Tsaagan River, we retraced our path back to Tsengel and spent two days at a large khirigsuur site a few kilometers west of the mouth of the Khovd River. The site had been damaged during the Soviet era when many of the mounds had been raided for stone, but it had two large deer stones standing improbably side-by-side in the middle of one of the khirigsuur mounds. Unfortunately this can not have been their original location, but the stones were interesting. One was a tall slender slab of granite that was nearly a ‘twin’ of DS 14 at the Ushkiin Uver deer stone site near Muren, with a near-identical carving of a face and wrap-around deer images which were eroded and difficult to see. The second stone was made of blue slate or greywacke, a material we discovered more widely-used than granite for deer stones in this area. This material is softer and easier to carve, but it also breaks easily. Sadly, it is so easily marked that in recent times people have been covering these stones with grafitti. We excavated two satellite features associated with this mound but found no horse remains. However, another feature nearby produced a human burial lying on its side facing west in a slab-lined slab box. Our final foray took us southwest of B.U. where we visited a Kazakh family that kept a hunting eagle and had a collection of old saddlery. After crossing a high mountain pass to the south we reached the Chuluutiin Khundii Valley and found the deer stone site known as Tsaagan Chuulot (White Stones). The site is in a magnificent location surrounded by high snow-covered mountains and had not been excavated or disturbed, except by grafitti. This site is larger than Ushkiin Uver and had more than thirty deer stones standing in north-south alignment, with several large khirigsuur nearby. Many of the stones made of greywacke were badly broken and shattered. We spent a day mapping and photographing but never found a horse burial or any other means to date the site, which must have been used over hundreds of years, considering the diversity of deer stone types and art. It seems certain we will have to return to Distinctive Kazakh headgear worn by a traveller we met along the Khovd River south of Bayan Ul- gii. Photo: Bayarsaikhan. A Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age (3500 BP) burial feature with cen- tral area cleared of its rocks at Khogorgo-3 site on Shishged River. 26 ASC Newsletter work here in the future. In short, Bayan Ulgii turned out to be a revelation. Its deer stone and khirigsuur sites were completely different from those we had seen in central Mongolia. The question remains: are these differences a result of traditions that developed after deer stones disappeared from central Mongolia? Or is the diversity a result of a longer history as a deer stone heartland than that represented by sites in central Mongolia? The answer is crucial for the question of Scythian origins. The Hovsgol Field Program After returning from the Altai to Ulaanbaatar, we presented our new data at an archaeological symposium and then set off with our full field crew to continue our previous research in the Hovsgol region. By now the team had grown to include Rae Beaubien and Christianne, our conservation and laser scanning specialists; Adiya Namkhai, our project coordinator; Bayarsaikhan, my co-director; Mongolian archaeologist Sanjmyatav; Wayne Paulsen and Marilyn Walker, art and shamanism experts; my assistant Christie Leece; Mongolian artist, Boldbaatar; archaeology students Chimba, Deegii, Enkhbold, Lkhagva, Onoloo, and Ugna; our drivers Tsog, Tserenam, and Hatbaatar; our cook Amaraa; Canadian photographer Elaine Ling; and volunteers including Bill Stewart, Matthew Sagi, and Matthew Rasmuson. By this time, the group was quite large and required transport in four vans, and the first day and night on the road were a trial by fire. Nevertheless all survived and by the second day we were ready for whatever the Darkhad could dish up. Last year’s arrival was in a snowstorm, but this year it was rain and mud. Darkhad rivers were swollen and its roads were awash. At one point I thought we would slither down a hillside and become frozen into old Ice Age permafrost lake sediments below! Nevertheless, within a day we were camped at the outlet of the Khogorgo River on the north side of the Shishged River at the northern end of the Darkhad Valley, not far from the Russian border. While we were putting up our tents Matthew Sagi found a microblade core and several flakes of black flint. We soon realized we were camping on a late Neolithic or Early Bronze Age site and by morning had begun excavating a large circular stone pavement that eventually produced what is probably a Late Neolithic or Early Bronze Age human burial. During the next week we alternated working at the Khogorgo site and two deer stone sites, Avtiin and Hort Azur, which we had found in 2006. Avtiin had small deer stones with simple markings and no deer carvings, while Hort Azuur had a deer stone with images of a deer and a snow leopard, as well as stones with simple markings. We mapped and excavated at both but were unable to find horse burials. Here, as in the Altai, horses seemed to be scarce and deer stones were not created with the high style and elaborate carvings found in the heartland steppe region to the south. Nevertheless, we succeeded in finding charcoal and bone material that we hope will give us accurate ages for these interesting sites and deer stone types. After a week we returned to the Lake Erkhel region north of Muren where we had worked for extended periods in the past few years. The Ulaan Tolgoi deer stone site had provided crucial information that we hoped to amplify with work at Khushuugiin Devseg where we had found two classic deer stones associated with a large quantity of pottery. This was unusual and called for exploration, so we spent several days excavating this beautiful site in the uplands east of Lake Erkhel. We were rewarded not only with a large pottery sample but with discovery of a third deer stone that had fallen and become nearly completely buried, and a horse head burial. We also documented and excavated two other deer stone sites: a small site at Tumst and a large one at Khyadag. At Khyadag we found a number of miniature deer stones with only rudimentary markings associated with large full- blown deer stones for which we have a number of dating samples. Analysis of these materials may provide the clues we have been searching for to answer questions about the history of deer stone development in the Hovsgol region. Summary This year’s Mongolian project was a great success and extended our knowledge of deer stones into the northern Darkhad with samples that should date its classic style deer stone as well as the smaller and more simply-marked monuments. Here as in the Atlai we have found horse graves scarce, perhaps because the local economy could not support such extravagance. The Altai data add an important comparative dimension, demonstrating deer stones and khirigsuurs that depart from the classic types of central Mongolia but cannot be easily dated due to absence of horse burials. The Early Bronze Age Khogorgo site and burial in the northern Darkhad with its microblade and early ceramic tradition should help define a new stage in the cultural development of the Darkhad, while the ceramic finds and the horse burial from Khushuutiin Devseg provide important new information about ceremonial activities. Rae Beaubien scanned many new deer stones and Archaeologist Sanjmiatav and artist Boldbaatar transcribing the art on Deer Stone 1 at Khushuutiin Devseg site east of Erkhel Lake. Hovsgol field team assembled at Muren camp ground. ASC Newsletter 27 obtained written and photographic documentation of many deer stones. For the first time we have found human burials associated with the Bronze Age deer stone site at Tsaagan River and a Neolithic site in the Darkhad, and we located a probable Neolithic site near the ferry crossing on the south shore of the Shishged near Tsagaanuur. All in all, it was a productive and exciting season! Acknowledgments The 2007 Mongolia Deer Stone Project owes its success to many organizations and individuals. Funding for the project came primarily from the National Geographic Society and the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History. The National Museum of Mongolian History supported the project as an institutional partner and through the work of its talented staff, Director Ochir, its curator, Bumaa, and professional staff Bayarsaikhan and Ayush. The American Center for Mongolian Studies (Bryan White and Enkhbaatar) provided assistance organizing and advertising our scholarly symposium. I especially thank our Mongolian and American field crew for their dedication and hard work. These include Sanjmyatav, Boldbaatar, Chimba, Deegii, Enkhbold, Lkhagva, Onoloo, and Ugna; our drivers Tsog, Tserenam, and Hatbaatar, and in the Altai, Berekhbol; Matthew Rasmussen, Matthew Sagi, Bill Stewart; our cook Amaraa; our Altai field assistant Amra; most especially I thank my assistant Christie Leece and my Smithsonian colleagues Harriet (Rae) Beaubien and Christianne, and Paula DePriest. Elaine Ling, Marilyn Walker, and Wayne Paulsen also made important contributions. The project could not have taken place without the hard work of our project manager, Adiya Namkhai and his dedicated staff and friends. Ankhbayar, Choisuren Uuriintuya, Tsend-Ayush Tsog-Erdene, Erdene-Oshir Amarbold, and Badnaa Azbayar. Our two cooks, Lumben Bolorma and Munkhjargal Erdenechimeg, assisted by Bolorma’s daughter Baterdene Bayartsengel, kept all of us well- fed with excellent traditional Mongolian cuisine, now and then with some American and Korean fare. Our chefs even excelled at keeping our vegetarian members in good nutritional shape. Participants from the Institute of Archaeology in Ulaanbaatar included Erdene Batshatar (researcher), who has been working with us since 2003 on several projects including surveys, mass burials, and the Gobi mummies; Delgermaa Lchagvadorj (zoo- archaeologist), who worked closely with David Hunt (Smithsonian Institution) and Judith Littleton (University of Auckland, New Zealand) on human and non-human remains; Davaasuren Mandarkh (researcher) who participated in a December 2006 survey of an early hominid site in northeastern Mongolia; and Sundev Manlaibaatar from the National Museum of Mongolian History. Our expert drivers included Burdorj Tumur, Ganjuur Sukhbaatar, and Sukhbaatar Erdene. Tumur has also been a trusted advisor and excellent map reader. Judith Littleton joined David Hunt in analyzing and curating the human remains. Their work also included studies of remains from the 2006 season (see photo). Steve Young of the Center for Northern Studies at Sterling College collected samples of indigenous plant life and peat bogs. Eliza Wallace of Boston University supervised the excavation of burial mounds for the second year and holds the record in finding human skeletal remains in all mounds excavated under her supervision. Thomas Frohlich, presently attending Hobart and William Colleges, completed architectural drawings of all excavated and exposed structures and also surveyed land areas around the excavated mounds. Zach Thompson, a student from Connecticut, assisted with photography and surveying. Nineteen burial mounds were excavated in 2007. In addition to six mounds completed in 2006, we have now excavated 25 mounds, of which 24 are Bronze Age (3,000 BP to 2,500 BP) and one from the Hunnu Period (2,500 BP to 1,900 BP). Of the Bronze Age mounds, ten have so far been dated to between 2,800 BP and 3,300 BP using traditional radiometric and accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) procedures. The dates presented are tentative, however, and the final interpretation of the AMS dates will be presented when all 24 samples have been processed by the NSF-Arizona Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) Laboratory in Tucson. 2008 Team at the Ushkiin Uver deer stone complex, Hovsgol aimag, Mongolia. Missing are: Steve Young, Zach Thompson, Lumben Bolorma, Bruno Frohlich, and a student. BRONZE AGE BURIAL MOUND EXCAVATION IN THE HOVSGOL AIMAG, NORTHERN MONGOLIA By Bruno Frohlich, Tsend Amgalantugs, David Hunt The 2007 field season in Mongolia was conducted as a collaborative research project between Smithsonian and the Mongolian Academy of Sciences. A new three-year contract was negotiated and signed in December 2006 to continue research begun in 2003 on Bronze Age burial mounds in Hovsgol aimag and 20th century mass burials in Ulaanbaatar, and in 2004 on mummified human remains from the Gobi Desert. Furthermore, we are continuing our educational and advisory relationship with the Institute of Archaeology at the Mongolian Academy of Sciences including language training and consulting on collection management. Our 2007 field season from late May to early July focused on the excavation of 19 burial mounds and two smaller structures of unknown origin. We also ‘ground-truthed’ areas south of the Delgermoron River to verify the presence of burial mound structures earlier identified on high resolution satellite images. The 2007 team, which was significantly larger than in previous seasons, totaled 27 individuals (see photo). Bruno Frohlich and Tsend Amgalantugs co-directed the expedition, representing respectively the Smithsonian Institution and the Mongolian Academy of Sciences. They were assisted by 16 scientists and support staff from Mongolia, the USA, and New Zealand, as well as nine Mongolian students. In the past Mongolian students have made important contributions and we were not disappointed this year. Our students from Ulaanbaatar and Muron demonstrated plenty of energy, high motivation, and an enthusiastic interest and included (in random order) Batsukh Dumbuu, Ravdanbat Baldan, Byambadorj Bayanjargal, Tsetsegee Bat-Erdene, Altantsetseg 28 ASC Newsletter One of our objectives is to establish an evidence-based relationship between burial data obtained from the human remains and architectural and cultural data represented by mound construction and locality features. This research is still in progress with only a limited amount of data-processing completed. However, tentatively we have found evidence of correlations between variables including the geodetic location (coordinates) of the center of mounds, the directions of burial chambers, the number and quality of stones used in the construction, and variables such as landscape features, including slope distances, and the direction of the contours of the land. We have also found correlations between metric dimensions of mound features such as chamber length and mound and fence diameters and the sub-adult age at death. So far, no such correlations have been found between variables collected in mounds with adult-aged human remains. This may suggest that size variations found in adult burials are related to other factors including economic, social, and kinship data. This question still has to be explored. The task, however, is made difficult due to the complete lack of man-made burial objects associated with the burial structure and/or human remains. We still have a long way to go, both in the collection of supplementary field data and particularly in the laboratory processing of data and information. The latter task has two objectives: (1) to create a database for the purpose of completing comprehensive publications of our research, and (2) to make field and laboratory data and information available on the World Wide Web as a series of interlinked, hypertext documents. However, at this time we are still working on analyzing and sorting raw data information which has proven very time consuming. This is especially true for the high precision surveying data done with the Locus Ashtech\Magellan (static differential GPS) (see photoo). We have made interesting observations which have lead to new hypotheses, presently being tested. To name a few, we are studying the effect of horse-riding on the human skeleton. Changes in the anatomical expression observed in the human pelvic bones from Medieval Period England and other populations can most likely be associated with horse-riding. Similar skeletal features have been found in our Bronze Age male skeletons from the Hovsgol aimag. However, such information is preliminary and should be considered with caution until we have improved our sample size. This part of our research is being facilitated by collaborators using human skeletal collections from other regions in Mongolia representing contemporary and non-contemporary populations. We are also comparing data, associated with Bronze Age burial structures in Mongolia, with similar information derived from contemporary structures in other parts of the World. We have learned that variations in spatial distribution of Bronze Age mounds might have associations with sedentary or non-sedentary behavior or variations between these two extremes. We hope that such a model can be compared to our Mongolian survey data to help us answer questions related to nomadic vs. sedentary behavior in Mongolia 3,000 years ago. As these plans move forward we are preparing for the 2008 field season in coordination with the Mongolian Academy of Sciences. Excavations to date are representative of a very small, but well defined area within the 850 square kilometers landscape which has been surveyed. We plan to excavate a few mound structures in at least two additional but different areas within the defined 850 square kilometer area. Currently we hypothesize that we will not find much variability between areas as pertinent to architecture, human remains, and/or dating. Also, our excavations have been focusing on mounds located in the southern hills and bordering the hill-sides. Those mounds are relatively small and are defined as Class III and Class II mounds, respectively. Mounds found on the flat steppe and identified as Class I mounds can be huge and would require at least one complete season of excavation in order to excavate a single mound. We hope to excavate a Class I mound in 2009. We also plan to expand our mound survey to areas south of the Delgermoron River and west of the present survey area. Improving on our survey data will significantly enhance our ability to calculate a better demographic profile of the people who constructed the mounds and also provide information on sedentary versus nomadic behavioral activities. Support for our Mongolian research has come from many sources, including the National Geographic Society’s Exploration Council grants (2006-2007); the Human and Social Dynamics initiative of the National Science Foundation (USA), under grant no. BCS-0527471; the Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, the Smithsonian Institution; the Arctic Study Center, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution; the Institute of Archaeology, Mongolian Academy of Sciences; Siemens Medical Solutions in Cary, North Carolina; and from private sources. Judith Littleton from the University of Auckland in New Zealand and David Hunt, Smithsonian Institution, discussing dental variation on a 3,000 year old mandible. Tsend Amgalantugs (Tugsuu) holding Ashtech/Magellan Rover unit used in surveying Bronze Age burial mounds. ASC Newsletter 29 OVOOS AND ONGONS: WORSHIP IN THE DARKHAT VALLEY By Paula T. DePriest, MCI, Smithsonian The Mongolian steppe is a great, open stage for grand and lasting monuments such as Bronze Age Khirigsuurs and Deer Stones and Turkic era Stone Men (‘balbal’) and inscribed stones. Modern Mongolians have the ubiquitous ovoo -- piles of stones or teepees of sticks that are found on mountain passes, road crests, and difficult river crossings and headwaters in honor of the spirit- masters of these places. These modern monuments change and grow with every passer-by who adds stones, sticks and objects as they add to the monument and complete the ritual of circling the ovoo three times to ask for luck in their travels. However, It is not clear whether for most Mongolians these ovoo rituals reflect only tradition and superstition, or actual worship. There are other monuments, more important and sometimes more ephemeral, that are actively worshiped. These honor spirits, “ongons,” and the sacred objects, also called “ongons,” where they reside. In the past years of traveling in Hovsgol Aimag’s Darkhat Valley and its surrounding Ulaan Taiga, the Smithsonian’s Botany Team has visited and documented a number of ongons and ovoos. These sacred objects and sites represent three separate but intertwining religious traditions – Lamist Buddhism, Darkhat Shamanism, and Dukha Shamanism. The Darkhat Valley, as a former Buddhist ecclesiastical state, is home to a number of Buddhist-influenced ovoos. They are characterized by multicolored prayer scarves traditionally of Chinese silk (but now often synthetic fabric), printed prayer flags with standard messages, wooden, seed, or stone prayer beads, and plaques with Tibetan script. The most important ceremonial sites, Olin Davaa (‘bald pass’) at the southern entrance of the Darkhat Valley (N50°34.647′ E 099°08.581′), Ongon Hill in Renchinlhumbe Sum (N51°22.548′ E 099°34.988′), and the sacred Renchinlhumbe Mountain (N51°32.575′ E 099°12.270′), each have thirteen ovoos – twelve small and one large ovoo constructed of standing sticks in a teepee form. The first two sites are used annually for festivals and for ritual milk offerings before the fall migration. Richenlumbe Mountain was used for reading of Buddhist sacred texts before Buddhism’s suppression by the communist government. Buddhism has greatly influenced the ethnic Darkhats and their Shamanism, so their sacred sites are often shared with the Buddhists and decorated in a similar manner. In addition the Darkhats have “Shaman Trees,” large, lone trees often recognized as sacred after being struck by lightening. One Darkhat shaman tree in the Kharmai Valley (N51°20.451′ E 099°14.693′) is a lone pine tree decorated with blue and white prayer hadags. The Dukha represent a separate but related ethnic group maintaining a Tuvan primary language and shamanic practices that have to a lesser extent been influenced by Buddhism. In contrast to the Buddhist and Darkhat traditions, Dukha (also called Tsaatan – reindeer people -- by Mongolians) outdoor worship site are not obvious, focusing on natural elements and using natural materials such as “Russian cotton” fabric that readily decomposes. In June 2007 the Botany Team visited one Dukha ovoo which is treated as a sacred site by our Dukha guides – we were not permitted to collect any of the plants observed around the site. The site was located on a rock outcrop on the highest point of a ridge above the Kharmai River west of Tsaagannur Sum, the same ridgeline with the Darkhat Shaman Tree and a Buddhist ovoo (N51°20.451′ E 099°14.693′). The Dukha ovoo consisted of two groups of three sticks each anchored with piles of rock on the top of the flat outcrop. The sticks were between 1 and 1.5 meters long; only one stick had branches. The first activity of the Dukha guides when we arrived in the site was cleaning and repositioning the sticks that had fallen. Our Dukha guide Khalzan, a shaman, prepared ritual milk and cheese offerings, incense of artz (Juniperus) and other aromatic herbs, and, with the help of other guides, tore strips off of an meter of white Russian cotton cloth. The guides offered milk with a “Tsatsal” – a traditional wooden spoon with nine small sockets representing the nine heavens that was ornamented with bundles of multicolored ribbons “seters” -- and called the names of numerous places, mountains, and rivers as they made one clockwise turn. The guides tied multiple cotton strips 5 cm wide to each of the sticks and placed small pieces of cheese around the altars. As a final ritual they, in turn, blew on incense burning on the altars to create a cleansing smoke. In addition to protection of the family, Dukha and Darkhat shamans use ovoos to ask for luck in hunting. In June-July 2005 and July 2007, our group visited the hunting ovoo at Sailag Davaa (N51°06.702′ E 098°08.961′), over two days by horse from the closest reindeer camp or settlement. According to the Dukha guides, the hunting ovoo became important during Mongolian independence in 1911 when, under increasing Russian influence, the local groups paid tributes in sables hunted in the pass. Today this pass is the eastern entrance to the Bussingol Depression, an uninhabited border region that is the primary hunting and antler gathering ground for both the Dukha and the Darkhats. The ovoo, standing on a small hill in the center of the pass, is constructed of around 20-1.5 meter sticks anchored in a pile of rocks. The sticks are tied with as many as 300 strips of fabric in multiple colors; an estimated 80% of the strips are white Russian cotton, 10% blue, 5% yellow, and the remainder green, red, brown, pink, purple, and printed multicolor. Attached to the sticks are over 60 carved ongons, almost all from wood. Half of these represent hunting equipment – knives (14), rifles that can be identified to make (10), spikes (2), bullets for particular rifles makes (2), a club, and a crossbow arrow. The remainder include wild animals -- rabbits (2) and bear, bird, deer, lynx, marmot, squirrel; domestic animals -- horses (5) and camel; commemorative plaques (13, including 10 produced during the 2007 visit); and various items – skis (2), airplane, flour mixer, and vodka bottle. Actual objects include bullets (10), vodka bottles (3), ibex antlers (1 complete pair, 1 single antler), cigarette lighter (1), and numerous matches and match boxes. Interestingly, this ovoo has no horse or animal skulls, although they are common on Family ongons with five anthropomorphic figures belonging to Dukha Shaman Khalzan 30 ASC Newsletter ovoos throughout the Darkhat Valley. The ovoo has two altars of flat rocks that are in current use for burning incense (documented in 2005) and offerings of cheese and candy (2005 and 2007). Milk offerings are made to the surrounding mountains and rivers, and to animate the ongons and antlers on the ovoo. As with tools attached to Dukha and Darkhat shaman garments, the small weapons and animals serve as amulets as the hunter negotiates with the animal spirit master for good hunting. With the animal figures he is asking to exchange these for actual animals, and in advance providing a ongon to hold the spirits released from his catch. The most important ongons are family objects that contain spirits often of deceased relatives, interpreted as originating from Asian ancestor worship. These spirits are considered dangerous as they may try to take the family, and especially the children, to the underworld to create a parallel life. Providing a figure to hold the spirit, feeding them with milk or fat, keeping them in a secure place and honoring them has the goal of appeasing and taming the spirits and holding them in one place. In Buddhist and Darkhat homes the family will have an altar with special candles, ancestor or family photographs, and Buddhist tankas, visible to all. In contrast, Dukha shaman keep their alters covered and family ongons enclosed in a pouch they hang from the roof poles of their tents. In June 2007 we were allowed to view a display of the ongons of Khalzan and his family. The ongon, displayed at the north side of the “ortz” -- teepee, was framed with numerous Buddhist hadags mainly in blue, but also a few in gold. The ongon was a pieced cloth, green above and white below, on which five small anthropomorphic figures were placed. The figures were dressed in high-necked blue dels with matching blue trousers and a contrasting yellow sash. The feet, hands, and heads were puffs of fur that may be bear. At the feet of each figure were seter-like stacks of fabric strips (ca. 5 cm wide) that were white, with green, blue, and yellow strips below. A number of other ritual items are displayed with the ongons and offerings included artz, cheese, cookies, candies, milk tea, candles of yellow oil, bricks of tea, and folded white Russian cotton cloth. The ongon is consistent with a special type of Tuvan ancestor ongon, “Emegelchin eeren,” that is illustrated in Kenin- Lopsan (1997, Shamanic Songs and Myths of Tuva, Akademiai Kiado, Budapest, plate 3) and described, as “emegelĉieren” by Vainstein (1996, The Ērens in Tuvan Shamanism, pp. 167-178 IN Vilmos Dioszegi and Mikhaly Hoppal, Shamanism in Siberia, Akademiai Kiado, Budapest, p. 173) “the protector of women in childbirth, and of the hearth and property.” This is consistent with the family’s stated concern with protecting their children. Such ongons are produced by shaman and used in their healing ceremonies. With ovoos and ongons, the Dukha and Darkhats of the Darkhat Valley are venerating the spirit masters of specific places and of hunted animals, and most importantly their own ancestors. They are luring spirits to reside in the objects to appease them into providing protection and good fortune and to act as their special helpers in their day-to-day activities. DOCUMENTATION OF MONGOLIA’S DEER STONES – 2007 FIELD SEASON By Harriet F. (Rae) Beaubien, MCI The 2007 field season was the third year of archaeological conservators’ involvement in the field activities of the Joint Mongolian-Smithsonian Deer Stone Project [DSP], directed by William W. Fitzhugh, of the National Museum of Natural History’s Arctic Studies Center. Led by the author, the MCI documentation team included Christiane Bathow, an intern at Breuckmann GmbH in Germany, the company that developed a structured light 3D scanner specifically for cultural heritage applications, and with whom MCI has been collaborating. MCI’s participation was supported by funds from the Smithsonian’s Under Secretary for Science Endowment and the Samuel H. Kress Foundation. Our primary objectives during the 2007 field season were (1) to document deer stones at sites that the DSP would be surveying and excavating in Hovsgol aimag, especially the northern Darkhad Valley region; and (2) to complete the documentation of deer stones from the site of Ushkiin Uver, by scanning two fragments originating from deer stone #15, currently in the Hovsgol Museum collection. (The deer stones in situ were scanned in 2006.) Over a three-week period, complete high-resolution 3D digital records were produced for 14 deer stones from 6 locations including the Hovsgol Museum; these were among 30 partial or complete deer stones from 13 locations documented systematically with photographs and descriptive condition records by the MCI team. Time Line of Documentation Activities With the arrival of Beaubien and Bathow in Mongolia on June 5, the DSP team left Ulaanbaatar the next day, stopping at several deer stone sites en route to Muren, the Hovsgol aimag center. The 3 standing deer stones (#1-#3) were photographed at Olziyt [Arkhangai aimag], a site visited in previous years by the DSP and well-known to team member T. Sanjmyatav, who worked there with V.V. Volkov ca. 20 years ago. At Ulaan Tolgoi [Hovsgol aimag], a site investigated by the DSP since 2002, deer stones #2, #4 and #5 were photographed, to supplement documentation, including scanning, by MCI teams in 2005 and 2006. In Muren, Beaubien, Fitzhugh and key Mongolian team members visited Dr. Altantsetseg, the director of the Hovsgol Museum, in their temporary quarters. We used this opportunity to distribute copies of field reports and make arrangements for scanning the museum’s deer stone fragments. The team’s destination for the first phase of archaeological research was the northern Darkhad Valley, passing en route the deer stone at Tsatstain Khoshuu. First investigated Botany Team and Dukha guides at the Sailag Davaa Hunting Ovoo. ASC Newsletter 31 the original (unoccupied) museum building. They were first photographed in 2006 by the MCI team, after we had completed scanning Ushkiin Uver’s 14 in situ deer stones. Following official negotiations with museum and aimag authorities, we were permitted to photograph and 3D scan both fragments that day. Our team’s return trip to Ulaanbaatar included a stop, after overnighting near the Khunuy River, at an unnamed deer stone site where the sole standing stone (#1) was recorded. In Ulaanbaatar, Beaubien consulted with the curatorial staff at the National Museum of Mongolian History about various conservation concerns, and assisted the project personnel with registration of the season’s finds. A deer stone, recently placed in the museum’s front courtyard, was photodocumented, though with no information about its provenience. Prior to the team’s departure on June 26, Beaubien and Fitzhugh were also able to meet with Enkhbat, Director of the Cultural Heritage Center, to discuss our deer stone documentation work and future participation in CHC’s heritage registry program. Future Applications A notable component of MCI’s deer stone documentation is 3D scanning technology, which provides an efficient, rapid and non- contact means of capturing accurate and detailed topographic and dimensional information in digital format. To date, the 3D scan data acquired during the 2005 and 2006 field seasons from Ulaan Tolgoi (#1-#5), Evdt Valley (#1), Erkhel North 1 (#1, #2) and Khushuugiin Devseg (#1, #2) have been fully processed, and those from Ushkiin Uver are in progress. With the addition of information from the 2007 field season, the 3D files, along with photographs, descriptive information and condition notes, will form a significant documentary record of deer stones in Hovsgol aimag. We anticipate that they will be of particular value, as part of Mongolia’s cultural heritage archive, for use in research, such as detailed iconographic and technical study; museum display, including high-resolution models created from the digital files; and preservation, including base-line condition monitoring records. Deer stone #1 at Khushuugiin Devseg is scanned at night, illustrating the equipment set-up with the digital data concurrently displayed on the computer screen. Photo: Rae Beaubien Ulaan Tolgoi deer stone #5 is shown in computer screen views of the 3D digital file (STL format), processed from 2005 laser scan data (Karas, 2007). by the DSP in 2004, the monument (#1) was photographed, adding to documentation gathered during its test-scanning in 2005. From our base camp along the Khorgorgo River, north of the Shishged River, the DSP carried out excavations in several areas, including one adjacent to the camp that yielded evidence of lithic activity and a human burial. The scan team provided assistance with excavation as well as cleaning and packaging finds. Other work locations from the 2006 field season were visited for preliminary documentation, including two rock art sites, East Ridge and West Ridge; an ovoo at the Tsagaan Us pass, which incorporates two stone monuments (#1 photographed); and the deer stone sites of Avtiin and Hort Uzuur. Given time constraints, logistical challenges and archaeological priorities, the latter two sites were selected as priorities for scanning. Avtiin contains 4 deer stones, including one in 2 fragments, which were excavated and the largest one positioned vertically by the DSP in 2006. In 2007, deer stones #1-#4 were 3D scanned and fully recorded. At Hort Uzuur, with 6 possible deer stones identified during the DSP’s 2006 investigations, we 3D scanned and fully recorded deer stones #1-#3, and photographed #4 and #5 (the latter in 3 major fragments). The second phase of archaeological research was carried out from our base camp at Khushuugiin Devseg, located on a plateau east of Lake Erkhel. The site had been named Erkhel East 1 by the DSP in 2005, during our scanning of its two standing deer stones (#1, #2), later renamed during the DSP’s 2006 excavations. In 2007, a third fallen stone (#3) was excavated and subsequently erected. While still fully exposed, it was 3D scanned and fully recorded, as was #1, for comparison with data acquired in 2005; #2 was photographed only. At nearby Tumst, a small deer stone site found by the DSP in 2007, the one standing and two fallen stones (#1-#3) were photographed, with a descriptive record completed for #1. Test excavations and deer stone documentation activities also took place at Khyadag, a site located south of Lake Erkhel that had been briefly visited in 2002 by the DSP. In 2007, the 4 deer stones in Khyadag’s West Group (#1-#4) were 3D scanned and fully recorded. The prominent deer stone (#1) and another in 2 fragments (#2) from the main cluster of Khyadag’s East Group were fully recorded, with #1 also 3D scanned. While based in this region, we returned to the Hovsgol Museum in Muren to scan the fragments of Ushkiin Uver deer stone #15. Intact and still in situ as drawn by Volkov decades ago, it later disappeared from the site. Two of its fragments were recovered in 2005 and stored in a metal cage structure in the backyard of 32 ASC Newsletter RETURN OF A KILLER WHALE CREST: NMNH REPATRIATION OF A TLINGIT CLAN HAT By Eric Hollinger, NMNH Office of Repatriation On New Year’s Day 2005, NMNH Repatriation Case Officer Eric Hollinger traveled to Sitka, Alaska, carrying a object precious to the Tlingit people: a Killer Whale Hat belonging to the Dakl’aweidí clan of the Eagle moiety. The next day, the hat was signed over to the Dakl’aweidí clan leader, Mark Jacobs, Jr., in Mark’s hospital room accompanied by his son, Harold Jacobs. A few hours later, leaders and members of Tlingit clans from throughout the region gathered in the hospital’s cafeteria where they had assembled their clans’ crest objects known as at.óow. They had gathered to make the return of the hat legal under Tlingit law by witnessing the hat being “brought out” according to ancient traditions. Clan leaders from the Raven moiety removed the hat from its carrying box and placed it beside their own clan hat. Then they carried it over to Mark Jacobs, Jr., seated in a wheelchair, and after speeches about the hat, its return, and their clan’s recognition of Mark and all he had done for the Tlingit people, they placed it upon his head. This act, along with the songs, speeches and ceremony that accompanied it, formally completed the repatriation of the hat from the Smithsonian to the Dakl’aweidí clan. To end the ceremony, Mark’s nephew Pete Karras Jr. (Keet wú) donned the Killer Whale hat and it was danced again for the first time in more than 100 years. Sadly, Mark Jacobs, Jr., also known as Gusht’eiheen, passed away only eleven days later with the hat beside him in his hospital room. By being there at the critical time, the hat had fulfilled an important function, at.óow, by facilitating communication between Gusht’eiheen and his ancestors. The hat began its long journey when it was purchased in 1904 by Bureau of American Ethnology ethnologist John Swanton while he was conducting research on Tlingit myths and customs on southeastern Alaska. Of the hat, Swanton recorded in his notes that, “it was made as a real emblem (crest hat)” and was among “the most treasured Tlingit possessions.” His notes also indicated that it had belonged to the first Gusht’eiheen of the Dakl’aweidí clan from Angoon, Alaska, and that it had been purchased from his son. Although Swanton later published on this hat, except for the occasional researcher of Tlingit culture, it rested relatively undisturbed in the collections of the National Museum of Natural History for nearly 100 years. The Killer Whale hat came again to the attention of the Dakl’aweidí clan during a visit by Mark and Harold Jacobs in 1997. They recognized the significance of the hat and through Kootznoowoo Incorporated of Angoon, Alaska, Mark requested that it be repatriated to the clan under the repatriation provisions of the National Museum of the American Indian Act of 1989. They argued that the Killer Whale hat met the criteria for identification as both an object of cultural patrimony and as a sacred object as defined by the law, but had been illegally alienated from the clan because it had been sold by the Gusht’eiheen’s son. The son, as was tradition among the Tlingit, belonged to his mother’s clan and would not have had rights to the property of his father’s clan. A number of staffing issues and the addition of several more requests for repatriation of other Tlingit objects delayed the museum’s final response to the request. In 2003, responsibility for Tlingit cases was assigned to Eric Hollinger of the NMNH’s Repatriation Office. Hollinger hired Tlingit Ethnologist and repatriation expert Anne-Marie Victor-Howe to assist with the case, and together with Repatriation Program Manager William Billeck, traveled to Alaska to consult with Mark and Harold Jacobs at the offices of the Central Council Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska in Juneau, and with elders and clan leaders in Angoon. Over the next year, Hollinger, Victor-Howe and Repatriation Office Museum Specialist Betsy Bruemmer worked to assemble all of the information relating to the cultural affiliation and collection histories of all of the Tlingit objects under claim into a report with recommendations for the museum. The museum recognized that the Killer Whale hat was indeed an object of cultural patrimony and a sacred object culturally affiliated to the Dakl’aweidí clan, and had been acquired illegally by Swanton. Therefore, the museum lacked the right of possession as defined by the law. The museum also recognized the unique situation that Mark Jacobs, Jr., under the traditional Tlingit matrilineal kinship system, was also the lineal descendent of the former custodian of the hat, the first Gusht’eiheen. While the draft report and recommendations were undergoing the long process of museum review, the Repatriation Office received word that Mark Jacobs, Jr. was gravely ill in the hospital in Sitka, Alaska. The Repatriation Office and Anthropology Department joined in requesting the review of the repatriation be expedited in an effort to return the hat as rapidly as possible. Cristián Samper, then Director of the National Museum of Natural History, concurred with the recommendations. Within days, deaccession papers were drawn up, travel arrangements were made and Greta Hansen, OUTREACH The hat being placed on Mark Jacobs Jr. by clan leaders of the Raven Moiety at its repatriation January 2, 2005. The Killer Whale Hat - Keet Saaxwh ASC Newsletter 33 ARCHAEOLOGICAL CONSERVANCY LECTURE SERIES HIGHLIGHTS NATIVE AMERICAN HISTORY By Abby McDermott Stephen Loring, ASC archaeologist, and Andy Stout, Eastern Regional Director of the Archaeological Conservancy, put together a very well-attended and informative six-part, illustrated lecture series on notable native North American sites. The six lectures were organized in cooperation with Deborah Rothberg, Public Programs Coordinator for the National Museum of Natural History, who has been coordinating weekly public lectures at noon on Fridays in the Baird Auditorium since 1974. Stephen Loring’s lecture Another Ghost of Courageous Adventurers: New Revelations about Paleoindian Lifestyles in Vermont 11,000 Years Ago, an overview of the spirit world of ancient hunters, opened the series on Nov. 2. The sweeping historical scope of Stephen’s lecture was reprised by Bob Wall (Towson University) on Nov. 9, who provided the audience with a look back at the last 10,000 years of occupation at the Barton Site near Cumberland, Maryland. Andy Stout introduced Dr. Wall by noting that the Barton Site is one of 335 endangered sites actively preserved and protected by the Archaeological Conservancy in 39 states across America. Both Don Linebaugh (University of Maryland) and Dennis Stanford (Smithsonian NMNH) maintained the Chesapeake focus of the series with their lectures on Nov. 16 and Nov. 30 respectively. Dr. Linebaugh discussed the Kippax Plantation in Virginia and the Bolling Family’s sale of trade goods to the Western Indians over many generations. And Dr. Stanford, Director of the Paleoindian Program at the Natural History Museum, presented a synopsis of his thirty-year search for traces of the earliest people of North America to a packed auditorium. He explained how his search for the roots of the Clovis culture in North America has taken him from Alaska, to Texas, to Pleistocene Europe, and finally to the shores of the Chesapeake Bay. Lastly, Pegi Jodry’s (Smithsonian – NMNH) lecture Ancient People and Climate in the Colorado Rockies showed the relationship she has Anthropology Conservator, constructed a special box for safely transporting the hat during the journey to Sitka. Because the National Museum of Natural History was able to return the Killer Whale hat to the Dakl’aweidí clan leader before his death, the hat was able to take its rightful place among the at.óow of the clan at his deathbed and at his funeral a few days later. After the death of a clan leader, the at.óow become what are called “masterless objects” – a state in which, since European contact, many objects have been improperly sold following western rather than Tlingit inheritance practices. Traditionally, this state lasts until the Koo.éex’, or Memorial Party, at which a new clan leader is formally established and the clan at.óow are transferred to his custody. The Koo.éex’ normally takes place one year after the death of the clan leader; but for very important leaders like Mark Jacobs, Jr., it can take much longer to gather the funds and resources necessary to conduct a Koo.éex’ worthy of their stature. The Dakl’aweidí clan objects, in a rare effort to secure their inheritance, were publicly transferred from the temporary custody of Mark’s widow Adelaide and his son Harold during the “Sharing our Knowledge Clan Conference” in March of 2007. In the Tlingit tradition of public transfer with the witness of clan leaders of the opposite moiety, the Dakl’aweidí at.óow, including the Killer Whale hat repatriated from the NMNH, were transferred to the care of Edwell John, House Leader of the Killer Whale Chases the Seal House of Angoon. The Killer Whale hat and the other clan at.óow that had been in Mark’s care, while publicly recognized as belonging to the Dakl’aweidí clan, still needed the final formal ceremony of being transferred at the Koo.éex’ for Mark Jacobs, which finally occurred on September 1 and 2 of 2007. Eric Hollinger was invited to attend the Koo.éex’ for the NMNH and witness the Killer Whale hat being conferred on the new clan leader, Edwell John. The clans and clan leaders of the opposite moiety, the Raven side, were “paid” for their services to the Dakl’aweidí and for witnessing and validating the actions of the Dakl’aweidí clan. The Killer Whale hat was officially “brought out” and danced in by Armando DeAssis (Naalk’) a direct descendent of the first Gusht’eiheen. The hat was also used in a portion of the ceremony called “killing the money,” in which the money collected for the memorial is disassociated from the donors and is used to pay for clan names and for the public display of the at.óow belonging to the Raven’s side clans. Eric Hollinger was adopted by the Dakl’aweidí clan during this portion of the memorial and recognized for his efforts to speed the return of the hat. The traditional way in which the Koo.éex’ was carried out, the prestige, and the large number of blankets, frontlets and coppers that were given by the Dakl’aweidí clan was said by many in attendance to be the greatest they had ever seen and the Raven moiety clan leaders said that it would be remembered for generations to come. This is the context in which important cultural objects such as the Killer Whale hat repatriated by the NMNH play an important role in clan cooperation and cultural affairs. Now, because the museum and the Tlingit people worked together through the repatriation process, the Killer Whale has returned to its rightful place among the Killer Whale people. Mark Jacobs Jr. wearing the hat during a consultation visit to the NMNH. The hat displayed at the Sharing Our Knowledge Clan Conference 2007. 34 ASC Newsletter uncovered over many years of research between people, animals, plants, stone and water in the Northern Rio Grande river basin. Sadly, Dr. Jodry’s lecture was the last of the Friday Lecture Series for the foreseeable future. Lectures will still be offered to National Museum of Natural History visitors on a variety of topics, but they will now be infrequent, and will be scheduled on both Fridays and Saturdays. Please check the Smithsonian Events calendar for information on future lectures and presentations: www.si.edu/ events/. For more information on The Archaeological Conservancy see www.americanarchaeology.org. “SMITHSONIAN AT THE POLES”: CONTRIBUTIONS TO INTERNATIONAL POLAR YEAR SCIENCE By Igor Krupnik On May 3-4, 2007, The Smithsonian hosted a major interdisciplinary symposium titled “Smithsonian at the Poles: Contributions to International Polar Year 2007–2008 Science.” The two-day event dedicated to the opening of the International Polar Year 2007–2008 (IPY) was a milestone in partnership across the various Smithsonian bureaus engaged in polar research, in inter-agency collaboration, and in the implementation of the U.S. scholarly and public program for IPY 2007–2008. The symposium was convened by the Office of the SI Under Secretary for Science and was sponsored jointly by the SI and NSF and it was organized by Michael Lang (Smithsonian Marine Science Program), Scott Miller (Office of the Under Secretary for Science), and Igor Krupnik (ASC). A larger Steering Committee included, in addition to the co-Chairs, Tony Stark (SAO, Astrophysics), Bill Fitzhugh (NMNH, Anthropology), Rafael Lemaitre (NMNH, Marine Biology), and Patrick Neale (SERC, Polar marine ecosystems). The symposium featured over 40 speakers from five Smithsonian bureaus (Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, National Zoological Park, National Air and Space Museum), and from NSF, NOAA, and numerous U.S. universities, from Alaska to Texas, as well as scientists from Australia and Germany. A special aim of the symposium was to network Smithsonian studies with activities of other federal agencies during the International Polar Year 2007–2008. The symposium marked another major Smithsonian contribution to the U.S. IPY 2007–2008 program that had been pledged as early as in 2005, in addition to the former NMNH-ASC exhibit on Arctic climate change, “Arctic: A Friend Acting Strangely” (see ASC Newsletter no. 14, 2006). The symposium papers presented findings by Smithsonian scientists and their collaborators in both Arctic and Antarctic research, with particular attention to changes in polar systems past, present, and future, and their global impact. Its presentations carried on a tradition of polar studies that began at the Smithsonian nearly 150 years ago and resulted in some of the world’s foremost collections and archives of Arctic and Antarctic materials. The Smithsonian Institution has a distinguished record of pioneering scholarly research and collecting in the Arctic; it is also one of the few, if not the only existing Federal institution with a strong legacy of IPY-related activities going back to the first IPY of 1882–1883. By the time of the first IPY, the Smithsonian had established productive partnerships with federal agencies, private parties, and individual explorers active in polar research. The connection to the Signal Office of the War Department was essential to the Smithsonian involvement in the first IPY, since the Office was put in charge of the preparation for two U.S. IPY expeditions to Barrow (1881–1883) and Lady Franklin Bay (1881–1884). The Smithsonian was instrumental in selecting natural scientists for the three U.S. IPY-1 missions and in training them to conduct observations and collect specimens. To the returning IPY parties, the Smithsonian offered its facilities, libraries, and the expertise of its curators for processing the records and specimens collected. For these and other efforts the Institution received most of the IPY-1 natural science and ethnological collections brought from the North, many expedition photographs, and personal memorabilia. The Smithsonian also published two monumental volumes by John Murdoch (1892) and Lucien Turner (1894) that presented the ethnological collections amassed by the first IPY missions to Alaska and Canada. The Smithsonian involvement in the later IPY/IGY ventures was modest at best, although the Institution houses a substantial collection related to the space explorations from the IGY 1957–1958 era. Many Smithsonian scientists are now engaged in various IPY 2007–2008 projects from astronomic observations at the South Pole, to the study of the deep layers of the Polar Ocean, to the use of the Smithsonian collections for culture and knowledge preservation programs in indigenous communities across the polar regions. The symposium’s structure, with an opening plenary session, concurrent thematic sessions and panel discussions, and evening public events, reflected its broad interdisciplinary focus. It was the first-ever Smithsonian polar science venue to cover both the Arctic and Antarctica and represented the diversity of the Institution’s engagement in the Earth polar regions. Six thematic sessions— Polar Astronomy: Observational Cosmology; Systematics and Biology of Polar Organisms; IPY Histories and Legacies; Environmental Change and Polar Marine Ecosystems; Cultural Studies; and Methods and Techniques of Under-Ice Research— covered a dazzling variety of research topics. The rapid climate warming in the polar regions that affects its environment, from the sea ice to indigenous people, as well as the balance in the global system, was one of the leading themes. It was featured prominently in many talks, including the opening presentation by Robert W. Corell (The Heinz Center), “Our Changing Climate: A Global Policy Issue,” and in the keynote lecture delivered by James White (University of Colorado Boulder), “The International Polar Year: Science for Society.” The symposium also offered good illustration to the strong partnership the Smithsonian has forged with the federal agencies that support polar research, such as NSF, NASA, NOAA, DOI, and others. The symposium was opened by Dr. Paul Risser, the Acting Director of NMNH and its first plenary session was concluded with the address by Dr. Ira Rubinoff, Acting Under Secretary for Science. Thematic panels took place at the NMNH and the Castle building; evening public events were organized at the Participants of the session on IPY Cultural Studies, May 4th (left to right): William Fitzhugh, ASC, Igor Krupnik, ASC, Ann Fienup-Riordan, ASC, Ernest S. Burch, Jr., ASC, Stephen Loring, ASC. ASC Newsletter 35 Castle. More details related to the symposium program, individual speakers’ titles and bios are available on the symposium website at http://www.si.edu/ipy/. Information was also disseminated through other IPY websites, including the official U.S. site http://www.ipy. gov, SI press releases and the news media. ASC, the only Smithsonian unit with its prime focus in polar research, was instrumental in symposium planning and preparation. Bill and Igor served as session organizers and chairs, also as members of the Steering Committee. The symposium featured nine presentations advancing ASC research agenda. In fact, it was the rare case in the ASC history, when all its staff members (Fitzhugh, Loring, Crowell, Broadbent, and Krupnik) and several Associates (Burch, Fienup-Riordan, Causey) delivered presentations at one scientific venue. Symposium proceedings are now being prepared for publication as a special volume in the newly re-established Smithsonian Scholarly Books series, under the joint editorship by Krupnik, Lang, and Miller. Seven ASC papers have already been reviewed and submitted to the Press for editing and layout. We are looking forward to introducing this forthcoming volume to our readers in the next issue of the ASC Newsletter, together with other new highlights of the Smithsonian IPY 2007–2008 program. to the Home-Rule government the vital need for support of Greenlandic culture today. I became aware of the event through Mikisoq Lynge, who was one of the event’s organizers alongside Stina Bethelsen and Inuk Høegh, three accomplished professionals working in creative fields in Greenland. The frustration expressed by the marchers and organizers was borne out of the lack of funding designated to securing the means to make, for example, media that could immediately relate to Greenland and its people (as opposed to being imported from Denmark and other locations abroad). The organizers strongly believed that an investment was needed to cement the unique cultural bonds between Greenlanders. Lynge, Bethelsen and Høegh quickly decided to make a statement via direct action. They put together a plan for the demonstration and recruited volunteers from the community. Businesses donated food, art materials, and printed posters to advertise the event. The library donated old books, which were transformed into props. The Silamiut Theatre Company lent their space for the production of banners, signs, and meetings to discuss the actions that would be staged during the demonstration. Street theatre played a very large part in the demonstration, as did whimsical signs and props meant to clarify for the public what the demonstrators felt was at stake. The demonstrators set a positive tone by dancing, singing, chanting, and sharing small bouquets of native plants with passers-by. The march coursed through downtown Nuuk, around the central business district and the beautiful Katuaq Greenland Cultural Center, before arriving at the main offices of the home rule government. Poignant moments unfolded throughout the march, including a dramatic pause before the giant housing project Blok P, which houses around 1% of Greenland’s population under one roof. The mournful moment of silence, led by one of the leaders of the Silamiut Theatre, underlined the elusive emotions behind demonstration, and sparked discussion of some of the tough issues facing Greenland today. Speeches and small performances on the stairs of the home rule office were conducted in both Greenlandic and Danish before a cheering crowd, and cast a warm feeling of accomplishment and eagerness for the future on that chilly and clear September afternoon. In the days that followed, a flurry of reactions and discussions about the demonstration seemed to be everywhere – on TV, in the papers, and on the street. A formal name was given to the movement, Anersaarta (“Let’s Breathe”), and subsequently several projects have been proposed by the group that also functions as a support system and resource center. For now, it seems that these cultural activists are content to leave the very term “culture” open and undefined, but ultimately, at the end of the day, available for Greenlanders to shape in whatever ways they choose. GREENLANDERS DEMAND GREATER SUPPORT FOR THE ARTS By Elisa Maria Lopez Amongst indigenous peoples of the North, the process of preserving the traditional while embracing the contemporary is faced every day, and in a world that partly through developments in technology seems to be growing rapidly smaller. The arts, perhaps more than any other field, are on the forefront of this revolution in media, and artists in Greenland are employing the most modern tools available to reach a wider global audience and place the struggles and concerns of their societies into a new context. I was to learn this first-hand this year, when I travelled to circumpolar territories and immersed myself in the life of the Northern artist for nine consecutive months. Throughout my travels, I had the opportunity to meet other artists, filmmakers, photographers, musicians, actors, and crafts people based around and beyond the Arctic Circle, tackling a wide range of issues about life in the North. On 29 September 2007, I was lucky enough to witness and participate in a very illuminating experience in Nuuk, Greenland – the first mass demonstration for art and culture in Greenland’s history. Around 400 participants, including members of the arts community and citizens of Nuuk, marched together that afternoon with the goal of communicating Greenlanders demonstrate holding a sign that states “Art (Eqqumiitsuliorneq) makes you wonder, (Eqeersaavoq) makes change (Nutarsaavoq).” A marcher urges the government to let art “blossom and grow!” 36 ASC Newsletter president of the Innu Nation. The Smithsonian Institution houses one of the world’s most significant collections of artifacts and photographs pertaining to Innu culture and history. Making this material available to Labrador communities has long been an important feature of the ASC’s commitment to community work and “knowledge repatriation.” During her visit Ms. Ashini conducted a thorough examination of the Lucien Turner collection of Innu clothing and artifacts at MSC, objects that were acquired from the Innu at Kuujjuaq between 1881-1883. She spent several days examining, documenting and photographing Labrador archaeology collections from ancestral Innu sites that had been excavated by Stephen Loring and William Fitzhugh, as well as material and collections at the NMAI Cultural Resource Center. In addition to the archaeological and ethnographic collections she spent several days carefully examining and documenting the many hundreds of historical photographs of the Innu taken by William Brooks Cabot, Frank Speck and William Stiles among others. Jodie plans to incorporate some aspects of her research results in her on-going study of Innu shamanism and shaking-tent ceremonies and documentation of traditional life and the old Innu travel routes in western Labrador. BROADBENT LECTURES By Noel D. Broadbent In March, I had the great pleasure of being a guest professor at Sterling College in Vermont. I lectured on Arctic and Nordic archaeology for several classes and gave a public lecture on the always-popular Andrée ballooning expedition at the Northern Studies Center, Wolcott, Vermont. It was also an opportunity to provide information about SI internships, work and study in Scandinavia, and coordinate with Sterling staff undertaking a tour to Iceland. On May 11th, thanks to Pam Puntenney of Environmental and Human Systems Management, I was an invited speaker at the United Nations in an Education Caucus Policy Forum on Eco- effectiveness and Sustainability. I participated on a panel together with the Ambassador for Sustainable Development from the Netherlands, a representative of the German Federal Ministry of the Environment, the UNEP Youth Advisory Council and UNP-DEP. Naturally I spoke about indigenous research and education in the Arctic and the importance of anthropology in these contexts. It was an uplifting experience that left me with the insight that there is a clear and urgent need for more anthropologists at the UN. There was a follow-up session on this issue at the AAAs in DC, and Sir Richard Jolly, formerly of UNICEF, spoke to the issue. A week later I was invited back to NYC through UNESCO and attended a luncheon with representatives from Sweden announcing the start of a new department on sustainability at the University of Stockholm. The “Smithsonian at the Poles” IPY lecture series at the NMNH brought in lots of interesting folks and I presented three historic archaeology projects of relevance to the IPY: The Andrée project in Svalbard, the East Base project on the Antarctic Peninsula, and Marble Point across from McMurdo base in Antarctica. All three projects focused on polar flight and historic site management. I spoke again in April in another IPY series organized by the Air and Space Museum and will have a follow- up at Colby College in April through an invitation by Professor James Fleming. It was a busy and stimulating year, thanks to the wonderful opportunities afforded me through the ASC. JODIE ASHINI VISITS SMITHSONIAN INNU COLLECTIONS By Stephen Loring Stephen Loring and the Arctic Studies Center were pleased to host a visiting Native American Fellowship recipient, Ms. Jodie Ashini (Innu) from Sheshatshiu, Labrador, February 16-26, 2007. Ms. Ashini is enrolled at Memorial University in St. John’s, Newfoundland where she is completing a degree in archaeology. Jodie’s grandparents maintained many traditional aspects of Innu culture and language even after adopting village life in the late-1960’s. Her grandfather is widely recognized as one of the most knowledgeable Innu elders about traditional Innu country ways and her father is currently ALASKAN IÑUPIAT VISIT BRITISH MUSEUMS By Amber Lincoln Some of the oldest Iñupiaq ethnographic artifacts in the world, collections held in U.K. museums dating to trading between the Iñupiat and British naval officers 180 years ago, were viewed in January for the first time by representatives of the Iñupiat of northwest Alaska. The visiting group of Iñupiat was invited by the British Museum to document and analyze some 130 ethnographic objects. The group was also be hosted by the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford to view approximately 120 objects. The collections comprise tools and clothing, including walrus and whaling harpoons, caribou and seal skin footwear, and ivory bow-drills with engraved depictions of animals, hunting and dancing scenes, and other daily activities. Scheduled for January 21-25, the trip was coordinated by Amber Lincoln, a PhD candidate at the University of Aberdeen, in collaboration with the Alaskan Native Village of Kotzebue, IRA. Members of the visiting group were Faye Ongtowasruk, Barbara Weyiouanna, Pearl and John Goodwin, and artist Jodie Ashini working on Innu collections at the MSC. The original photograph of the EAGLE on the polar ice - July 14, 1897 (Photo: Gränna Museum) ASC Newsletter 37 through art – art that in turn is viewed by other children far away. New children’s tapestries are stitched with local materials and local images to share with other children around the world. CC programs continue to identify and share selected Arctic artworks around the globe in great public spaces and galleries. Today, however, the program encourages children to join in building new bridges between their own communities and the communities of the Arctic. The CC project has become a vehicle for children to celebrate symbols of their own lives and to share in the personal creation of an interconnected world. Judy recently returned again to Baker Lake in Nunavut and to Goose Bay in Labrador. In Baker Lake, the creative works of children from other corners of the globe were “brought home” and shared by children, elders and artistic communities of the Arctic. In this instalment of the ASC Newsletter, Judy writes passionately about recent country projects, including a bridge between Nanjing and Baker Lake, programs in India and Latvia, and her recent event in Labrador.] The Culture on Cloth project consists of 19 wall hangings made by women in Baker Lake in the privacy of their homes. The artworks are stitched by hand on duffle cloth and tell stories of the Canadian Arctic. These are some of my favourite jottings and ramblings during the past several months of CC projects and experiences. A few months after Mongolia (see ASC NL 14), the project was hosted in Nanjing, a spectacular city with modern architecture and tons of bicyclers. Beautiful trees were hanging over the street where the exhibition was held at the Jiangsu Gallery. I lectured at Nanjing Normal University on a beautiful sprawling campus. Working with the consulate in Shanghai prior to my arrival, I arranged for a person to film what we were doing with children. I had two university students assigned to me and they captured it all on video. I wish filming had been done wherever CC has taken me, but it was particularly significant in Nanjing. I spoke at the Performing Arts Center, a special school for children. Using a PowerPoint presentation in a cold auditorium, I emphasized aspects of the North that would most interest children. One factoid: it takes 45 minutes to create a good igloo! As their “thank you gesture” to me after I left the stage, I was invited to sit in the front row. Our video started immediately – it was so fortuitous to have even an amateur film person present! Next, the drummers arrived. They were boys and girls who not only drummed, but twirled the drum sticks and used other percussion instruments, ending with one boy drumming as a jazz star! Then I was led upstairs to a classroom for a small choral performance. They began with Red River Valley in Chinese. Singing with the grace of an opera star, an incredible young woman meandered forward with her hands in motion. She was followed by a young man, who may in fact be the next Luciano Pavarotti. After, I was ushered to another classroom to watch ballet. The first ballet was Tibetan, and the final was one that could be seen in the Beijing Opera House. I was amazed with the talent and grace of the performers. To have these performances on video is particularly exciting, as Ron Senungetuk. The representatives had been selected to visit because of their cultural knowledge and expertise. They were traveling from the Alaska locations of Wales, Nome, Kotzebue, and Homer. During the visit, the group identified the source and methods for gathering materials, highlighted sewing and carving techniques, and to discussed how and when tools were made as well as their various uses. The trip allowed Iñupiaq Alaskans to learn more about where their material heritage resides. Although many American Indian and Alaska Native tribes know where their artifacts are in North American museums, few people know their locations in European museums. The visit was filmed for distribution to Iñupiaq communities whose residents have never seen the objects. Both museums and the communities are better served when there is good communication and strong relationships between museums and the people they represent. Such exchanges offer potential for better understanding of ethnographic collections and more enriched educational programs. The artifacts, collected during 1826 and 1827 by officers aboard the HMS Blossom, are part of a larger collection that originated primarily from Diomede and King Island, Norton and Kotzebue Sounds, Hotham Inlet, and the northeast tip along the Arctic coast between Point Hope and Point Barrow. The Blossom’s main objective was to re-provision Commander John Franklin’s overland expedition traveling through the Canadian Arctic, but the officers were also ordered to collect ethnographic and natural history specimens for the newly-created public British museums. Sponsors of the visit were the United States National Park Service’s Shared Beringian Heritage Program, the Native Village of Kotzebue IRA, Kawerak, Inc., the Thaw Charitable Trust, Santa Fe, Bering Straits Native Foundation, the British Museum, and the Pitt Rivers Museum. CULTURE ON CLOTH RIDES AGAIN! By Judy Burch [Editor’s Note: Culture on Cloth (CC) is a global arts and education project directed by Judy Burch that creates connections to and from the Arctic through art. CC is organized in concert with regional museums and government entities and its events are hosted in countries all over the world. Judy has reported on CC country projects (Japan, Korea, China, Mongolia) in recent ASC newsletters. Early CC projects focus on a specialized Arctic art tradition: handmade Inuit wall hangings that are shipped and shown around the world. Major museums participate in those programs that fit closely with their own art missions and expertise. Today Judy has refined the learning model to a more interactive approach and broadened the programming to specialize in children’s events and education. Interactive children’s work has been so well-received that country projects are now designed with youth development programs as core curricula. What are these “interactive activities?” CC country projects and outcomes extend beyond arts appreciation to cultural dialogues with exercises that help children learn to tell their own stories Judy Burch and a ballet dance troupe at the Performing Arts Center in Najing, China. 38 ASC Newsletter for both of us. To share CC with students in India was very meaningful. Here again similarities, not differences, became so very important. After I returned from India I received a gift in the mail. Four shim sham hand-made wooden blocks and a scarf, which had been printed from these blocks. One was a kayaker, one an igloo, and the last two were closely tied to India. In India the back-end of elephants and camels are generally tattooed with a lovely design, so the polar bear block and the caribou block had lovely designs on their rear-ends! I remember thinking that in India, with lots of car traffic, elephants also needed rear-end brake lights! But it was always a pleasure to watch an elephant waddle along a highway with a colorful design on its back parts. Riga, Latvia was the next location for Culture on Cloth. Riga is an UNESCO world heritage site. The exhibition was in the oldest church in Riga – an old stone church built in 1209 that is now a museum. Very few spoke English, even amongst the staff. At one point, when there was a throat-singing recording playing, which had played day in and day out I went up to the volunteer at the entrance and started dancing, and she arose and danced too. What incredible connections we all felt at the museum in Riga! The last day I was there, the staff took me to the lowest level of the museum and gave me a shard of the old building – a beautiful gray stone from the 1209 structure – so that I could always feel connected to them. The children created one large wall hanging of the old city of Riga using felt, which included even the cobblestone streets and magnificent old churches. Another wall hanging was made of the countryside, again felted, showing storks, swans, haystacks and barns. The last felted wall hanging showed the symbols of Latvia. I even joined in and learned how to felt. Not only did the children spend the days working on the wall hangings, but also adults who came to the museum joined in. Whenever new visitors arrived, I stopped felting and did walk-throughs of the wall hangings and answered many questions about the art and the North. The visitors learned about Latvia and about the North. Three large felted pieces have now arrived in Baker Lake. I look forward to explaining the symbolism when I return to there. Gaston, the Canadian cultural attaché was extremely interested and helpful. He learned how to do string games and worked with the children so they too could create string games from Baker Lake. He drove me all over the countryside to give me a real sense of Latvia. I loved it, and now receive regular emails from staff and look forward to a return visit with my new friends. I recently spoke in Happy Valley, in Goose Bay, Labrador. 2007 was the “Year of the Craft” so I was invited to Labrador to discuss CC and the Bake Lake wall hangings. It was delightful to share my stories with them and to the performances could later be shared with the young people in Baker Lake as a gift to them and their library, and I was the lucky person in the middle. Skipping country lines and reaching across borders, watching children reaching out to others. Soon after, I had the pleasure of lecturing to an arts class in Shanghai who were intrigued with the culture and appearance of the Canadian Arctic and the art of the region. I feel I opened new windows to these students on Nunavut and Inuit art. A few months later, I returned to Baker Lake and was able to share my film from Nanjing. I also had a CD created which showed where the CC exhibition traveled around the world. Whether it was food stands along the road, panda bears outside of Kunming, the Great Wall, sites in Mexico, Mongolia, Japan and China – we felt a sense of place. The artwork created by the elders in BL shared their culture on cloth with many other parts of the world. The wall hangings are visually accessible to all ages and peoples. All cultures have had needles and thread – although maybe not caribou shin-bone needles and sinew for thread. The oral tradition is clearly alive on these wall hangings, where a written tradition isn’t available and can’t enlighten other cultures. Children in BL, stunned by the videos of performances in Nanjing, loved the camels in Mongolia and the wall hanging gifts made by children there and in Beijing. I also shared the video and PowerPoint with the community at a meeting in the library. While in Baker Lake, we had some of the elder wall hanging artists work with the young people to create wall hangings representing their world today to send back to the schools in Asia. When I asked the kids what the most important thing to them in Baker Lake was, one piped up and said the hockey scoreboard. I said, “Great, create that.” The students, with the help of the experienced artists, put ice fishing and other meaningful images on cloth so that the wall hangings could be sent as gifts abroad. After China, the exhibition went to the Anokhi Museum of Hand Printing near Jaipur, India. The women in India are amazing – looking into their eyes, I felt such depth and warmth. Many years ago I had been to India with my parents. This time, I had my own daughter in tow. The women adored the fact that I cared enough to come back to India and bring my daughter. I spoke to a group at a local university about the North and told them a special story. Long ago, sitting up on top of a hill outside of Baker Lake, I remember looking around, seeing virtually nothing. I finally understood the meaning of “Life is but a blink of Brahma’s eyelid.” The professor of the university class asked me to return and travel all over India with him as my interpreter to talk about the North and art; a thoughtful dream A child in Riga, Latvia, working on a wall hanging of the Latvian countryside for the children of Baker Lake. Children back in Baker Lake, Nunuvut, Cananda, in front of wall hangings sent to them from Mongolia and China. ASC Newsletter 39 GREENLAND NATIONAL DAY / INUIATTUT ULLORSIORNEQ By Will E. Richard [Editor’s Note: Will Richard is an ASC Research Collaborator and a photographer with a “far northist” bent. You can learn more about his work by visiting his webpage: http://www.wrichphoto. com/wrichphoto/index.htm In 2007, my wife and I took advantage of the maiden flight season of Air Greenland between Baltimore, Maryland, and Kangerlussuac, Greenland, for a stay that lasted from mid-June to mid-July. This new direct flight was at least in part a consequence of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History “Festival of Greenland” in 2005. On our flight from Baltimore to Greenland, we had the pleasure of the company of Cristian Keldsen, Director of Sales and Marketing for Air Greenland. For Americans, this new route is definitely advantageous. As a direct, non-stop flight, travel time is about five hours as opposed to two days via Denmark or Iceland, and there is often a fare savings as well. After we landed in Kangerlussuac, our first destination was south to Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, for a full week. We had previously visited Nuuk, but only for two days. Nuuk (formerly Godthåb) is pronounced as “nuke” meaning “promontory”. With a population of 14,265 (Statistics Greenland 2003), one out of every four Greenlanders resides in the capital district. Nuuk at North 64º 10.58’; West 51º 43.86’, is actually south of the Arctic Circle. We were fortunate arrive in the capital city for Greenland National Day, Inuiattut ullorsiorneq, which is celebrated on June 21 along with the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. According to Greenland’s national website, National Day was introduced in 1983 by Greenland Home Rule Government as an expression of national unity and values. Indeed I am fortunate to have celebrated the summer solstice once before in the Arctic – on the western side of Baffin Bay in the Canadian Inuit Territory of Nunavut in 2003. That celebration consisted of a spiritual quiet time on the ice with a brilliant white sunlit Arctic panorama. In Nuuk, the celebration consisted of many community activities including speeches, foot races, a soccer match, and traditional Inuit games. That’s quite a contrast for two northern venues that roughly extend through the same longitude and come within a dozen miles of geological contact at Smith Sound in the high Polar north. The program for Greenland National Day was a full four pages of closely-scheduled events – well suited to the longest day of the year. Programming was so complex that we could not cover all activities, including many of the outdoor events such as water polo, football, and kayaking. The day’s activities began with two foot races in front of Katuaq. After the ceremonies and activities conducted around Katuaq wrapped up, we followed the noise of people shouting, laughing, and clapping to the city senior league championship soccer game on the USK football field. In early afternoon, we next made our way to Godthåb Halen (Hall), which had a program that wound into the evening. There were a performances by the Nuuk City orchestra, the Nuuk Tambour Corps with piccolos and drums, a group of young violinists, Greenlandic folk dancing, the Greenlandic polka, a Tae- Kwon-Do demonstration, and many, many children. Occupying at least one-third of the hall’s perimeter between floor and auditorium sets were tables of food consisting of traditional “country” Danish pastries and cream cakes. Upon leaving Godthåb Halen, we visited the Nuuk Kunstmuseum to view a collection of the works of the early 20th century Greenlandic, painter Emanuel A. Pedersen as well as other artists in the exhibit “The Elasticity of Time,” and an outstanding collection of tupilaks. A romantic landscape painter, Pedersen’s ability to capture the traditional Inuit is so evocative that he captures more than flesh and blood, but also the connection of a people to their land. His style in terms of subject matter is somewhat reminiscent of the modernist American painter and illustrator Rockwell Kent who also worked in Greenland. Another activity in which we engaged while in Nuuk was shopping for Greenlandic crafts. Visiting the Greenland National Museum and Archives, Arktis Gaveshop, Anori Art, and Tupilak, we were delighted with the variety and quality of craftsmanship. Over the last seven years, I have made six visits to Greenland. The first three visits were by ship and included journeys to Nunavut. The last three trips have been with my wife, Lindsay. Each of these trips has been about one month in duration to locations between the former Norse settlements in southern Greenland to the northern community of Upernavik. We take pleasure each year in arranging travel, lodging, an itinerary, and most importantly meeting with old friends. Greenland – with its vitality, open wilderness, geographic diversity, brisk air, ancient history, and the energy of its people – continues to draw us back. encourage working with cloth and creating art. I explained that I don’t even sew buttons on, so I am in awe with anyone who creates such meaningful handiworks. The excitement produced by the Culture on Cloth program continues to amaze me. I always include two large maps - one of this hemisphere, showing Ottawa and Baker Lake, the other of the globe showing the host country and Baker Lake. In this world, experience is about human beings reaching out to understand and appreciate one another. The kindness and warmth I have felt in every location is astounding. Through sharing their own culture on cloth, the elder women of Baker Lake have made our world a smaller place. In helping to coordinate many key aspects of the Culture on Cloth project around the world, Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs is continuing to show its commitment to all peoples. The most energetic and successful goal bagger in the competition. His team won. Photo: Will Richard. Two participants in the mother/son footrace. Photo: Will Richard. 40 ASC Newsletter LOOKING BACK AT AN EYE-OPENING INTERNSHIP By Lauren Wynalda This past fall I had the amazing opportunity to work as an intern under the direction of Dr. William Fitzhugh, Director of the Arctic Studies Center. I was first exposed to the ASC during my senior year of college when I created a virtual museum on the presence of tuberculosis in a pre-contact arctic forager population from Point Hope, Alaska. This project inspired me to seek out the internship with Dr. Fitzhugh, where I was able to continue my studies of arctic peoples and their lifeways. When I arrived for my first day of work at the ASC, I learned that my presence was a bit of a surprise to Dr. Fitzhugh, who had just returned to the U.S. after having spent the summer abroad. Scrambling to find something for me to work on, we decided that the most pressing concern would be transcribing his handwritten field journal into the computer. The narrative style of his writing made his work in Mongolia both informative and entertaining. I came away from the research, or were merely items that Arctic explorers acquired for their own survival and comfort in the Arctic, such as warm clothing or footwear. Collecting artifacts primarily for the purpose of understanding culture was not a common undertaking during the 1800s. From early souvenir art to commissioned models of boats, houses, and sleds, there are numerous specimens which, when analyzed incorrectly, can contaminate the study of material culture. Upon completion of this paper, I felt a great sense of accomplishment. To begin with, I had conducted a study of a reputable institution’s collections, did a lot of reading, and produced a large, hopefully reasonably scientific paper. What I found even more exciting was my sudden familiarity with the Arctic, and Greenland in particular. Furthermore, I felt a lot more knowledgeable about the goals of the Arctic Studies Center. I now understand how research with the Arctic indigenous people is conducted, and why it is so important. Knowing that I was able to contribute to helping Arctic residents connect with their heritage was the most rewarding feeling. It is extraordinarily satisfying to know that sitting behind a desk on a computer organizing an electronic database collection has been beneficial to the scholarly work in the North. My internship may not have the same glamour as bundling up in furs and traveling on dog- sleds, but if the future users of the collections will benefit from it, then I am more than pleased. Finally, I am very grateful to Igor, to Carrie Beauchamp, the ultimate wiz of the eMU, to Abby McDermott, who generously hosted me over eight weeks at the ASC; and to Leon Chaldranian, my project partner, who taught me a few tricks on how to navigate through the eMU catalog. INTERNS WORKING WITH THE NMNH ARCTIC ETHNOLOGY COLLECTIONS By Ameliah Croft I came to the Smithsonian on an eight-week summer internship in June 2007 hoping to gain more experience working in a museum environment, and to learn more about anthropology – two disciplines I have been studying at Beloit College as an Anthropology Major. I knew very little about the northern regions of the globe when I first stepped into the ASC to work with Igor Krupnik on his new project organizing the electronic database (eMU) for the Arctic Ethnology collections. My internship this past summer has gone above and beyond my expectations. This experience has not only helped me develop museum skills, but has certainly ignited my interest in a region I knew so little about. In the beginning, I focused on revising the eMU location and cultural listings for Greenland and Canada to suit modern standards for place names and culture labels. I researched the modern names for Greenland versus older place names, and created a template which will eventually be entered into the official Smithsonian database. This way information on Greenland artifacts can be found when searching for either the native Eskimo name, or the Danish names used before the 1980s. Furthermore, I located various items incorrectly placed into the Greenland section of the eMU database that originated from Canada and Alaska, simply mistakes from years ago that were never noticed. Making sure the museum collections are sorted and entered correctly is important for both anthropologists and students needing resources for research, as well as indigenous users looking for ways to get in touch with their past. Working with the database in this way showed me how museum research plays a crucial role in cultural anthropology. Prior to this experience, I had seen cultural anthropology as an area primarily conducted in the field – anthropologists living among exotic people and observing their practices. I realize now just how much archaeology, cultural anthropology, and museum studies rely on each other, though they operate as somewhat separate fields. Creating a working “synonyms” database for a major Greenland ethnology collection could be, in the long run, as beneficial to the native Greenlanders as a new study by a visiting researcher. Much of my work involved creating Excel spreadsheets, organizing both the Greenland and Canada ethnology collections by locality as well as by collector or donor. I conducted research on the collectors and donors of these artifacts, writing a short “collectors’ biographies” guide for both Greenland and Canada that includes several dozen names. By researching the collectors, I was able to find dates and short summaries for various polar expeditions. With this information, I could establish the origins of many artifacts in our arctic collections that had not previously been specified. Though I worked on both Greenland and Canada, most of my research was related to Greenland. To receive college credit for my internship, I had to complete an academic project of my choosing. I chose to write an overview of the NMNH Greenland Ethnology Collection. Using the tables, lists, and spreadsheets I had created, I wrote a 40-page paper. Besides general description of the Greenland collections, it examines whether or not our Greenland specimens adequately depict actual Greenlandic life and culture at the time of their collecting. My research on the Greenland collectors improved my understanding of the circumstances in which cultural objects were collected or acquired. This information helped me figure out whether these artifacts were collected for the benefit of anthropological Ameliah Croft Lauren Wynalda ASC Newsletter 41 computer each day feeling as if I too had visited Mongolia. However, interpreting Dr. Fitzhugh’s handwriting felt a little like learning a second language. To accompany these notes I created the corresponding site maps in Photoshop. Having had little experience with this program prior to my internship, I struggled at first to create professional looking maps. Thankfully, Dr. Fitzhugh was patient and very kind in his critiques of my work, and by the expiration of my internship I had successfully completed all 30+ site maps. Aside from my responsibilities for the ASC, I was encouraged to partake in all the opportunities available to interns like myself at the National Museum of Natural History. For instance, I attended a lecture on forensic anthropology and genocide in Central and South America, Dr. Dennis Stanford’s presentation on a possible connection between Clovis and Solutrean flaking techniques, as well as Dr. Jane Buikstra’s lecture on the life and work of Dr. Lawrence Angel. I was also invited down to the Office of Repatriation where I toured the department and familiarized myself with the work that they do. One of the highlights for me was our visit to the Jamestown site in southern Virginia. Somehow we managed to pack three anthropologists, Dr. Fitzhugh, Dr. Noel Broadbent, and Dr. Neil Price, as well as Dr. Fitzhugh’s assistant Abby McDermott and myself into Abby’s petite Mazda 3 hatchback. Being the tallest member in our group, Dr. Fitzhugh sat in the passenger seat, but looked far from comfortable with his knees propped snuggly against the dashboard. In the backseat, Dr. Broadbent and I discussed genealogy, while Dr. Price, nursing a stomach ailment, slept on my shoulder. I think we were all relieved when we arrived at the site three hours later and were able to move our limbs freely. Not only is Jamestown historically significant to the United States, but it is also a striking setting. We ate lunch next to the James River while admiring the scenery. Immediately following we headed over to the ongoing excavation headed by Dr. William Kelso. We were escorted down into the site via the steps that were constructed for Queen Elizabeth II’s visit to the U.S. during the summer of 2007. It was particularly exhilarating when Dr. Broadbent showed Dr. Kelso how to test for microscopic metallic remnants in the dirt near an excavated forge. Dr. Kelso rubbed the magnet closure of his cell phone case across the exposed earth in this area. Upon examination the magnet was coated with metallic granules and flakes. This discovery may be evidence of metalworking done by the first residents of the Jamestown colony! Overall, my time in Washington, D.C. was an invaluable, eye opening experience. In many ways it was my first foray into the professional world of anthropology, and solidified my desire to continue on with my studies at the Masters level. I am grateful to Dr. Fitzhugh for giving me such a wonderful opportunity to broaden my ever expanding body of knowledge and will miss my colleagues at the ASC. wooden vessels from the Yup’ik and Cup’ik regions of Alaska at both the National Museum of Natural History and the National Museum of the American Indian. The artifacts I studied at NMNH included materials collected by William Dall (1873), Lucien Turner (1877), IC Russell (1892), Henry Collins (1924) and most prominently Edward Nelson (1877-81). Comparing the historical objects from NMNH with the more recent twentieth century collections at NMAI was especially interesting. I could see both the continuation of traditional styles and the incorporation of newer materials and techniques. My research on the artifacts was augmented by the opportunity to examine both Henry Collins and Edward Nelsons’ field notes and perspective photograph collections. Stephen Loring provided me with considerable assistance with my research. Nearly every week we met at the Museum Support Center in Suitland, MD to search the collection aisles looking for Yup’ik painted wooden materials that I would then photograph and draw. To see the vessels in person, to smell the seal oil, and to look up-close at the painting details was a truly incredible experience. Stephen shared his knowledge of Cup’ik culture with me and taught me to look for the etched “property marks” on the bottom of the bowls. We found 27 distinct reoccurring marks on vessels from Nunivak Island alone. Together we created a poster focusing on wooden vessels from Nunivak Island that were collected by Henry Collins and Dale Stewart with accompanying historical photographs. We gave a copy of the poster to a group of Cup’ik students from Nunivak Island who visited NMNH in early May. I benefited greatly from meeting Smithsonian photographer Don Hurlbert who gave me tips on photographing artifacts and took some high resolution photographs of some of the objects. From my research with the Smithsonian collections, I am making a database that includes photographs, collection information, measurements, and descriptions of the iconography and associated symbolic meaning. I plan to expand my database over the next two years as I visit more museum collections with Yup’ik wooden vessels including the Burke Museum in Seattle where I am currently studying their Yup’ik collections. I am hopeful that my database will help establish some the stylistic traits that differentiate village or individual artist styles, and document the frequency of commonly occurring motifs. After my experience working in Washington, D.C., I headed home to Alaska to continue research on Yup’ik culture for the Sharing Knowledge website during a ten week internship with Aron Crowell, with financial support from the First Alaskans Institute Summer Internship Program. It has been an extremely rewarding experience to work with Arctic Studies Center in both Alaska and Washington, D.C. and I am grateful to the ASC staff for hosting me. Thanks are due especially to Stephen Loring, Bill Fitzhugh and Aron Crowell who are always inspiring to work with. I look forward to continuing my research on this project, and I hope to return to the Arctic Studies Center while pursuing my PhD at the University of Washington in the coming years. Nadia M. Jackinsky-Horrell during the 2004 field season on the outer Kenai Coast. Photo: Mark Luttrell YUP’IK ICONOGRAPHY PROJECT By Nadia M. Jackinsky-Horrell I became inspired by the painted iconography on Yup’ik wooden vessels in 2005 while interning at the Arctic Studies Center in Anchorage, Alaska in 2005 with Aron Crowell. Along with the many other projects I worked on (including research on historical photographs and archival films), I was asked to organize materials for short videos that would highlight objects related to the Alaska Collections Project, including one revolving around Yup’ik bowls. Learning about the iconography of the bowls by listening to the Yup’ik Elders describe them sparked my interest to learn more. During my ten week fellowship at the ASC this spring (March- May 2007) I had the opportunity to study the entire collection of 42 ASC Newsletter MALIGIAQ KAYAK INSPECTED By Dubside The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History’s May 2005 Festival of Greenland featured a live kayak building demonstration by Maligiaq Padilla, who made a special trip from Greenland for the event. Though he is relatively young, Maligiaq’s kayaking knowledge and skills are widely recognized in U.S. traditional sea kayaking circles. In 1998, when he was sixteen years old, he won the Greenland National Kayaking Championship and subsequently made his first trip to the U.S. to attend the Delmarva Paddler’s Retreat, an annual gathering of sea kayakers held in Delaware each October. This past fall, the Delmarva Retreat organizers arranged for Kamp Absalonsen, one of the Greenland competition’s senior judges and a lifelong kayak expert, to make his first visit to the U.S. One of Kamp’s requests was to see the kayak Maligiaq had made. On Monday, October 1st, Kamp and an entourage of four met Abby McDermott at the museum and made their way through the back hallways flanked with floor-to-ceiling storage cabinets. Bill Fitzhugh welcomed the group to his office and led them to the kayak, which rested on the top of a set of cabinets and required a pair of rolling step ladders, and the assistance of Assistant Collections Manager Dave Hunt, to lower to the floor. With the keen eye of a veteran builder, Kamp examined the kayak from bow to stern while Bill removed the “Do Not Touch” signs affixed to the deck. Although he did not pronounce the kayak flawless (the lack of a seeqqotaffik, a cross piece that passes over the paddler’s knees, which may have been omitted due to the fact that Maligiaq had only a limited time to construct the kayak) Kamp seemed satisfied that such a prestigious institution had an accurate representation of his cultural heritage. After hoisting the kayak back up to its perch, everyone posed in Bill’s office for a group photo before saying goodbye. You can learn more about the American Chapter of the Greenland Kayak Association by visiting their website: http://www.qajaqusa.org/ BERGY BITS 1988-2008: ASC COMES OF AGE! The Arctic Studies Center, created in 1988 to conduct research, collection studies, and edutcation programs, turns 20 next year. Plans are a-foot for a special volume and other activities. Suggestions are welcome! Please contact us! NATIVE ARCHAEOLOGY SESSION INCLUDED IN WAC By Stephen Loring The Arctic Studies Center has a strong connection to the World Archaeological Congress, having been a major partner of the Fifth World Archaeological Congress when it met in the United States in June, 2003. ASC fellow Dr. Joan Gero (also senior North American representative to the Congress) reports that the Sixth World Archaeological Congress will meet in Dublin on June 29-July 4 with a very promising and fully international program. Stephen Loring has co-organized a session for the congress with colleagues Richard Knecht (University of Alaska) and Natasha Lyons (Independent Canadian Scholar) entitled “Dismantling the Master’s House: Envisioning and Implementing New Directions in Theory and Practice,” which will include participation of a number of northern colleagues, both academic and First Nations People. The central question of this session will consider whether an archaeology undertaken by native peoples, or local community entities, has to conform to the foundational practices of its parent discipline. This should be a fascinating symposium! RACHEL SUNTOP’S EXHIBIT OF ICELAND-INSPIRED CREATIONS By Abby McDermott Former ASC intern and textile artistRachel Suntop recently sent notice of her exhibit Prior to Plastic which opened Dec. 7, 2007 in Champaign, Illinois. Rachel is a multi-media artist who works primarily in felt and fiber. During her internship at the ASC in 2006, Rachel created fanciful hats out of hand-made felt inspired by traditional Mongolian headdresses. Rachel returned to DC in October 2006 to volunteer during the Mongolia 800 Festival and demonstrate traditional Mongolian felt-making techniques. Rachel’s exhibit Prior to Plastic was on display at the Springer Cultural Center from Dec. 7, 2007 to Jan. 7, 2008, and featured felt creations inspired by her experience as an artist in residence at Hafnarborg Cultural Center in Hafnarfjordur, Iceland in 2005. Rachel Suntop modeling a Mongolian inspired hat of her own creation. www.rsuntop.com Kamp Absalonsen carefully examines the kayak. Pictured left to right: Bill Fitzhugh, Tom Sharp, Peter Fuchs, Kamp and Dubside. ASC Newsletter 43 DON’T BE BOSSY, DON’T BE GREEDY! By Stephen Loring Stephen Loring organized a session on community archaeology at the 40th annual meeting of the Canadian Archaeological Association held in St. John’s, Newfoundland, 16-20 May. The session, “Don’t be Bossy, Don’t be Greedy’: Reflections on a Decade of Community Archaeology Initiatives in Canada,” brought together archaeologists, educators, Inuit and Native American students and artists and community leaders to discuss the conspicuous new direction in the discipline and practice of archaeology in Canada. Archaeology with Inuit and First Nations communities recognizes the significance of descendant communities involvement in the production and interpretation of knowledge about their past and brings a much appreciated breath of vitality to the discipline. As more and more First Nations are becoming involved with archaeology the goals and the practice of fieldwork are evolving in innovative and more inclusive directions and interpretations of the meaning and significance of the past are promoting dramatic and innovative research. In addition to presentations by former Inuit students and Innu colleagues of Stephen’s on their work at the Inuit site of Long Tickle and in the barrenlands near Lake Kamestastin, the session featured an important address by Daniel Ashini, President of the Innu Nation, that challenged archaeology to be more relevant to the descendant communities of the ancient peoples studied. In addition to the community archaeology session Stephen Loring presented two papers: “Another ghost of courageous adventurers: a Ramah chert fluted point from the Champlain Sea shoreline in Vermont” (with Derek Wilton, geochemist at Memorial University) and “Searching for the Caribou House: Innu archaeology at Kamestastin.” Roderick Tshakapesh holding a Ramah chert biface found at Kamestastin, Nitassinan. Photo: Trudy Sable REPORT FROM THE WORLD – A 300 YEAR OLD GUEST ARRIVES! By Noel D. Broadbent In August, I rejoined The World as Expedition Leader for a three week Bothnian cruise. The team included photographer Boris Ersson, Professor Anders Carlsson (Stockholm University), Dr. Johan Rönnby, (Södertörn University College), and Åsa Simma, a Saami actress and lecturer. The cruise started in Szececin, Poland, and then sailed on to Stockholm, Visby, Hudiksvall, Luleå, Vasa, Rauma and the Mariehem in the Åland Islands. Most lectures dealt with archaeology, but in Stockholm we were joined by Prof. Thomas Elmqvist, Carina Bergqvist as well as Carl von Linné, aka Linnaeus, himself (see photo). We visited Linnaeus’ gardens in Uppsala and made the most of his 300th anniversary. Special expeditions were otherwise organized to archaeological sites, museums and cultural landscapes in Sweden, including the Island of Gotland, and the Åland Islands in Finland. Enjoying coffee on board The World in Stockholm harbor, August 7. Left to right: Boris Ersson, Linneaus (Hans Odöö), Prof. Thomas Elmkvist (Stockholm University), Carina Bergqvist (Swedish Natural History Museum) and Dr. Kerstin Ersson (Luleå). “FORGING” COLLABORATION AT HISTORIC JAMESTOWN By Noel D. Broadbent In November, I took a spontaneous trip to Historic Jamestown with Bill Fitzhugh, Abby McDermott, Lauren Wynalda and Neil Price (University of Aberdeen), and had the opportunity to visit the ongoing excavations within the walls of the fort. Excavations had exposed traces of what looked likely to be pottery kilns and related activities. There were also traces of slag and burning, which appeared to me to be related to iron-working. Based on newly acquired experience working with forges in Sweden, I suggested to Bill Kelso (Director of Archaeology for the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities) that he collect soil samples and test the soil using a magnet. These samples could then be examined under a microscope. One sweep of a magnet in the field (Kelso’s cell-phone case!) produced a mass of iron particles. Under magnification back in DC, this magnetic dust could be seen to consist of iron sphericals measuring 1.0 mm in diameter, by-products of hot-forging, and angular iron “scales” that had been produced by hammering. These tiny residues are thus proof- positive of iron-smithing at Jamestown. The actual forge is gone, but channels behind where it stood suggest air ducts for bellows. So even in this small way, “The Search for a Past” project has contributed to American archaeology. Special thanks are due to Doug Owlsley who kindly made available his microscope and digital camera equipment. Bill Keslo in the current Jamestown excavation area. The soils indicating iron-working were collected in the small shelf in front of the round pit in the foreground. 44 ASC Newsletter its geese, musk-ox, reindeer, and polar bears. The sea around the northern side of the island was truly an arctic ‘cornucopia,’ and we spent hours at the bows watching and wondering about what the future would bring. Among the many local guides and instructors was Vladimir Bytchkov, whom I had known since working with Russians on the “Crossroads” exhibit project. All our Russian and Indigenous instructors were unanimous in their observations that their part of the Arctic was undergoing a momentous change resulting from warming, longer summers, shorter winters, and loss of pack ice. Polar bears are coming ashore in summer because they have no ice to hunt from, invading village environs and endangering people and animals. Walrus populations seem stable for the moment, but their number will no doubt soon fall due to the absence of an ice platform. Less understood because they are not so easily observed are changes in the marine environment such as the appearance of new species of sharks and fishes due to warming waters, and on land, new species of insects, including flies and pests damaging to domestic reindeer. It is clear that the environmental changes underway are going to have huge consequences for northern peoples. Most of whom are still dependent on their local environment for daily resources of all sorts. In the midst of all this environmental change, the social changes I observed since my last visit to Chukotka a decade ago, were momentous, and very encouraging. Peoples’ lives had clearly improved tremendously. Old dilapidated wood buildings had mostly been replaced by modern ecologically designed homes (mostly of Canadian design and construction), and there were new schools and hospitals. People were well-dressed and very friendly to outsiders and had many beautiful crafts and items to sell. They enjoyed presenting festivals of dance and music to our group and displayed traditional skills and technologies. One of my tasks was to cruise the vendors’ goods to provide recommendations about what could not be legally brought back into the USA, such as articles made from sea mammal products or raptor feathers. Happily, the message has gone out to producers and very few of these products were being offered. KAPITAN KHLEBNIKOV FLOATS ARCTIC SYMPOSIUM ON GLOBAL WARMING By William Fitzhugh From July 5-18, 2007, Smithsonian Journeys in cooperation with Columbia University, the Alumnae Association of Smith College, and the American Museum of Natural History, hosted a high- spirited floating ‘Arctic Odyssey’ on the hottest topic in modern environmental history – global warming and the Arctic melt-down. The trip attracted nearly 100 guests who for two weeks slogged through hours of lectures each day, interrupted by trips ashore via zodiac and helicopter to some of the most inaccessible places along the shores and islands of the Russian Arctic. Who would every have thought they might one day stand on the northern coast of Wrangel Island, where the survivors of the ill-fated Karluk in the winter of 1914 dragged themselves ashore after losing their ship, only to be confronted by desolation and – for most – death by frost and starvation. We contemplated all this with a certain detachment, bundled as we were in our bright orange parkas, flying about in helicopters and zooming around the windless Arctic waters in 24-hour daylight. Among our naturalist tasks were climbing ashore to inspect Wrangel’s nearly tame musk-ox; viewing grey whales frolicking around the ship; interrupting walruses in their tongue-popping search for giant clams; and inching up on a mother polar bear and cubs as they searched amidst the broken ice floes for seals. Our fare at the hands of the Khlebnikov’s stellar crew was as sumputous as the polar waters around us. But the signs everywhere around were for melting, melting, and more melting. Other than a single patch of ice pack south of Wrangel, the Arctic Ocean looked like a summer mill-pond, still and filled with life. One of my strongest impressions was of the thick layers of dust and dirt present on whatever ice remained. Its presence was somewhat mysterious, but we decided it was probably a combination of wind-blown terrestrial dust from northern Siberia and dirt from jet aircraft. The net effect was to create a dark blanket which increased in thickness and coverage as the ice melted, further multiplying the absorption of solar radiation into an already darkened polar sea created by the loss of ice-cover. This does not bode well for the remaining ice or for its ice-tethered animals: polar bears, walrus, seals, and polar cod, whose food-web is based on tiny critters living in and at the ice-water interface. Visits to Siberian Yupik (Eskimo) and Chukchi villages on the Siberian shores of Bering Strait at Novoe Chaplino and Yandrakynnot, and to a Chukchi reindeer- herder encampment, were interspersed with landings at the famous Whalebone Alley (Yttygran) archaeological site with its standing rows of whale mandibles and bird colonies and the abandoned Russian Polar Station at Kolyuchin Island where thousands of walrus skulls lay underfoot in the tundra sod, the prey of more than 1500 years of Eskimo and Chukchi hunting for skins, meat, and ivory. Our visits to Wrangel were under the expert guidance of wildlife officers of this zapovednik (wildlife refuge), who provided lectures on Smithsonian Journeys participants of the Arctic Warming Symposium boarding one of the Kapitan Khlebnikov’s two helicopters on Kolyuchin Island. ASC Newsletter 45 Most of our time on board, however, was ‘class- time’ with long morning and afternoon sessions of lectures delivered by our four study leaders: biologist John Harte of Berkeley; paleontologist Ross MacPhee of the American Museum of Natural history; atmospheric scientist Ronald Prin of MIT; and anthropologist William Fitzhugh. Each gave numerous lectures and presentations, which were expertly moderated by commentator Forest Sawyer, a multi-talented journalist whose humor, insightfulness, and interlocutor skills were put to the test by the many intellectual and emotional confrontations that come with discussions of climate change and, in particular, warming. Tom Brokaw also participated in the instructional program during the first day of the cruise when the passengers and leaders assembled in Anchorage before flying aboard a chartered jet to meet the ship in Anadyr. Tom gave a great key-note talk and a strong call-to-action for his most impassioned environmental topic, global warming. Among the passengers were many industry leaders and political consultants who came aboard rather skeptical – if not belligerently hostile – to the concept of global and arctic warming and the need for a rapid global response. Tellingly, at the end of the trip even the most skeptical had changed their minds. This was a great satisfaction to the study team, and was anchored by the stated intentions of many participants to return home with agendas for action. Having participated in a number of study cruises to the Arctic, I can say the Wrangel floating symposium was by far the most exciting and stimulating of all! Overall the project’s great success was thanks to the vision of High Country Passage’s Peter Voll, the project initiator and coordinator, who also had a deft hand in guiding the daily planning between the crew, trip operators, passengers, and study leaders. We all walked away amazed at what we had seen and accomplished. Thanks to all, and to Amy Kotkin of the Smithsonian Journeys, for a richly-rewarding and exciting adventure – one that I think will have a positive outcome for years to come owing to the remarkable group of people who came together for this special event. SVEN HAAKANSON RECEIVES MACARTHUR AWARD By Abby McDermott In September 2007, Sven Haakanson, Executive Director of the Alutiiq Museum in Kodiak, Alaska, was recognized with a $500,000 “Genius Award” by The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation for being “the driving force behind the revitalization of the indigenous language, culture, and customs of the Kodiak archipelago. A native Alutiiq trained with a Ph.D. in anthropology, Haakanson is straddling worlds in an effort to preserve and give contemporary meaning to Native history and local legends, rituals, and customs.” Sven received his PhD from Harvard University with a thesis on Siberian Nenets ethno-archaeology supervised by the ASC’s William Fitzhugh. Under Haakanson’s leadership, the Alutiiq Museum evolved from a repository of cultural artifacts into a traveling resource, bringing innovative exhibitions, educational programming, and field research to the landlocked villages throughout the island of Kodiak by boat and small plane. The MacArthur Foundation recognized Haakanson’s efforts to bridge cultures and continents by orchestrating the exhibition and acquisition of Alutiiq masks and other artifacts dispersed throughout Russia and France in the 18th and 19th centuries. In addition, the Foundation applauded his work as an anthropologist, including his large-scale study of a sacred Alutiiq site, and noted his contributions to traditional carving and photography, and his use of both mediums to depict a way of life rarely seen outside of the region. The MacArthur Foundation press release closed by stating that “Haakanson is preserving and reviving ancient traditions and heritage, celebrating the rich past of Alutiiq communities, and providing the larger world with a valuable window into a little-known culture.” Sven Haakanson received a B.A. (1992) from the University of Alaska in Fairbanks and an M.A. (1996) and Ph.D. (2000) from Harvard University. Since 2000, he has served as the Executive Director of the Alutiiq Museum in Kodiak , Alaska. He is also an adjunct member of the faculty at the Kodiak College campus of the University of Alaska in Anchorage and the former Chair of the Alaska State Council on the Arts. [Text borrowed from The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation MacArthur Fellows 2007 press release on Sven Haakanson (www.macfound.org).] Svem Haakanson Photo: MacArthur Foundation A ‘SIGHTING’ IN SANTA BARBARA It seems Bill Ftizhugh has an undisclosed enthusiasm for witchcraft and wizardry! Here’s Bill in a Santa Barbara bookstore just before midnight on July 20th waiting for the release of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.” Thanks to Dana Levy and Tish O’Connor for this incriminating photo. 46 ASC Newsletter TRANSITIONS RENÉ LEVESQUE: AN APPRECIATION By William Fitzhugh The ASC’s 2007 St. Lawrence Gateways Project was dedicated to the memory of René Levesque who died in Quebec City on 14 February 2007. René was a long- time friend and colleague who for many years urged me to extend my archaeological work into ‘the other Labrador’ along Quebec’s Lower North Shore. I did so in 2001 and had the pleasure for René’s company on board Pitsiulak for several days during our initial exploration of the region. A truly unique personality as well as a perceptive anthropologist and historian with an indescribable personal style and linguistic flair, René trained many first generation Quebecois archaeologists. Soon, however, the discipline passed him by, leaving him custodian of a large body of archaeological evidence that he found difficult to systematize and present professionally. Fortunately during his last few years he was able to complete a manuscript on this material. Criticized for his often destructive field methods and for his failure to fully publish many of his projects, René nevertheless deserves credit for his pioneering contributions to the training of an early generation of Quebec archaeologists, for initiating a Quebec archaeological perspective, and in particular for initiating archaeological and ethnohistorical research on the Upper and Lower North Shore. I hope history will be as kind to him as he was dedicated to it. DAVID C. NUTT AND THE ARCTIC By Stearns A. Morse [Editor’s Note: The material covered here is based on Naval records, interviews in 1997 and 2007 with David Nutt, and the writer’s own recollections.] While in school and at Dartmouth College, David C. Nutt sailed to the Arctic for five summers with the famous Arctic Captain Robert A. Bartlett on the schooner Morrissey. His resulting experience in navigation and seamanship qualified him for a direct commission in the US Navy, and he was called to active duty in 1941 during the last semester of his senior year at Dartmouth. He attended Local Defense School at Boston Navy Yard, was allowed to sit his Senior comprehensive examination in Botany under Navy supervision, and was released to attend graduation ceremonies in Hanover. Nutt was assigned in 1942-43 to MacMillan’s schooner Bowdoin in West Greenland, charting the waters for the establishment of air bases to be used in ferrying fighter planes to Europe, although these bases never ended up being used for that purpose. There he met Lt. Commander Dr. Alexander Forbes, on a flying trip from his base in Baffin Island aboard the Morrissey, where he and Bartlett were working on the Canadian side of the same operation Bolero. Returning stateside, Nutt married Mary Louise (Babs) Wright in 1943 and was transferred in 1944 to the US Navy Hydrographic Office in Washington, DC, where he was briefed for service in the Pacific Theater. One of his briefers was Dr. Alexander Forbes, whose photogrammetric skills had been called into service to resolve serious mapping problems in the Pacific. During this tour Nutt secured a berth on the Navy survey ship USS Sumner. He reported for duty aboard the ship during a refit in San Francisco in the summer of 1944. Babs told him that if he should run into Irving Johnson, the famed round-the-world skipper of the Yankee, please to say Hello for her. Johnson turned out to be the skipper of the Sumner. On the Sumner, Nutt served as Exec and eventually Captain, surveying critical sites in the western Pacific, at Ulithi (harboring 400 fighting ships classed destroyer and above), Guam, Iwo Jima, Leyte Gulf, Korea, China, and Bikini. The ship came under fire several times. At Iwo Jima, Nutt went ashore, climbed Mt. Suribachi, and found his old college roommate the Marine Captain Robert White in a foxhole “while Hell’s kitchen was flying overhead.” Overdue for rotation and finally relieved during the Bikini survey, Nutt retired with the rank of Commander at age 26 to his farm in Etna, NH and became an adjunct member of the Dartmouth Geography faculty. In 1948 he acquired the 100-ft schooner Blue Dolphin, refitted her for Arctic oceanographic research, and from 1949 to 1954 surveyed the fjords and estuaries of Labrador. This research resulted in a vital baseline for the thermal and compositional history of subarctic estuaries which contained cold Arctic bottom waters. To complete the annual cycle of observations, Nutt and his crews made winter observations in March through the ice with the support of dog teams and sledges. They made late fall observations from small boats during freeze-up. The Blue Dolphin Expeditions also supported the work of Nutt’s Dartmouth colleague Elmer Harp, who established the presence in Newfoundland of the 7,000-year old Maritime Archaic culture and whose student successor William Fitzhugh now directs the Arctic Studies Center at the Smithsonian Institution. The research also yielded a major treatise on the fishes of Labrador by Richard H. Backus. A momentous discovery of the Blue Dolphin work led by Nutt was the first measurement of the composition of ancient air trapped in Greenland ice. The physiologist P. F. Scholander, John Kanwisher, and Nutt first reported this result in the journal Science in 1956. With L. K. Coachman, W. Dansgaard, H. De Vries and others the Nutt-Scholander team demonstrated the validity of the measurements and obtained the first carbon-14 age on ancient atmosphere trapped in ice. This work formed the foundation of the modern dating of ice back to more than 110,000 years in the deep Greenland ice cores and more than 740,000 years in the Antarctic ice cores. This seminal work, resulting from a curious observation of fizzing glacier ice alongside the Blue Dolphin in 1954, formed a major foundation of René Levesque on board the Pitsulak during the first Gateways Project 2001. David C. Nutt at the Dartmouth College Elder Conference in April 1993. ASC Newsletter 47 the study of climate change that earned the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. David Nutt remained active in the US Naval Reserve and retired with the rank of Captain. With Professors Elmer Harp and Trevor Lloyd he helped attract Vilhjalmur Stefansson to bring his extensive collection of Arctic writings to Dartmouth, where it is now catalogued within the main College Library. He was also instrumental much later in obtaining for Stefansson’s widow Evelyn Stefansson Nef an honorary degree in 1998 from the University of Alaska. [Historical information on Bartlett, the Bowdoin, and Morrissey can be found at http://www.bowdoin.edu/arctic_museum/ biographies/bowdoin.shtml] LYDIA T. BLACK, 81, ANTHROPOLOGIST By Zoë Pierson Dr. Lydia T. Black, an anthropologist whose research restored to Alaskan peoples important features of their history and culture, died on March 12, 2007, in Kodiak, AK. She was 81. Dr. Black’s research of the Russian period in Alaska revealed aspects of Native Alaskan culture and history which had been lost or forgotten. Her book Aleut Art is representative of her career in this respect as it provides a comprehensive look at both the techniques used to create and the symbolic meaning of a variety of pre- and early contact Aleut arts and crafts. Dr. Black’s most recently published book was Russians in Alaska, 1732-1867, a concise and accessible history of the Russian period in Alaska. Anóoshi Lingít Aaní Ká / Russians in Tlingit America, The Battles of Sitka, 1802 and 1804, co-edited with Professor Richard L. Dauenhauer and Tlingit poet Nora Marks Dauenhauer, about the Russian-Tlingit battles of 1802 and 1804 at Sitka, Alaska as described by Tlingit oral tradition and contemporary Russian historical documents, will be published later this year. Another work co-authored with Donald W. Clark of the Canadian Museum of Civilization has an anticipated publication date of 2008. She was the author of at least an additional 66 books and articles appearing in publications as diverse as Natural History, Arctic Anthropology and Studies in Soviet Thought and was a contributor to various exhibits and conferences on the Arctic, including the Library of Congress’ Meeting of the Frontiers, the New York Museum of Natural History’s Jesup Centenary Congress and the Smithsonian Institution’s Crossroads of Continents. She appeared in several documentaries, including Conquest of America (Northwest episode). Regularly appearing as guest lecturer in England, Canada, Russia and Japan as well as other countries, she was one of very few outside scholars to supervise a thesis at England’s Oxford University. In 1992, she was elected a foreign member to the Center for the Study of Russian America and Russian-American Relations, Institute of History, Russian Academy of Sciences. She served as Chairwoman of the international committee for the birthday bicentennial exhibit celebrating Saint Innocent of Alaska in 1996. In 2001, Russia awarded her, among others, the Order of Friendship, honoring her contribution to promoting cross-cultural understanding between Russia and America. A highlight in her retirement was an invitation to speak about Saint Herman of Alaska at Valaam Monastery during its 2003 conference celebrating the completion of renovations there. In addition, she was the recipient of the Alaska Anthropological Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000 and Alaska’s Governor’s Lifetime Achievement Award for the Humanities in 2005. Dr. Black was born in Kiev, USSR, on December 16, 1925. Her father was executed by Soviet authorities in 1933, and her mother died of tuberculosis in 1941. While wandering the Ukrainian countryside in search of food during World War II, she was conscripted into forced labor by German forces. At the end of the War, she found herself in Munich, where, with her knowledge of six languages, she worked as a translator for the UNRRA in a displaced children’s camp. She married Igor A. Black, a fellow Soviet refugee, in Munich, where they lost their first daughter Olga to measles. In 1950, they emigrated to the United States. Igor A. Black was a thermodynamics engineer whose work on the Apollo Mission was officially commemorated by NASA. Upon her husband’s death in 1969, she resumed full-time studies, completing her B.A., M.A. (Brandeis University, 1971) and Ph.D. (University of Massachusetts Amherst) by 1973, when she accepted her first academic post at Providence College. While teaching at Providence College, she also served as part of the staff of Brown University’s Arctic Institute. She moved to Alaska in 1984 in order to be closer to her research interests, accepting a position at University of Alaska-Fairbanks, whence she retired in 1998, in order to contribute her skills to St. Herman’s Theological Seminary in Kodiak, AK. She was dismissed from her duties at the Seminary by the current Bishop of Alaska, Orthodox Church in America, in 2001, after which she devoted her time to writing and lending her expertise to a variety of individual and collective projects and volunteered as a teacher of Russian history at Saint Innocent’s Academy. Dr. Black is survived by her four daughters, Anna Treiber of Appleton, WI; Maria McEvoy of Houston, TX; Elena Black of Dennis, MA; Zoë Pierson of Kodiak, AK and by six grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. Dr. Lydia T. Black STERLING COLLEGE LAUNCHES CIRCUMPOLAR STUDIES By William Fitzhugh Several years ago Sterling College in Craftsbury Common, Vermont, acquired the Center for Northern Studies, formerly an independent research and educational organization established by Oran and Stephen Young in Wolcott, Vermont. Sterling College is a small school whose 130 students devote themselves to a mix of liberal arts and agricultural work programs. The CNS became part of Sterling during the tenure of former President Jed Williamson, who retired in 2006 and was succeeded by Will Wootton, who served previously as the vice-president of institutional advancement at Marlboro College in southern Vermont and vice-president at Monserrat College of Art in Massachusetts. 48 ASC Newsletter catering to an increasingly internationalized circumpolar region. Ties to existing organization such as the University of the Arctic, northern- based distance learning programs, and others are being explored. Wootton is also considering establishment at Sterling of a tutorial masters degree in Circumpolar Studies. Similar to the successful tutorial program at Marlboro College, the Sterling MA would be a small program whose educational requirements would be closely tailored to individual students and would involve close supervision with Sterling faculty assisted by external tutorial advisors. The Sterling MA would offer students interested in the Circumpolar North with expert training that would better prepare them for admittance to large university programs or could serve as preparation for MA-entry positions in government, teaching, and other careers. It looks as though Sterling’ Northern Studies Center is going to carry on the fine tradition of northern education begun by “The Brothers Young”. Students and professionals be advised! Check Sterling out and contact Stephen Young, Pam Stern, or Pavel Cenkl if you are interested in exploring Sterling’s northern field trips or enrolling in a unique educational experience in the northern Vermont woods! www.sterlingcollege.edu and pcenkl@sterlingcollege.edu UPDATE! By Matt Gallon I have had an interesting couple of years since I left the ASC five years ago to attend graduate school at the University of Michigan. My research interests have migrated from northern latitudes to India, where I worked with Drs. Carla Sinopoli and Kathleen Morrison on a Late Prehistoric settlement. While in India I developed an interest in the early Indian Ocean maritime trade networks (in part as a result of the work I did on the trade centers in Mongolia and early European sites in Quebec while at the ASC). Ultimately this topic led me to Thailand, whose 6-10th c. Dvaravati state presents an interesting case-study of how local Southeast Asian societies capitalized on contacts with India, China and societies even further afield. Now that my course work at Michigan is finished, I am living in Thailand with my wife, Diana. I have spent the past six months grappling with the Thai language and learning the local archaeological sequence from the gracious faculty and students at Silpakorn University in Bangkok. Hopefully by late 2008 I will begin surveying at a Dvaravati moated urban site and, depending on what I find, I might also conduct some small-scale excavations. I must admit that surveying around the rice paddies of Southeast Asia is a far cry from fieldwork along the coast of Quebec, but my research experiences from the ASC have come in handy—for one, I am already well versed in how to draw a site map with swarms of mosquitoes encircling my head! For many years CNS conducted research into arctic policy, ecology, paleoecology, and archaeology in many regions of the North, with a special emphasis on Alaska and Canada. It also offered courses on political science, natural science, and anthropology to small groups of students who would spend winter semesters living at the Center feeding its wood stove and tromping around Bear Swamp, a unique subarctic environmental outlier in Wolcott where they were instructed by Stephen Young and colleagues in the marvels of winter ecology. A continuing offering of the CNS has been its twice-yearly study abroad program which takes small groups of students on two-week field trips to northern Europe or the British Isles, or to Newfoundland, Labrador, or Quebec in company with CNS faculty. For many years the Center had a special relationship with Middlebury College. Recently, when administrative difficulties in course accreditation caused the Center’s enrollment to drop, Young approached Jed Williamson about incorporating the Center into Sterling College, only a few miles away at Vermont’s stylish Craftsbury Common. After several years of discussion an agreement was concluded. Following an exploratory period with growing pains and difficult staff changes, and reassessment as to how the Center could be incorporated into the Sterling curriculum, the Center is now poised for rejuvenation, assisted by an enthusiastic Advisory Council (Edward Nef, Bruno Frohlich, Joslyn Cassady, Ross Virginia, and William Fitzhugh) and appointments of a new Dean of Academics, Pavel Cenkl, and cultural anthropologist, Pamela Stern, formerly of Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, and a specialist in the native cultures of western Canada and Alaska. Currently Sterling is also recruiting a natural scientist with northern expertise to replace retiring CNS director, Stephen Young. Along with these changes, President Wootton has laid out a new charter for the Center, noting that Sterling will institute a Circumpolar Studies major as a central part of Sterling’s educational program, paralleling its Sustainable Agricultural Program. Wootton sees a demand for students with expertise in circumpolar studies in response to the growing population of educated northern residents, expansion of industry and agriculture into northern regions resulting from global warming, and need for southern educational centers Raven wing sign. Image courtesy of http://sterlingcollege.edu/CF.cns.html Matt Gallon at the 15th century Wat Ratchaburana in Ayuthaya, Thailand. ASC Newsletter 49 SCANDINAVIAN VISITORS, PAST AND PRESENT By Noel D. Broadbent The NSF-funded “Search for a Past project” is nearing completion. The project has produced seven research articles, six technical reports and a popular book is underway. In addition, 2007 saw a number of project alumni reach education milestones. David Black (Western Michigan University) completed his MA based on Search for a Past material and his work as an intern at the museum, and he is currently working with the USFS in California. Kim Consroe is pursuing her Ph.D. at CUNY Hunter College. Jacqui Graham is currently employed as Interpretive Programs Coordinator at the Bell Museum of Natural History in Minneapolis. She graduated with her BA from the University of Minnesota and is now looking into graduate schools where she can pursue Nordic and Saami archaeology. She spent the summer excavating and surveying in Sweden with Britta Wennstedt Edvinger. Britta’s PhD work was funded by the project in 2005. In addition to these project activities, it was possible to sponsor seven interns and a Fulbright scholar, as well as many other guests. On September 9, Swedish Photographer Boris Ersson gave a great lecture at the Department based on his project “Marebotnicum,” which is funded by the European Union. Boris and I are hoping to organize a photo exhibit on the cultures of the Gulf of Bothnia in 2008 for the NMNH. His exhibit is currently being shown in Scandinavia. In December, Dr. Lana Troy, Professor of Egyptology at Uppsala University in Sweden, a former colleague of mine, spent several weeks at the Arctic Studies Center/ Anthropology Department working with the NMNH Egyptian collections in collaboration with Melinda Zeder and Kathleen Gordon. She also gave a very well attended lecture at the department titled “Reading the Coffin of a Temple Singer.” Temple Singer Tentkhonsu’s coffin arrived at the Smithsonian in 1893 as a gift from the Egyptian government. It came from one of the most spectacular discoveries in the history of Egyptology, that of the royal and priestly cachettes found at Deir el-Bahri. Dr. Troy is planning on continuing her work on the collections in 2008. From September 2006 to July 2007, I was Department representative to the NMNH Research Training Program (RTP). This program sponsors about 20 students from all over the world for research training at the museum during the summer months. Many anthropology students apply and several get positions every year. It was a lot of work but a wonderful experience. CHRISTIE LEECE DEPARTS FOR CHICAGO… By William Fitzhugh After five years of humor-spiked assistance to the ASC, Christie Leece packed her car this past September and migrated west to Chicago in a search for new horizons and opportunities already partly realized. Within a few weeks she had landed a job with the Chicago Nature Museum where she is helping prepare an exhibition on The American Lawn. I visited Christy over a weekend in January and found her and her room-mate Liz bundled warmly in a chilly second-story apartment in Chicago’s West Side. They had already figured out the local hot spots and had obtained an electric ice cream mill and all the literature needed to produce gourmet concoctions. The sky was big and the air cold, and the pioneers were ready for whatever comes their way. We will miss Christie’s good cheer and dramatic flair, and long remember the great times we had in field and museum. Her support for the Labrador collection returns, newsletter and field report production, website development, and the Greenland and Mongolian festivals were vital to the ASC, and we wish her well. …AND ABBY MCDERMOTT ARRIVES! Last winter Abby Brazee made a fateful decision in volunteering to help produce our 2006 ASC Newsletter. Looking for an anthropology-related museum job she happened onto the ASC just when we were beginning to sink into our annual journalistic funk. Her contribution carried us over that bar, and in time we lured her into full-time service on another project, helping me produce a scholarly catalog for the exhibition, Genghis Khan and the Mongol Empire for the exhibition of the same name being produced by Don Lessem’s DinoDon Inc. Since April she has coordinated the efforts of the editorial team and the thirty-five authors, making a truism out of the old saw, “What you don’t know, you had better learn,” because for much of that time I was away on field research. Since then, while continuing to coordinate the 5-ring Genghis Khan circus, she has become the ASC’s manager- extraordinaire, providing support role for our small, busy coterie. Not only that, she found time to get married (voilá: McDermott!) and buy a car and a house in her spare time. She comes to the ASC well-trained, with a GWU degree in Anthropology and experience as the CEO’s Executive Assistant at TechnoServe, an NGO providing small-business training and economic development support for rural communities in Africa and Latin America. We are privileged to have her with us. She’s the world’s fastest typist and a multi-tasker! Christie as an intrepid Basque whaler at the Hare Harbor site in Quebec. Abby and Christie set up a Mongolian felting clinic at the 2007 Take Your Son or Daughter to Work Day at NMNH. 50 ASC Newsletter PUBLICATIONS BRYAN HOOD’S ARCHAEOLOGY OF NAIN TO BE PUBLISHED AS CCA 7 Byran’s Hood’s monograph, “Toward an Archaeology of the Nain Region, Labrador” will be published as part of the ASC’s Contributions to Circum- polar Anthropology in spring 2008. Bryan reports on research on Mari- time Archaic, Pre-Dorset, Dorset and Labrador Inuit sites carried out in the 1980s-90s. The focus is on analysis of the Nukususutok-5 Maritime Archaic site collections and settlement data using K-means, correspondence, and other methods. Bryan’s model study is the most extensive contribution to Northern Labra- dor culture history and will be of interest to a wide audience for its comprehensive application of method and theory. Interested parties should contact the ASC to obtain a copy! ASC STAFF PUBLICATIONS Aron Crowell (2007) 2007. Crowell, Aron L. The Outer Coast Project: Kenai Fjords Oral History and Archaeology: Final Technical Report, Grant SI 634019, Ocean Alaska Science and Learning Center, Seward, Alaska. 2007. Hutchinson, Ian and Crowell, Aron L. Recurrence and Extent of Great Earthquakes in Southern Alaska during the Late Holocene from an Analysis of the Radiocarbon Record of Land- Level Change and Village Abandonment. Radiocarbon 49, 1323- 1385. William Fitzhugh (2007) 2007. Fitzhugh, William W. Underwater Archaeology at the Hare Harbor Basque site, Petit Mecatina. Provincial Archaeology Office 2007 Archaeology Review 5:45-57. Edited by Stephen Hull and Delphina Mercer. Government of Newfoundland and Labrador. (http://www.tcr.gov.nl.ca/tcr/pao/Newsletters/Newsletters.htm) 2007. Harriet F. Beaubien, Basiliki Vicky Karas, and William W. Fitzhugh. Documenting Mongolia’s Deer Stones: Application of Three-Dimensional Digital Imaging Technology to Preservation. In Scientific Research on the Sculptural Arts of Asia: Proceedings of the Third Forbes Symposium at the Freer Gallery of Art. Edited by Janet G. Douglas, Paul Jett, and John Winter. Pp. 133-142. Archetype Publications, in association with the Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution. 2007. Fitzhugh, William W. Dartmouth College: A Northern Tradition. In Thin Ice: Inuit Traditions within a Changing Environment, edited by Anja Nicole Stuckenberger. Pp. 7-10. Hanover: Hood Museum of Art. 2007. Fitzhugh, William W. Foreword. In Arctic, Our Crystal World. An exhibition of photographs by Fred Bruemmer, Ivars Silis, and Andris Slapins. Edited by Ivars Silis. Pp. 4-5. Copenhagen: Nordatlantens Brygge. 2007. The Gateways Project 2006: Land and Underwater Excavations at Hare Harbor. Edited by William W. Fitzhugh, Erik Phaneuf, and Christie Leece. 107pp. Arctic Studies Center, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution. 2007. The Deer Stone Project 2006. Surveys and Excavations in Hovsgol Aimag, Northern Mongolia. Edited by William W. Fitzhugh and J. Bayarsaikhan, and compiled by Christie Leece. Arctic Studies Center, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution. Igor Krupnik (2007) 2007. Pacific Walrus, Indigenous Hunters, and Climate Change: Bridging Scientific and Indigenous Knowledge. With G. Carleton Ray. Deep-Sea Research. Part II 54 (2007), pp. 2946–2957. 2007. The Scope of Science for the International Polar Year 2007–2008. World Meteorological Organization, Technical Document 1364. Ian Allison, Michel Beland, Keith Alverson, etc. (25 co-authors). Geneva. 2006. Landscapes, Faces and Memories: Eskimo Photography of Aleksandr Forshtein, 1927–1929. With Elena A. Mikhailova. Alaska Journal of Anthropology, 4(1–2): 92-113. 2006. Introduction: Scholarship and Legacy of the “Bering Strait Universe”. With Owen Mason and Yvon Csonka. Alaska Journal of Anthropology, 4(1–2):6-17. 2007. Introduction: Perceptions of Arctic Climate Change. With Ross A. Virginia and Kenneth S. Yalowitz. In Thin Ice: Inuit Traditions in a Changing Environment. Nicole Stuckenberger, ed. Hanover: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, pp.12-15. 2007. L. Bogoslovskaya, I. Slugin, I. Zagrebin, and I. Krupnik. Marine Mammal Hunting: Scientific and Practical Textbook (Osnovy morskogo zveroboinogo promysla. Nauchn-metodicheskoe posobie). In Russian. Moscow: Russian Institute of Cultural and Natural Heritage, 480 pp. Stephen Loring (2007) 2007. “Further documentation supporting the former existence of grizzly bears (Ursus arctos) in northern Quebec- Labrador.” (co-authored with Arthur Spiess). Arctic 60(1):7-16. PUBLICATIONS AVAILABLE FROM THE ASC Arctic: A Friend Acting Strangely in NOAA at the Poles. CD. Igor Krupnik and William Fitzhugh. Presented by John Kermond of NOAA, 2007. Anguti’s Amulet/Angutiupnguanga. Edited by Stephen Loring and Leah Rosenmeier, 2005 – Contact Stephen Loring Taymyr: The Archaeology of Northernmost Eurasia. Leonid P. Khlobystin in Contributions to Circumpolar Anthropology, vol. 5, 2005. From the Playground of the Gods: The Life & Art of Bikky Sunazawa. By Chisato O. Dubreuil. 2004. Distributed by University of Hawaii Press. Northern Ethnographic Landscapes: Perspectives from Circumpolar Nations. Igor Krupnik, Rachel Mason and Tonia Horton, editors. Contributions to Circumpolar Archaeology 6, 2004. Sikugmengllu Eslamengllu Esghapalleghput. Watching Ice and Weather Our Way. Conrad Oozeva, Chester Noongwook, Christina Alowa, and Igor Krupnik. Arctic Studies Center, Washington D.C. 2004. Distributed by the Arctic Research Consortium of the United States (ARCUS). The Earth is Faster Now: Indigenous Observations of Arctic Environmental Change. Edited by Igor Krupnik and Dyanna Jolly. ARCUS, 2002. ASC Newsletter 51 Constructing Cultures Then and Now: Celebrating Franz Boas and the Jesup North Pacific Expedition. Edited by Laurel Kendall and Igor Krupnik. Contributions to Circumpolar Anthropology 4, 2003. Akuzilleput Igaqullghet: Our Words Put to Paper. Edited by Igor Krupnik, Willis Walunga, and Vera Metcalf. Contributions to Circumpolar Anthropology 3, 2002. Ethnology of the Ungava District: Hudson Bay Territory. Lucien M. Turner with an introduction by Stephen Loring. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001. Gateways: Exploring the Legacy of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition, 1897-1902. Edited by Igor Krupnik and William W. Fitzhugh. Contributions to Circumpolar Anthropology 1, 2001. Honoring Our Elders: The History of Eastern Arctic Archaeology. Edited by William W. Fitzhugh, Stephen Loring, and Daniel Odess. Contributions to Circumpolar Anthropology 2, 2001. Looking Both ways: Heritage and Identity of the Alutiiq People. Edited by Aron L. Crowell, Amy F. Steffan and Gordon L. Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press, 2001. – Contact University of Alaska Press Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga. Edited by William W. Fitzhugh and Elizabeth Ward. 2000. Harper Collins. Ainu: Spirit of a Northern People. Edited by William W. Fitzhugh and Chisato O. Dubreuil. 1999. ASC STAFF William Fitzhugh, Director and Curator: fitzhugh@si.edu Aron Crowell, Alaska Director: acrowell@alaska.net Igor Krupnik, Ethnologist: krupniki@si.edu Stephen Loring, Museum Anthropologist: lorings@si.edu Noel Broadbent, Archaeologist: broadben@si.edu Dawn Biddison, Alaska Collection Project: biddisondd@ci.anchorage.ak.us Abby McDermott, Research Assistant: amcdermott@si.edu CONTACT INFORMATION Arctic Studies Center P.O. Box 37012 Anthropology Department, MRC 112 Smithsonian Institution, Natural History Building 10th and Constitution N.W. Washington, D.C. 20013-7012 (202) 633-1887 (phone) (202) 357-2684 (fax) ASC Anchorage Arctic Studies Center at the Rasmuson Center 121 West 7th Ave. Anchorage, A.K. 99501 (907) 343-6162 (phone) (907) 343-6130 (fax) This newsletter has been produced by William Fitzhugh and Abigail McDermott. Ordering information for publications can be found at: www.mnh.si.edu/arctic SPECIAL THANKS TO OUR ASC INTERNS AND VOLUNTEERS Leon Chaldranian – Arctic Ethnology collection eMU catalog Abby Chabitnoy – Sharing Knowledge exhibit project Ameliah Croft – Arctic Ethnology collection eMU catalog Emiliana Donadi – Arctic ethnology collections, C.F. Hall collection Rita Eagle – Kenai Fjords archaeological analysis Avital Friedman – Caribou Inuit historical photography Richard Galloway – Kenai Fjords archaeological analysis Joan Hobbs – Field report illustrations Rocky Milano – ASC publications Nadia M. Jackinsky-Horrell – Yup’ik Iconography and Sharing Knowledge projects Anthony Jenkinson (Tshikapisk Foundation) – Innu Experiential Education co-ordinator Alexandra Sprano – Sharing Knowledge exhibit project Hannah Voorhees – Kenai Peninsula oral history research Lauren Wynalda – Mongolia field report illustrations/maps THANKS TO OUR 2007 SPONSORS! AHTNA, Inc. Aleut Corporation Anchorage Museum Foundation Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Arctic Slope Regional Corporation Bering Straits Native Corporation Bristol Bay Native Corporation Calista Corporation Cook Inlet Region Inc. Doyon, Ltd. First Alaskans Institute General Raymond and Margaret Mason James Van Stone Estate Koniag Inc. Malott Family Foundation NANA Regional Corporation National Geographic Society National Park Service National Park Service, Alaska Office National Science Foundation Robert Bateman Fund Roger Fry Sealaska Corporation SI/NMNH Department of Anthropology Smithsonian Small Grants U.S. Department of State Mongolia Ambassador’s Grant RESEARCH ASSOCIATES Ernest Burch Jr., Harrisburg, PA, Esburchjr@aol.com Anne Fineup-Riordan, Anchorage, AK, riordan@alaska.net Joan Gero, American University, jgero@american.edu Norman Hallendy, Carp, ONT, tukilik@rogers.com RESEARCH COLLABORATORS Ted Timreck- New York City, theodore.timreck@verizon.com Will Richards- Georgetown, ME, will@wrichphoto.com Judith Burch – Nova Scotia, Canada inuitjvb@tallships.ca A rctic S tudies C enter D epartm ent of A nthropology N atural H istory B uilding, M R C 112 S m ithsonian Institution P.O . B ox 37012 10th and C onstitution, N W W ashington, D C 20013-7012 O ffi cial B usiness P enalty for P rivate U se $300 P resorted S tandard P ostage & F ees P aid S m ithsonian Institution G -94