December 2003 Number 11www.mnh.si.edu/arctic Newsletter National Museum of Natural HistorySmithsonian Institution NOTES FROM THE DIRECTOR By Bill Fitzhugh CHANGES AFOOT!!! My comments here last year offered the hope that the process of introspection would soon end and renewal might be at hand by the time this year’s newsletter appeared. Well, after several years of false starts, mis-direction, and grass-roots angst and rebellion, 2003 has marked a turning-point. Some of the storm clouds swirling about the Institution are dissipating and we look forward to a brighter future. Why? Most importantly, the context for the ASC and other science programs has been strengthened by conclusions reached by the high level, institution-wide reviews conducted by the Smithsonian Science Commission in 2002 and parallel studies of the National Academy of Science (NAS) and the National Association of Professional Accoun- tants (NAPA). Most importantly, these reports give Smithsonian science a highly positive bill of health and urge the SI adminis- tration and Congress to address its most serious deficiencies: a decade of budget short- falls resulting from unfunded mandates for new museums and salary increases that have cut deeply into staffing levels and SI science support. However, the Commission and the NAS and NAPA reports also note that the Institution must come to grips with its ill- defined and seemingly all-inclusive mission (“the increase and diffusion of knowledge”) and focus on a discrete set of themes and programs. Happily, anthropology and cultural studies is one of the four science missions recommended by the Commission, whose report has been enthusiastically endorsed by the Smithsonian Regents, our governing board. One of the most important results of these studies is that the National Science Foundation has decided to accept Smithsonian proposals on a regular basis, ending a policy that for thirty-five years placed SI scientists at a disadvantage with respect to their peers elsewhere. A number of administrative changes recommended by these reports have also taken place. David Evans, a highly successful NOAA administrator, was appointed Under Secretary for Science. Since then he has vigorously imple- mented many of the recommendations made by SSC, NAS, and NAPA and has begun promoting SI science to Congress and SI officials. He has also secured funding to begin planning a new oceans exhibit at NMNH and has supported new science initiatives in the SI budget. Most important, he and Secretary Larry Small completed a search for a new director for Natural History and in March appointed Cristián Samper, a young, dynamic, Harvard-trained biologist with extensive science management experience who founded and directed Columbia’s Humboldt Institute and served as Acting Director for the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama. Samper has already begun the process of renewal so badly needed by our museum. As Chair of Anthropology, I confess to having a role in this process as well, and most of my time this year has been devoted to Department matters. You don’t want to hear about how long it takes to do performance evalua- tions and plans for 50 employees! Of more interest is our effort to renovate the out-dated anthropology halls and plans for special exhibits on Jamestown for its 400th anniver- sary, on Chaco Canyon archaeology, and on anthropological components for the oceans hall. The untimely death of Carolyn Rose (August 2002) required re-shaping our museum studies programs with George Washington University. This, and the recent Castle decision to transfer archeometric researchers Ron Bishop and James Blackman to Anthropology from the Smithsonian Center for Materials Research and Education (SCMRE), and the joint appointment of phytolith researcher Delores Piperno to NMNH from STRI, offer new opportunities for training, collections, and research. Fortunately, time invested in museum and SI-wide affairs has benefitted the ASC, and our programs are better known throughout the Institution. In particular, I have been honored to receive the 2003 Distin- guished Smithsonian Lecture Award and now chair the SI Science Strategic Plan’s Human Diversity and Culture Change “theme team”. But more significant is our success in publication and exhibition programs. Three new volumes have appeared in our ‘Contributions to Circumpolar Anthropology Series’ this year: Honoring Our Elders: History of Eastern Arctic Archaeol- ogy (a volume dedicated to my mentor, Elmer Harp, Jr. of Dartmouth College), Akuzilleput Igaqullghet: Our Words Put to Paper, which received the Before Columbus Foundation’s American Book Award for 2002, and Constructing Cultures Then and Now: Celebrating Franz Boas and the Jesup North Anja Herzog with Basque pot from Hare Harbor-1 ASC Newsletter 2 Pacific Expedition. Soon to appear are a translation of Leonid Khlobystin’s Archaeology of Taimyr Peninsula and Northern Ethnographic Landscapes, a collaborative project with the NPS-Anchorage. On the exhibition front, Vikings had a double booking at the St. Paul Museum of Science, where, Minnesotans gave it a resounding cheer. Closing in May, all artifacts have been returned home, and the ‘West-Viking’ portion of the installation has been loaned to Iceland for their new Viking ship museum in Keflavik. The exhibition, Alutiiq Looking Both Ways curated by Aron Crowell and a team of Alutiiq colleagues,has completed a great run in Alaska and opened at NMNH in December 2003. This year’s special events have included Igor Krupnik’s stewardship over a day-long symposium on climate change at the annual ARCUS meeting in Washington in April, a meeting that also featured Greenland Home Rule Minister of Culture, Arkado Abelsen. But by far the most significant event was the 5th World Archaeology Congress, held at Catholic University for more than 1000 participants and organized by Joan Gero (American University) and Claire Smith (Flinders University in Australia). WAC-5’s week-long calendar of social events, embassy visits, community lectures, and tours made it arguably the most successful and certainly the most diverse archaeologi- cal group ever assembled. Looking forward, we have started preparations for an arctic climate change exhibit under the new NMNH “Forces of Change” exhibition program. Organized in collaboration with the interagency SEARCH program (Study of Environmental Arctic Change) that is sponsored by NOAA, NSF, NASA and other agencies, The Arctic: A Friend Acting Strangely, will be curated by Igor Krupnik and Katherine Rusk and will feature new research on rapidly changing conditions in the circumpolar regions and their impacts on Arctic Natives, northern residents, and the wider world. We will also be presenting this topic as a special symposium at the next AAAS annual meeting in Seattle in 2004. ASC archaeology projects have also forged ahead. Aron Crowell’s Kenai Fjords project has gained momentum with community support and funding from the NPS; Stephen Loring’s community archaeology in Makkovik produced exciting educational opportunities for Labrador Inuit and new information about the European contact period in the 17-18th centuries; and my work in Mongolia on Neolithic and Bronze Age sites, deer stones, modern reindeer herding, and its environmental context matured into a major scientific and humanitarian program. Similarly, my “St. Lawrence Gateways Project” progressed to a long-term effort with Laval University to explore culture history, heritage studies, Basque archaeology, and European-Inuit contact on Quebec’s Lower North Shore. Meanwhile, Igor Krupnik’s ‘knowledge repatriation’ program with Alaskan and Siberian communities has documented archival photography from NMNH, NMAI, AMNH, and Russian museum collections, and he has continued his research in collaboration with the Eskimo Walrus Commission and other groups. Finally, not to be undone by her publication and adminstrative duties, Elisabeth Ward found time this year to research and write on Viking landscapes based on sagas and archaeology and has continued her work on Viking popular culture. And Matthew Gallon, in addition to supporting our Mongolia and Quebec projects and processing Labrador TABLE OF CONTENTS collections for return to Newfoundland, has been collaborating with Dan Rogers and Bruno Frohlich on Mongolian archaeol- ogy. Sadly, and left the ASC in July: Elisabeth to clear her brain of six years of ASC fever and pursue new opportunities in California, and Matt to begin graduate school at the University of Michigan. Both will be sorely missed! And in case you’re wondering if there’s a nerve center at the ASC ‘after Elisabeth,’ the new password is ‘Katherine Rusk’ or rusk.katherine@nmnh.si.edu, who will be dividing her time between research on the arctic climate exhibit and managing ASC affairs in Room 307. Katherine is a specialist on Greenland Norse settlement and environment who is soon to receive her PhD from University of York, UK. Changes Indeed! ASC Anchorage Aleut Visit: The Alaska Collections Project........................... 3 Archaeology and Oral Traditions .......................................... 3 Exhibitions Viking Show Comes to an End, but Not “The End”.............. 5 On the Road with Looking Both Ways.......................... 6 The Return of Turner’s Inuit Collection to Kuujjuaq..... 6 Outreach Research and Repatriation............................................. 7 Yup’ik Artist Studies Smithsonian Mask Collections...... 8 Researching Masks at the Smithsonian.................................. 8 The Conservation of Masks from the Nelson Collection...... 10 Research International Polar Year 2007-2008....................................... 11 Linguistic Research on the Kensington Runestone................ 12 The Narwhal Tooth Expedition and Research........................ 16 Site Selection Criteria of the Norse in Greenland................... 18 F ield Work The Deer Stone Project Preliminary Field Report ................ 19 Burial Mounds and Mass Graves in Mongolia.......................21 St. Lawrence Gateways Project: 2002-2003 Field Report.....23 Arctic Studies Center’s Labrador Initiatives, 2003.................26 A Student’s Perspective..........................................................27 Sub-surface survey in Northern Iceland.................................28 Conferences WAC-5 Comes to D.C........................................................... 30 ASC’s Northern Connections at WAC-5........................ 31 The Northern Veche of 2003..........................................32 Museums Alaska 2003...................................................33 “Jesup-2” Initiative Enters Its Second Decade................33 Bergy Bits Distinguished Scandinavian Visitors...............................35 World’s Worst Skiing Trip......................................................35 Alaska Native Elders and the Alaska Collections Project....36 Honors and Awards......................................................36 Ainu Website launch......................................................36 Prime Minister Announces Diplomatic Appointment......36 Donation to the National Anthropological Archives.......37 ASC Establishes Dartmouth Connection........................37 Transitions........................................................................38 Publications...............................................................................39 Thanks to Our Sponsors........................................................42 Publication Order Form...........................................................43 ASC Newsletter 3 ASC ANCHORAGE ALEUT VISIT: THE ALASKA COLLECTIONS PROJECT By Aron Crowell During the week of April 7-11, 2003, four Alaska Native Unangan (Aleut) visitors worked in the Anthropology collections and the National Anthropological Archives in connection with the Alaska Collections Project (ACP), led by Curator and Project Director Aron Crowell of the Arctic Studies Center. Jennifer McCarty of the Arctic Studies Center’s Alaska office assisted with the visit. The visitors were Elders Mrs. Mary Bourdukofsky and Mr. Vlaas Shabolin from the island and village of St. Paul, and Mrs. Maria Turnpaugh of Unalaska, Unalaska Island, Alaska. They were accompanied by Ms. Daria Dirks of the Tanadgusix Foundation Oral History and Museum Project (St. Paul). Mr. Shabolin is a life-long hunter, fisherman, and noted story-teller; Mrs. Bourdukofsky and Mrs.Turnpaugh are expert weavers of fine grass baskets for which the Aleutian Islands are famous. All grew up in island villages and are speakers of the indigenous language, Unangax. ACP consultations with indigenous cultural experts from all parts of Alaska are providing detailed documentation and native language names for hundreds of items in the anthropol- ogy collections at both NMNH and NMAI. The research will yield a major exhibition in Anchorage, traveling exhibits for Alaskan communities, a Smithsonian web site, publications, and detailed information to be incorporated into the Department of Anthropology’s collections records. With Crowell, the Aleutian group examined and discussed more than 50 items in the NMNH ethnology collections, including baskets, bentwood hunting hats and visors, skin clothing, tools, and masks from burial caves. The interviews were professionally videotaped and audiotaped to create a permanent record. The Arctic Studies Center will provide copies and transcripts for archives at both NMNH and NMAI. A highlight of the trip was a visit to the National Anthropological Archives, where the visitors viewed paintings done in the Aleutian Islands during the 1870s to 1890s by Henry Wood Elliott. They discussed several of the paintings in detail, including: “Fishing from kaiaks, Captain’s Harbor, Unalaska”, 1872; and “Men with clubs on edge of fur seal rookery, St. Paul Island”, 1891. All of the visitors from St. ARCHAEOLOGY AND ORAL TRADITIONS ON THE OUTER KENAI COAST, ALASKA By Aron Crowell The National Park Service in Alaska, through its Ocean Alaska Science and Learning Center (OASLC) program, has provided more than $87,000 in research grants to the Arctic Studies Center in Anchorage for investigation of the archaeology and oral history of a little-known region of southern Alaska – the spectacular, glaciated Pacific coastline of the Kenai Peninsula. The study area is within Kenai Fjords National Park. Important partners in the Kenai Fjords Oral History and Archaeology Project are the lower Cook Inlet Native villages of Nanwalek, Port Graham, and Seldovia. The Pratt Museum in Homer is also working with village residents and ASC on the project, which includes a strong focus on education, student training, and community outreach. Aron Crowell is the Principal Investigator and Project Director. Archaeologists from the Fairbanks and Anchorage faculties of the University of Alaska will join the project this summer, including David Yesner, WilliamWorkman, and Maribeth Murray. Native residents of Nanwalek, Port Graham, and Seldovia – whose cultural affiliation is Alutiiq (or Sugpiaq) – are knowledgeable about the outer Kenai coast and its history because many of their grandparents and great grandparents lived there in villages such as Aialik, Yalik, Dogfish Bay, Rocky Bay, and Port Chatham. These settlements were gradually abandoned as the Alutiiq population declined during the 19th and early 20th centuries. The survivors settled in Cook Inlet, Aleutian consultants Daria Dirks, Marie Turnpaugh, Vlaas Shabolin, and Mary Bourdukofsky looking at a painted wooden shield from Kagamil Island. Paul had worked at one time in the island’s commercial fur seal harvest, which was started by Russian fur traders in the 18th century and continued under U.S. federal management until 1980. Their comments about the fur seal industry, which brought Elliott to the islands as an advocate for regulation of the harvest, will add immensely to the historical documentation of the Elliott paintings. Crowell plans to gather more informa- tion from the group about the whole collection through follow- up interviews in Alaska. This was the fifth ACP trip in a series of seven. Future visits will include Tlingit visitors from southeastern Alaska and Athabascans from interior villages. ASC Newsletter 4 where there was better access to jobs, schools, and the Russian Orthodox church. Some men still traveled to the outer coast by kayak for trapping and hunting until the 1930s, but few people in the Cook Inlet villages today have ever visited their former Alutiiq homeland. Nonetheless, vivid stories of traditional life and travels on the outer coast have been passed down to current generations, and there is strong interest in revisiting the area and working with scientists to study it. Oral traditions, combined with traditional knowledge about subsistence resources and the outer coast environment, are invaluable for interpreting archaeological sites that range from 100 -1000 years old. One of the key questions is how Alutiiq people adapted to dramatic environmental changes that took place over the last ten centuries. Among these were a volcanic eruption that covered the area in ash about A.D. 1500 and a very large earthquake around A.D. 1170 that caused the shoreline to drop at least two meters. It appears that many coastal villages were inundated by this crustal movement and that a human exodus from the area lasted at least a century. Climate change was another variable. Markedly cooler temperatures during the Little Ice Age (“LIA”,ca. A.D. 1300–1870) caused glaciers to advance down the coastal fjords, and at least one ancient village (at Harris Bay) was almost buried beneath the ice. Based on known links between water temperature and the relative abundance of key food species such as salmon and seals, it is almost certain that resources available to outer coast residents were very different during the LIA than they are today. Collections of discarded food bones from archaeological sites are being studied to develop an understanding of these changes, which are of broad interest to climate science. The Institute of Marine Sciences at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) will analyze stable oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen isotopes contained in archaeo- logical samples to help develop a picture of changing water temperatures and corre- sponding shifts in the marine food web. The Kenai Fjords Oral History and Archaeology Project began in 2000 with a planning grant from the Alaska Humanities Forum. Planning activities included public meetings in the villages and an initial visit to sites in Aialik Bay and Harris Bay with students and elders in June 2001. Archaeo- logical fieldwork during the summer of 2002 focused on one of the older known settlements, the Bear Cove village site in Aialik Bay. The field crew of 10 included high school, undergraduate, and graduate students from Alaska and California. Robert McMullen (Port Graham) and Sperry Ash (Nanwalek) joined the project in the field. More than twenty Alutiiq elders in the villages provided videotaped interviews from their homes that focused on memories and stories about the outer coast, and several visited the Bear Cove site at the end of the field season. Nick Tanape, Sr. (Nanwalek), a noted hunter and teacher of traditional knowledge, offered important observations about the archaeo- logical findings and the environment and subsistence resources of Aialik Bay. Based on calibrated radiocarbon dates, the oldest house and midden remains at Bear Cove are from the period A. D. 950 - 1400. Excavations uncovered house floors; knives, lance points and other stone tools; hearths; and other features. Nick Tanape, Sr., John Moonin, Sr., and other visitors from Nanwalek and Port Graham suggested that a stone-lined basin that was discovered on one of the house floors was an early example of a well-known type of traditional cooking pit. The procedure was to build a large fire in the bottom of the pit, let it burn down to coals, then place flat stones over the embers followed by alternating layers of seal or bear meat and seaweed. The meat would steam for many hours while the hunters were away for the day and be ready to eat upon their return. Elders also suggested that the predominance of whole, finished tools inside the Bear Cove houses was due to the pragmatic and hospitable Alutiiq tradition of leaving houses well stocked with food, firewood, and tools for use by travelers who might seek shelter there in a time of need. The abundance of burnt bone fragments was attributed to the custom – called pinahsuhtut ‘they are hunting for good weather’ - of tossing bones into the cooking fire to chase away storms. Village project coordinators Nick Tanape, Sr., Herman Moonin, Jr., and Lillian Elvsaas worked with the Pratt Museum to edit a video entitled Bringing Back the Stories that will be used in the Pratt’s future exhibition Kachemak Bay: An Exploration of People and Place, funded by the National Endowment for the Humani- ties. With Talking Circle Productions, the Arctic Studies Center produced a 20-minute educational film that incorporates inter- views with elders as well as extensive video documentation of the field research. Entitled Archaeology and Memory: Ancestral Alutiiq Villages on the Outer Kenai Coast, Alaska, it will be used in classrooms, shown at the Kenai Fjords National Park visitor center in Seward, and presented at public meetings and academic conferences. Gale Parsons, Education Director of the Pratt Museum, managed participation of three high school interns from Homer in the field project, and this program will be expanded in 2003 to include 5 – 6 interns from Nanwalek, Port Graham, Ninilchik, and Homer. Fieldwork during July and August 2003 focused on several 19th century sites in Aialik Bay that relate directly to stories told by elders. The grandmother of Eleanor McMullen, First Chief of Port Graham, lived at Aialik Bay as a child in the 1880s, and the stories her grandmother passed on include many details that have been verified by preliminary archaeological testing, including the types of fish and sea mammals upon which people depended. Codfish bones from the midden indicate that this important food fish grew much larger in the cold waters of the Little Ice Age, which reached its southern Alaskan peak in the late 19th century. The desolate cold and ice of that time feature in the oral traditions of both Alutiiq people and their Tlingit neighbors to the east. Alutiiq advisor Nick Tanape, Sr. talking about the Bear Cove site with Aron Crowell. ASC Newsletter 5 EXHIBITIONS VIKING SHOW COMES TO AN END, BUT NOT “THE END” By Elisabeth Ward The Smithsonian special exhibition Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga allowed for over 300 objects from 29 lending institutions to be brought together for a celebration of the 1000 year anniversary of the Viking arrival in the New World. On May 18th, 2003, that party came to an end. All of the Viking Age and Norse artifacts, as well as some modern pop-culture pieces and a handful of replicas, had to “go home” to their lending institutions. If the objects had the chance to tell us what their experience was like, we hope they would feel it has been a good one. They certainly got star-quality treatment: conservators cautiously kept an eye on their condition at each venue opening and closing, and representatives from the lending institutions came to ensure each venue met security and environmental control standards. Some objects were only allowed to be handled by the owning institution, which meant that the installation schedule had to accommodate a variety of needs from international flight schedules to the host venue’s PR demands. James Rubinstein of Natural History’s Special Exhibits Department did a fabulous job keeping all of that rolling, with the assistance at each venue of the respective special exhibits project coordinator, the cooperation of the representatives of the loaning institutions, and the steady hands of our contracted move crew, Ely, who stuck with the show from start to finish. We could have asked for no finer place to bid adieu to the Viking show than its final venue: The Science Museum of Minnesota. Because of the large Scandinavian-American population in the mid-west, the Smithsonian had always wanted the show to go to that part of the country. But with Chicago falling through, we were left with a con- spicuous gap in the center of North America. The Science Museum of Minne- sota was eager to fill that void, but they only had an opening in their schedule in the fall of 2002. Originally, the exhibition was set to close in October of 2002, after its run at the Canadian Museum of Civilization. But everyone from the lenders to Smithsonian staff decided that it was worth making the extra effort to allow the show to stay on tour for one more venue if that would mean this show could reach its core-constituency. The Science Museum of Minnesota opened the show November 14th with a fine opening ceremony, attended by the Mayor of St. Paul, and several State Delegates, though the most honored guest (and keynote speaker) was surely the President of Iceland, Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, who represented not only Iceland but also the Nordic Council of Ministers, the main sponsor for the exhibition. That auspicious start was followed up by a string of special events planned throughout the run of the exhibition, all expertly orchestrated by the friendly, professional staff at the SMM, and led by Project Coordinator Anne Hornickle. There were evening lectures planned each month that the show was at the SMM: Bill Fitzhugh started off the series with his lecture opening weekend summarizing the exhibition themes and highlighting evidence of Native-Norse contact. Contribu- tors to the exhibition catalogue kept the monthly lectures interesting by Peter Sawyer (with his wife Birgitta Sawyer) who spoke on the Viking Age in Europe; Kirsten Seaver who spoke on the Greenland Colonies, and Elisabeth Ward who spoke on Viking Women, specifically Gudrid the Wide- traveled. Other evening lectures were given by Vestein Olason, director of the the Arni Magnusson Institution in Reykjavik, who spoke on the Sagas, and James Graham Cambell, who gave an overview of Viking Art. Although other venues have likewise had a series of evening lectures, this one was notable partially because the exhibition run was twice as long (6 months as opposed to 3 months) so it required extra care to make sure each lecture had sufficient publicity, a task easily handled by the PR staff led by Carleen Pieper and Janine Hanson. Other events including a Viking Weekend festival, entertainment by the Saga Singers of the Saga Center in Southern Iceland (led by Arthur Bjorgvin Bollason), and a visit by the National Opera of Norway for the closing weekend (which coincides with Norway’s National Day Celebrations) certainly kept buzz around the exhibition going. Within the exhibit itself, the SMM had also put in extra effort: they constructed a hands-on exploration area modeled after the Viking Village created by the Denver Museum of Natural History; and they made an audio-guide to give visitors an additional way to explore the content and themes of the exhibition. All of this extra effort certainly paid off: they had the second-highest number of visitors for any venue on the tour (after the opening here in Washington, where admission is free!). Their total pushed the combined number of visitors for all venues (Washington, New York, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Ottawa and Minnesota) over the 3.5 million mark, an astonishing and truly gratifying figure. Of course, this success leaves Bill and Elisabeth, as well as Robert Sullivan, Joe Madiera, and Jim Rubinstein of Exhibits at the National Museum of Natural History, sad to see the show ending. It has been an extraordinary experience, and hopefully one that will inspire the Museum to undertake such an effort in the future. But one obstacle to a repeat would likely be financial: despite the obvious success of the show, NMNH came out slightly in the red. Partially this is because of the unfavorable exchange rate between Kroner and Dollars, but also because we tried to keep our fees as low as possible to encourage as many venues as possible to take the show. To help ameliorate this deficit, we began looking for ways to recoup our expenses by finding an appropriate The Islendingur Ship ASC Newsletter 6 institution to take some of the exhibition furniture (cases, panels, models, etc.) at the closing of the exhibition. We were extremely pleased that a very suitable option presented itself a few months ago. As luck would have it, another Viking Millennium inspired event, the sailing of the Islendingur replica Viking ship from Iceland to North America, had produced a valuable asset (in this case, a beautiful full scale Viking ship!) in need of a home. The City of Reykjanesbaer (made up of the communities near Keflavik International Airport in Iceland) had agreed to purchase Islendingur from the ship captain, Gunnar Marel Eggertsson. The Mayor of Reykjanesbaer, Arni Sigfusson, had hired a notable Icelandic architect, Gudmundur Jonsson, to construct an edifice to house the ship. However, he and the others on the planning committee, Einar Benedictsson and Margret Halgrimssdottir, felt that there should be an exhibit to accompany the Islendingur ship. When Elisabeth heard about that, she quickly offered the cases, panels, and models in the Vikings exhibition, and just before the show closed in Minneapolis, an agreement was reached for Reykjanesbaer to borrow the exhibit furniture for an extended period of time. Though certainly work remains to modify the existing exhibit components to work with the story of the Islendingur, there is reason to be optimistic. The Islendingur ship, because of a fortuitous stop in Iceland by Bill several years ago, was the object that graced the cover of the exhibition catalogue, an image of it advertised the exhibition throughout its North American tour, and the ship met the exhibition in New York City in October of 2000. So the two have been linked from the beginning of the year 2000 celebrations, and it seems the will of Leif the Lucky Eriksson that the two should end it together in Iceland. ON THE ROAD WITH LOOKING BOTH WAYS By Aron Crowell Looking Both Ways: Heritage and Identity of the Alutiiq People, the award-winning exhibition produced by the Arctic Studies Center, the Department of Anthropology, the Office of Exhibits Central, and the Alutiiq Museum, was presented at the Alaska State Museum in Juneau during April – October 2003. Juneau, home to 3000 Alaskans and destination for 700,000 cruise ship passengers, was a fitting stop on the exhibition’s journey from the Alutiiq homeland (Kodiak and Homer) to the wider world. The trip has included Alaska’s largest city (Anchorage), the state capital (Juneau), and now the nation’s capital. Looking Both Ways opened on December 15 at the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) and will be on display through 2004. The trip from Alaska to Washington, D.C. had its moments of drama, starring Alaska’s Senator Ted Stevens. When commercial air transport arrangements fell through, the Senator asked the U.S. Air Force to step in. An extensive coordination effort was immediately launched, involving the Senator’s office, the Smithsonian’s Office of Government Relations, the Air Force, and the NMNH Department of Anthropology. In the end, an Air Force cargo plane left Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage on a cold Saturday morning with the exhibition’s 40 salmon-pink shipping crates on board, along with strapped-in courier Scott Carrlee of the Alaska State Museum. The shipment safely reached NMNH via Travis A.F.B. in California and Dover A.F.B. in Delaware. Key Smithsonian players in the hastily written script were Carey Wilkins and Nell Payne at Government Relations and Deborah Hull-Walski, the Anthropology collections manager and orchestrator of the LBW tour. A large and able Air Force team made it all happen, including coordinator Colonel Sam Cox and Staff Sergeant James Langston (Elemendorf), Master Sergeant Doyle (Travis), and Lieutenant Bowman (Dover). The coordination of the transportation effort could not have been done with out Jerome (Jay) Johnson, John Becker, and Jeffry Crooks, who were the main link with the ATOCs at Elmendorf, Travis, Dover. Looking Both Ways arrives at NMNH KUUJJUATUQAQ 1882-1884 / KUUJJUAQ C.1968 A CENTURY LATER, PART OF THE TURNER’S INUIT COLLECTION WAS BACK UP NORTH, TO KUUJJUAQ By Louis Gagnon The exhibition Kuujjuatuqaq 1882-1884 / Kuujjuaq c.1968 was very successful at its showing during the 9th Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC), from August 12-19th, 2002. With between 500 to 600 participant, this conference was the largest interna- tional event ever held in Nunavik, and the Cultural Center was newly opened in Kuujjuaq for the occasion. This outstanding exhibition was produced by Avataq Cultural Institute, an Inuit organization, and proved to be a turning point in Nunavik museology because of its original way of dealing with recent and ancient pasts, its size (over 100 historical photos and drawings, some 25 rare artifacts borrowed from five important collections, and all displayed on more than 400 sq. feet), and the exceptional participation of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History. It successfully conveyed a genuine piece of history of Kuujjuaq. The loan of 17 objects, and the permission to enlarge 27 photographs and drawings from the Lucien M. Turner Collection, were made possible with the very supportive collaboration of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History. Lucien McShan Turner’s (1848-1909) extensive observations, his photographs and the traditional Inuit artifacts that he collected between 1882-1884 from Fort Chimo area (now called Kuujjuaq) form today a tangible link to the nineteenth century... and, of course, to the Inuit inhabitants of that region. ASC Newsletter 7 While the impressive and well-preserved 120 year old Turner pieces were displayed on the mezzanine of the brand new Kuujjuaq Cultural Center, the main floor of its hall was animated by an exciting mural 9 feet high and by over 25 feet long, of the Bernard Saladin d’Anglure/Corcoran Collection of photographs. Known for his fieldwork in Nunavik since the mid-1950s, Laval University anthropology professor Bernard Saladin d’Anglure sojourned briefly in Kuujjuaq in summer 1968, accompanied by the photographer Corcoran. Together they realized an unsurpassed series of 65 B&W family portraits that have never been shown before. For the visitors who recognize themselves or some of their relatives or friends, the “flash-back” provoked by these 35 year old photos generated an immediate and very emotive experience of “personal past” quite distinctive in comparison with the feelings and thoughts inspired by the century-old Turner collection which provided a point of contact with Nunavik history. Together the continuity between the present and the past made “history” come true. “Turner’s contribution is vital in that he collected artifacts at a time when we did not do so. More than a century later, his work validates our very real sense of being Inuit in modern times.” (R. Watt, in his foreword to the Ethnology of the Ungava District, 2002 re-edition) Again in the hall of the Kuujjuaq Cultural Center, Avataq put on display a few old significant pieces coming from three major Nunavik collections (Daniel Weetaluktuk Memorial Museum and Cultural Transmission Center, Inukjuak; Saputik Collection from the Puvirnituq Cultural Facility, Puvirnituq; St- Edmund’s Anglican Church Collection, Kuujjuaraapik) to underline the individual and collective efforts in Nunavik to preserve the rich legacy of past Inuit generations. For the benefit of the people attending to the ICC conference and the Kuujjuammiut (local people from Kuujjuaq) Avataq also showcased its main projects and programs devel- oped in respect of its leitmotif: “Keeping Afloat Nunavik Inuit Tradition & Knowledge”. Joshua Sivuarapik, Avataq co-curator, holds amulets collected by Lucien Turner in 1882 At the conclusion of the 2003 summer’s archaeology work at Makkovik, Labrador Stephen Loring, in his guise as a member of the Advisory Board of the Tshikapisk Foundation – an Innu organization committed to preserving traditional Innu core-values, language, and country-based knowledge – traveled to the Innu village of Sheshatshiu from whence, accompanied by his Tshikapisk colleague, Anthony Jenkinson, Tim Borlase (Labrador Institute) and Malinda Blustain and Emily Trespas (Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts), he flew into the Kamestastin region of the central Labrador barrenlands where Tshikapisk hopes to develop an experiential education facility. While aimed primarily at Innu youth the Kamestastin program hopes to partner with Canadian and U.S. universities and institutions who share an interest in the preservation of all aspects of Innu culture, language and history. Loring’s previous fieldwork at Kamestastin has revealed that the region retains traces of over 7000 years of occupation by small groups of specialized caribou-hunters. Discussions with Tshikapisk educators, Innu leaders and representatives from Memorial University and Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts focused on developing a systematic archaeological program and oral history project to document the extraordinary relationship between the Innu, their ancestors, their land and the caribou. Caribou predation plays a pivotal role in human history (e.g. in Paleolithic Europe and in the Late Pleistocene Northeast U.S.). It is believed that a community anthropology project with the Innu centered at Kamestastin could be expected to greatly enhance our knowledge of the dynamics and consequences of a specialized caribou hunting economy and contribute significantly to an understanding and appreciation of the spiritual and practical dimensions of the lives of northern hunter-foragers. Jordanna Benuen and Emily Trespas contemplate dinner at Kamestastin. OUTREACH RESEARCH AND REPATRIATION By Christina Leece The issue of “repatriation”, so hotly discussed in the news and at WAC 5 this year, has been one of great concern for the Arctic Studies Center. The excavated materials we have been housing and studying from Labrador, Canada, are now desired for local museums and universities. These materials are in the process of being returned to people who see them as a valuable piece of their cultural history. Since the fall of 2001, the ASC has been better outfitted to deal with this repatriation procedure. We have a wide array of collections from sites that range from having only a few utilized ASC Newsletter 8 flakes, to larger collections compiled over several seasons of fieldwork. With the intention of expediting the return process, the ASC acquired a lab in the swing space area of the museum in October of 2001. Since this time the lab has been filled with artifacts from Labrador. A string of interns have been recruited from universities in the area, and across the country to help maintain records on these archaeological finds. They have offered their services assisting in the analysis, description, and cataloguing of artifacts. The interns document the provenience, materials, measurements, descriptive notes, and specimen types of the artifacts in a database created by Matthew Gallon. We can then pull out information to cross reference artifacts and study specific features or tool manufacture techniques with increased ease. This enables us to do more comparative studies and to see trends that would be otherwise difficult to quantify scientifically. Students from all over the country have welcomed this rare opportunity for hands on experience, and we have welcomed their help. Once the initial documentation procedure has been completed, a research assistant – Matthew Gallon followed by Christina Leece – compiles more extensive analysis of the artifacts. They are described individually, and digitally photographed for future publications. After the sites have been adequately described, they are sent to the Newfoundland Museum in St. John’s Newfoundland, where they are housed and used for research and exhibits. Many shipments to the museum include over 500 artifacts and bags of non-cataloged flakes from tool manufacture. The chart below only lists the sites returned in 2003 with more than fifty artifacts, which is a small portion of the total number of returns. We continue making headway in the repatriation of collections with a healthy flow of interns in our much-improved workspace. Major Sites (Borden #) Returns Un-Cat. Black Island 1A (Raven Site)(HeCi-16) 79 33 Dog Bight LO9 (HdCh-09) 82 41 Dog Island Southwest 1(HdCh-37) 55 19 Dog Island West Spur L1(HdCh-13) 65 7 Dog Island West Spur L5 (HdCh-17) 81 28 Imilikuluk 07 (HdCg-35) 62 5 Karl Oom Island 5 (HdCg-41) 108 69 Nachvak Village (IgCx-01) 298 72 Questlet Isles 4 (HeCi-43) 99 15 September Harbor 3 (HdCg-13) 187 21 Tinutyarvik Cove 1 IgCv-02 163 31 Tinutyarvik Cove 2 IgCv-03 67 8 Total Returns in 2003 2031 727 Polished Nephrite endblades from Nachvak Village, a Thule culture site. IgCx-03:335 and IgCx-03:336. practices his art as a means to anchor himself to his Yup’ik heritage: of Yup’ik and Canadian descent, his father is from Valleyfield, Canada and his mother Tasianna “Nurauq” is Yup’ik from Kwigillingok, Alaska. He is the grandson of John “Cunar” and Jane “Nausgauq” Hinz of the Kipnuk area. Aarnarquq holds degrees from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and Harvard University in Education, Native Studies, and Administration but it is as an artist that he is currently exploring the world. He writes, In the ongoing process of doing art, I constantly research traditional and contemporary Yup’ik ways of being and knowing giving me a better contextual framework and foundation to base my work upon. My research helps to reinforce and expand upon the philosophy of my work which is quite humanistic and, at the same time, brings me back to my culture. Aarnarquq’s description of his recent visit to the Smithsonian is taken for the most part from his website: http://www.yupikmask.com/aarnarquq.htm RESEARCHING MASKS AT THE SMITHSONIAN By Phillip Charette (Aarnarquq) As strange as this may sound, I was fortunate enough to spend the week of my birthday and wedding anniversary in March researching Bristol Bay, Norton Sound, Nunivak, Yukon, and Kuskokwim masks, drums, and other Yup’ik artifacts at the Smithsonian Institution, Department of Anthropology, Arctic Studies Center. With the assistance of Dr. Stephen Loring, I studied hundreds of Yup’ik artifacts collected by E.W. Nelson and others stored at the Museum Support Center (MSC). The Smithsonian’s Department of Anthropology has an impressive collection of Yup’ik artifacts which are excellent examples of Yup’ik ingenuity, craftsmanship, and artistry. The collection gives one a sense of the Yup’ik worldview and the significance of Yup’ik cosmology in all aspects of traditional Yup’ik life. This is indeed a powerful and moving collection providing us with a vital link to the rich and colorful Yup’ik past and to our worldview. The pieces are stored in an excellent state of the art facility and are handled with the care they deserve. The collection was so powerful, spiritual, and precious to me that I found myself shaking every time I picked up and examined a mask, drum, or other artifact. As my apa Cunar would do and with him in mind, I took great care in spiritually protecting YUP’IK ARTIST PHILLIP CHARETTE (AARNARQUQ) ENCOUNTERS THE TUUNRISSUUT AND THE NEPCETAQ AT THE SMITHSONIAN By Stephen Loring For a week in March, the Arctic Studies Center was pleased to host a visiting Yup’ik artist, Phillip John Charette (Aarnarquq), from Portland, Oregon. Mr. Charette is an Alaskan Native artist specializing in Yup’ik masks, festival regalia including drums and finger masks, as well as Native American flutes. Artist, teacher, and activist, Mr. Charette ASC Newsletter 9 myself when handling the collection. The focus of my brief research project was to do an initial assessment of the number and condition Yup’ik masks and drums in the collection. Due to time constraints, I only had enough time to see about 1/3 of the northern mask collections which was enough to pique my curiosity and consider future research projects. I also focused my study on traditional Yup’ik carving and design techniques utilized in the making of tradi- tional masks and drums which will be incorporated into my own artwork. And finally, I wanted to study the thematic design characteris- tics consistent in traditional designs against what I already know and understand about traditional Yup’ik masks and drums. To a limited degree, I achieved most of my objectives but also realize that I simply scratched the surface in terms of working with such a large collection. I was honored to have the opportunity to glimpse into my Yup’ik past and was thrilled to have worked with experts and well trained staff. As I worked with the collections, the excitement and anticipation was rewarded each time another cabinet or drawer was opened revealing a breath taking treasure of artifacts. Photographs, images, and drawings do no justice to the actual pieces in the collection; you must see them with your own eyes and let your senses take in the rest. When you smell the smoke and feel the soot from the gasqiq on the masks, smell the seal oil in the in the lamps, and see the blood on the shaman’s mask, you begin to realize that we are not so far removed from our Yup’ik “History”. Realizing that the pieces I handled were from my grandparent’s and great grandparent’s lives was sobering and touched a part of my soul which brought me to tears. With all the radical changes our people have endured over the last 3-4 generations, experiencing these pieces from a contemporary Yup’ik point of view gave me a unique perspec- tive of our culture! The pieces in the collections provide evidence that Yup’ik peoples are highly skilled and talented artisans who are very clever, creative, imaginative, and ex- tremely intelligent. The nature of the work also shows that Yup’ik people were extremely resourceful, skilled survivors, strong in stature, and were so spiritual that it is reflected in every aspect of Yup’ik life and art. Phillip Charette (Aarnaquq) at M.S.C. with a nineteenth-century Nepcetaq mask from the Yukon-Kuskokwim region of Alaska I definitely feel the need, and have a personal commit- ment, to do additional follow-up work with the Yup’ik collection. I would welcome future projects to reassemble, repair, and/or provide more detailed educational documentation on these pieces through educational video, photography, or audio recordings with the assistance of elders and youth. After seeing the collection, I recognize the significance of this collection and the need for further comprehensive documenta- tion utilizing existing cultural resources before they are no longer available. Even if we do not have stories associated with each piece, we still can docu- ment specific design elements, carving tech- niques, tools utilized, and symbolic meaning within the works. I highly recommend that all Yup’ik carvers, artist, and Yup’ik cultural educa- tors take the time to see this invaluable collection because of the range of technical abilities ex- pressed in the works. It is an awesome collection in its scope and scale. [ Editor’s note: Aarnarquq concludes his essay on his home page with some insightful suggestions for collaboration between Alaskan Native Artists and the Smithsonian’s collec- tions management staff concerning on-going research and care of the important Yup’ik collections. He concludes his thoughts on his Smithsonian experience.] Special thanks to the Smithsonian and Department of Anthropology and Arctic Studies Center staff for their support, time, effort, and eagerness to work on the collections with me, to Dr. Stephen Loring of the Arctic Studies Center for his assistance and working with me for days on end in pod #1 researching the collections, and to Theresa Malnum, Deborah A. Hull-Walski, Carrie Beauchamp, and Felicia Pickering for assistance in gathering research data. You have all helped to fulfill a lifelong dream of working with Yup’ik masks, drums, and other Yup’ik artifacts which I will not soon forget. I look forward to working with you on future research projects and being with the collection again. [Ed: Thank-you Aarnarquq for your kind words. We look forward to seeing you again in Washington and we remain committed to assuring access to you and all Native Alaskans to the collections and artifacts which are your patrimony, heritage and pride. Quyanarpiit-lli! or Quyana, ...Ellam Yua!] ASC Newsletter 10 GAMEKEEPERS OF THE ARCTIC: THE CONSERVATION OF TWO TUNGHAK MASKS FROM THE NELSON COLLECTION By Katharina Geier Smithsonian Center for Materials Research and Education Smithsonian Institution 4th year intern, University of Applied Sciences Erfurt (Germany), Conservation and Restoration Program Two ceremonial Yup’ik masks from the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) are the focus of a current conservation project. Both are part of the Nelson Collection, a cache of almost 10,000 objects collected by Edward William Nelson on his expedition to Alaska from 1877 through 1881. The two masks, the largest ceremonial Yup’ik masks owned by the Smithsonian Institution (their faces measuring 55 x 32 cm and 52 x 29 cm) resemble each other closely in appearance, and share the same materials and techniques of construction. They are carved from wood, painted, and decorated with feathers. Both masks have the same prominent facial features, attached arms that extend directly from their mouths, side bars, two labrets, and attached carved animals. They are also painted in the same manner with the same colors. Though we do not know the precise year in which the masks were manufactured, or whether they were originally used ceremonially, they are nonetheless well documented. Mask 33118 is one of the few masks of the large Nelson Collection to be described and illustrated in Nelson’s monograph: This image represents the tunghâk or being that controls the supply of game. It is usually represented as living in the moon. The shamans commonly make a pretense of going to him with offerings in order to bring game into their district when the hunters have been unsuccessful for some time. Masks of this character are too heavy to be worn upon the face without additional support, so they are ordinarily suspended from the roof of the kashim by strong cords. The wearer stands behind with the mask bound about his head, and wags it from side to side during the dance so as to produce the ordinary motion. I was told that in all the great mask festivals several of these huge objects were usually thus suspended from the roof. During the expedition, each object of the Nelson Collection was numbered and catalogued in the “E.W. Nelson List of Ethnological Specimens Obtained in Alaska,” today in possession of NMNH. According to Nelson’s list, two masks numbered 1441 and 1442 are from the “Magemuts from the South of Lower Yukon.” When the masks were accessioned by the Smithsonian Institution on November 6, 1878, they were assigned the catalogue numbers 33118 and 33119, respectively. We do not know the condition in which the masks arrived in Washington D.C. Ledger drawings of the masks from 1878 show both masks assembled, and an illustration published in 1899, in Nelson’s monograph The Eskimo About Bering Strait, shows mask 33118 assembled. However, when they were shippied from Alaska to Washington, both masks were disassembled. During the course of the Anthropology Inventory Project that took place at the Smithsonian between 1978 and 1980, the masks were placed in two storage boxes along with their various detached parts. Since the field numbers were written on almost every one of the attached pieces during Nelson’s expedition, the pieces detached through disassembly could be correctly regrouped with the masks to which they properly belonged. In May 2003, the Tunghak masks were transferred from the storage units of the NMNH to the laboratories of the Smithsonian Center for Materials Research and Education (SCMRE), where they received conservation and restoration treatment. The treatment report will be available as dissertation project. To prepare for the treatment of both masks, the materials and techniques of manufacture were analyzed to gather technical information that served as the background for optimal conservation and restoration. The pigments and binders used, as well as the paint application, are still under investigation. This new set of analytical data, derived from objects of a generally known age and origin, will support and add to the information available, and it will also serve as a reference for future studies of objects from the Arctic region. Because the masks are important representations of the Yup’ik culture, one main goal of this project was to reassemble the masks correctly and restore them as closely as possible to their original condition. The ledger drawings of the masks from 1878 and the illustration of mask 33118 in Nelson’s monograph from 1899 helped guide our understanding of the relationship between the detached parts and the original masks. However, a comparison between the masks and the drawings suggests that the masks were already partly disassembled when the drawings were made. The masks are shown differently than they actually exist, and they are shown with parts attached in ways that cannot be logically duplicated, due to a lack of appropriate joinery (dowels, holes, etc.). By matching the broken dowels in both the detached pieces and the Plate of Mask 33118 from Nelson’s 1899 monograph Mask 33118 with relocated parts before assembly Detached parts are relocated by matching dowels and holes ASC Newsletter 11 Before considering the reconstruction of missing parts, substantial time was spent looking through the Arctic storage units. These units contain boxes with a collection of various single or broken parts of unknown origin. An additional fifteen pieces, bearing the original Nelson expedition catalogue numbers or matching broken dowels on the masks, have been relocated within the storage units. Five pieces were relocated for mask 33118: the center caribou on the forehead (which was already missing in the drawing of 1899), two teeth and two wooden sticks for attaching the side bars. The mask is now almost complete. A few teeth, seal flippers, caribou legs, and antlers remain missing, as well as unknown parts indicated by three broken dowels in the chin region. Ten pieces were relocated for mask 33119: three seals, two labrets and five pieces of bent wood. We are still missing a few of the mask’s teeth, some seal flippers, and another element belonging to the forehead region, which is presumably another carved seal. Lost mask parts were reconstructed by comparison of the masks to existing drawings and photographs. Due to the symmetry of the objects, additional information about missing parts was obtained through the examination of the opposite sides of the masks. The replacements were carved from wood and inpainted using dry pigments and water colors. Each inpainted replacement carving was marked on its back in pencil with the date of its creation (2003). Like the original parts, they were carved with an end shaped into a dowel or re-doweled and inserted mechanically into already existing drilled holes. For mask 33118 three teeth, one eyebrow peg, two seal flippers and eight caribou antlers were carved. All disassembled, relocated and reconstructed parts were assembled with the mask. In addition, missing feathers were replaced with new swan feathers. The conservation and restoration treatment of this mask is now complete. For mask 33119 the conservation and restoration treatment is almost complete. So far, one eyebrow peg, seven teeth and six seal flippers have been carved. There are still a few flippers and the seal of the forehead to be made. In addition, the appropriate locations for four pieces of bent wood belonging to the mask are still unknown. The conservation and restoration treatment has greatly changed the overall appearance of the two masks. Through the relocation and reconstruction of their missing parts, and their reassembly, the two Tunghak masks are now closer again to their original impressive and powerful appearance. INTERNATIONAL POLAR YEAR 2007-2008: THE NEXT MAJOR SCIENCE EFFORT IN THE POLAR REGIONS? By Igor Krupnik Planning is underway for a new large-scale international program in polar research called the “International Polar Year 2007-2008.” or IPY. It will include 18 months of intense research activities, followed by data analysis, publication, policy and public discussions. It is the fourth similar effort undertaken by the international polar science community, 125 years after the first International Polar Year of 1882-83, 75 years after the second such program in 1932-33, and 50 years after the third and most concerted effort in 1957-58, called the “International Geophysical Year” (IGY). All previous IPY ventures provided major opportunities to enhance polar research (and its funding) which promoted international cooperation among polar scientists and national research institutions, and helped collect benchmark data on many facets of the cold regions of the world. They also served as major vehicles to capture public imagination and to convey the crucial role that the polar areas play in the functioning of the Earth as the planetary ecosystem. Hopes are very high that IPY 2007-08 will play an even larger role in spurring research cooperation and will open a new era in polar scholarship. The new IPY is envisioned to be an intense and coordinated international campaign of research and observations, with extensive planning and follow-up analysis. It should be bipolar in focus, multidisciplinary in scope, and truly international in participation. The emerging vision for the new IPY initiative is for researchers from many nations to work together to gain holistic insights into planetary processes, to explore and increase our understanding of both the Arctic and the Antarctica, and of their roles in the global system in order to expand our ability to detect ongoing changes in the polar regions and to extend this knowledge to the public and decision makers. The concept of the IPY 2007-08 has been endorsed and advanced by a broad range of polar research groups. In February 2003, the International Council for Science (ICSU) formed an International Polar Year Planning Group (IPY-PG). Several national IPY groups and planning committees are under various stages of organization. In August 2003, the National Research Council of the U.S. National Academies created the U.S. Planning Committee on the International Polar Year which held its first meeting in Washington, DC on September 30-October 1, 2003. The first document to outline the emerging U.S. vision of the IPY 2007-08 (‘U.S. National IPY Report’) is due in early 2004. The U.S. committee already has its own web site http:// dels.nas.edu/prb/ipy/ for information and updates on IPY activities. Igor Krupnik from the Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center and Richard Glenn from the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation in Barrow, Alaska are serving on the U.S. national IPY commit- tee to represent the interests of social scientists and of northern indigenous residents, respectively. Both constituencies have great stakes in this major international effort. Unlike the RESEARCH masks, most of the pieces could be relocated in their original positions. Ledger drawings of masks 33118 and 33119 from 1879 Mask 33119 with relocated parts before assembly ASC Newsletter 12 previous IPY ventures of 1882-83, 1932-33, and 1957-58, which were primarily (if not exclusively) focused on geophysi- cal and natural sciences, the IPY 2007-08 is planned as a truly interdisciplinary program. The new vision is to integrate polar residents and social scientists into all its activities, from the very beginning. Some national IPY agendas, particularly that of the Canadian IPY group, put high priority on “human dimen- sions” in its research planning. The U.S. agenda for IPY activities will include many cultural, social, health, and environmental issues critical to polar communities and social/ human scientists. There is a powerful (though mostly forgotten) legacy that relates both constituencies to earlier IPY efforts, particularly to the First International Polar Year of 1882-83. Several IPY-1 expeditions and related later surveys produced extensive ethnographic and natural history collections and other docu- mentary records, such as historical photographs, personal diaries, and early publications. The collections, photographs, and writings of the U.S. IPY Expedition to Point Barrow (1881- 83) now at the Smithsonian Institution (Ray 1885; Murdoch 1892/1988) offer the best-known example. Several other surveys affiliated with the first IPY, like those of Lucien Turner in Ungava Bay, of Franz Boas on Baffin Island, and a three-year stay of Adolphus W. Greely’s party on Ellesmere Island (1881-84) made tremendous contributions to the development of knowledge of the Arctic. These expeditions as well as other IPY-based collections are of great value to today’s northern residents. They can be shared with northern communi- ties and made available through various exhibit, educational, and “knowledge repatriation” programs. There is another special aspect to the planning of the new IPY activities. Arctic residents, indigenous communities, political and other non-governmental organizations are now key players in polar research. They have stakes in every facet of arctic science, particularly in the issues related to climate change, pollutants, cultural heritage, subsistence, health, and economic development in northern areas. Burgeoning northern towns, like Barrow, Alaska; Iqaluit, Nunavut; Kautokeino, Norway; Rovaniemi, Finland; and Tiksi in Sakha Republic, Russia; have emerged at sites once selected as ‘pristine observation stations’ by the First IPY expeditions. These Arctic towns now have their own museums, research institutions, colleges and even universities. They also have great numbers of experienced elders as well as hundreds of formally educated local residents and many young students interested in polar science. For these and many other reasons, northern residents will play important role in every aspect of the new IPY-focused research, from pre-planning to scholarly design, funding, data collection, and the final analysis and dissemination of results. Major research activities in the forthcoming IPY agenda are still three or even four years away; but time is ticking away, as today’s research planning, grant application, and funding takes years to accomplish. The human component of the IPY 2007-08 will require concerted efforts by social scientists and indigenous communities as well as many discussions to develop a joint agenda. Communication and sharing of existing knowl- edge on previous IPY efforts and resources needs to begin soon. To this end, the U.S. National IPY Committee, the Smithsonian, the International Arctic Social Science Association (IASSA), and Barrow Arctic Science Consortium (BASC) are exploring several venues to reach out to those social scientists and northern communities interested in forging new partnerships. The ASC is sure to play an important role in these efforts and we plan to cover it extensively in future newsletters. Last year after completing my studies at Cologne University I started a research internship concerning the Kensington Runestone(KRS) at the Arctic Studies Center. I began by conducting background research into the history of the stone; the different rumors, opinions, tales and reports of its discovery; and also the different scientific fields that are connected with it, namely geology, archaeology and history. Because my area of expertise is in linguistics and Scandinavian Studies, I want to concentrate here on the linguistic aspects of my findings. The inscription is self- dated to 1362 and tells the story of 8 Swedes and 22 Norwe- gians that came to Kensington on a voyage from Vinland and found 14 of their men dead after returning from a fishing trip. I looked at the stone’s inscription on three levels: runic forms, syntax and grammar. On all three fronts, I was astonished to discover that almost all of the forms in this inscription need a special explanation or construction under which they would be possible for a 14th century origin. Occam’s razor clearly does not apply to the Kensington Runestone. An entire document simply cannot be composed of exceptions to the conventional linguistic system because that would contravene the principle of communication; we communicate to be understood and therefore do so in a standardized way. If we believe the story told on the stone it is more than unlikely, even impossible, for so many aberrant forms to show up in a relatively short text. It is therefore easy to understand why linguists, including myself, have decided the stone only makes sense as a 19th century product. In the following article I want to show some of the points that convinced me of this conclusion. Proponents of the KRS argue that many of the unique and unusual forms on the stone can be explained by the LINGUISTIC RESEARCH ON THE KENSINGTON RUNESTONE By Iris Hahn Iris Hahn Research headquarters of the Point Barrow expedition 1881-83 ASC Newsletter 13 influence of oral language on written language, for example the complete lack of plural verb forms throughout the whole inscription. On the stone is written: vi hade (‘we had’), vi var (‘we were’), vi fisk (‘we fished’), vi kom (‘we came’), vi fann (‘we found’) and vi har (‘we have’), even though the proper forms would have been vi hafðum, vi varum, vi fiskum, vi komum, vi funnum and vi havum. The singular forms for verbs in plural usage became accepted in written Norwegian in the 1860’s and even later in Swedish. It is therefore unlikely that it was already a common trend to use the singular verb forms in 14th century spoken Swedish and/or Norwegian; to this might be added that a runic inscription – a late representative of a conservative tradition – was probably the least likely of all documents to reflect oral influence. In addition to this, our knowledge of Nordic spoken languages in the 14th century is so limited that there is no support for attributing anything on the stone to the spoken language of this period. Therefore, this argument can be neither verified nor invalidated; it simply cannot be used to prove or disprove anything on the Kensington Runestone. A further grammatical mistake is the lack of a dative form after certain prepositions like við (‘by, at’) and fra (‘from’). The inscription reads ve havet (‘at the sea’), which is accept- able in modern central Scandinavian languages, but the equiva- lent for 14th century would be við hafinu. The stone likewise should read við tvem skæriom (‘at two skerries’), fra þessum steni (‘from this stone’) and fra þessi oe (‘from this island’) instead of ved 2 skjar, fro þeno sten and from þenno oeh. In all of these cases, the nouns and pronouns are not following the persistent grammati- cal rules or inflection common for the Germanic languages. As mentioned above grammar is not the only problem, some of the runes are wrong, too. The first example of a problem- atic rune is the ö rune. The symbol /ö/ signifies a phonetic modification of the sound [o] and is called an umlaut. The first issue is that the Scandinavian languages already used umlauts in spoken language, but had not yet incorpo- rated a symbol for it in their writing system. The KRS uses a rune (fig. 1), which is not related to the symbol for o (O)*. All Germanic languages that have both sound values on their phonetic system use related graphemes to represent these sounds (e.g. German, Icelandic, Swedish: o/ö; Danish, Norwegian: o/ø) Since there is no organic relationship between these two symbols, the rune is either pure invention or is borrowed. If it is an invention then it is an overcompensated form, and cannot just be explained by being Latin based; either an umlauted o or an o with the Figure 1: Invented or borrowed O superimposed x would have been sufficient as a Latin based grapheme. Late Dalecarlian runic alphabets show the rune Ö for phonetic [ø] and one of them shows O with an x in it for [o], this is where the overcompensating might have come from that ended in the particular rune on the KRS. Dalarna is an area where they used runic alphabets until far into the 20th century; this is especially interesting because either Öhman himself or his mother — here the sources differ — might have come from this particular area in Sweden. Unfortunately, there is not enough research so far about this aspect of Öhman’s life. Hjalmar Holand, who was the first defender of the runestone’s authenticity, quotes out of Kaalund’s Atlas, which shows manuscripts from the period 1164-1545, to justify the early use of the umlauted o-rune on the KRS. Many examples of the sound [ø] are found therein, but none for the actual letter /ö/ or the fact that the original runic script used a specific symbol for ö. Holand seems not to have understood that the original manuscripts were given in standardized transliterations, where /ö/ is used in abundance. Other Old Swedish texts, for example, had standardized the spelling of the runic symbol as either /oe/ or /ø/. Holand is merely speaking of the sound (phonetic [ø]), earlier spelled in different ways but nowadays represented in standard Swedish orthography by the letter /ö/. Holand therefore confused the sound with the letter. At this point, Richard Nielsen’s work on medieval Swedish manuscripts should be mentioned. Like Holand, Nielsen is attempting to mix two different systems and then compare them. Even though the Scandinavians around this time used both writing codes, i.e. runic inscriptions and Latin alphabet manuscripts, it is not linguistically supportable to assume that a mixture would have taken place. These two systems are codes, and it is a well estab- lished linguistic rule that when “code- switching” is done, (Greek and Russian speakers do this on an almost daily basis), users of the codes do not mingle the two systems. For the Scandinavians it would have been even less likely because not only did they use two different alphabets for writing but they also used different material to write on. On top of that, runes were always sacred and were treated with a conservative bias. As Holand compared a grapheme with a phoneme, Nielsen compares a manuscript in Latin script with a chiseled medium in runic script. His discussion is therefore concerned with manuscripts and books in the Latin alphabet, modified for writing and printing in Swedish, and has nothing to do with runes. It does not matter if in Latin texts umlauted symbols were already in use, because it is very unlikely that the carver would have tried to “make up” a runic pendant for it. He would Figure 2: X rune ASC Newsletter 14 have done what all other rune carvers before him had done — use a known runic symbol, because the sound [ø] already existed long before the 14th century in Scandinavian languages. Further runes that are problematic on the Kensington runestone are the runes for a, g, k and the j in skjar (‘skerries’- rocky little islands). For /a/, the carver used an X with a little hook on the right upper arm [fig. 2]. In itself the X is totally unrelated to any runic symbols used for representing “a” (e.g. a or A) and is not known before the 18th and 19th century. As for the hook, it does not serve any purpose and has no known anteced- ents; there were no hooks used in runic alphabets to express phonetic features. Richard Nielsen’s argument for a possible 14th century origin of the X rune is the similarity between the Gothic letter for cursive A, which is x-shaped, and the X rune on the stone. Mr. Nielsen displays cursive a’s found in Latin manuscripts and claims that they influenced the carver and motivated him to produce an X for a. Unfortunately, these are merely cursive Latin letters and not runes, and the same argument given earlier about mixing writing systems is again valid. I think the most strained argument to try to explain a problematic rune in Nielsen’s arguments is the one trying to explain the j rune [fig. 3]. There used to be a runic symbol for j (j) in the elder Futhark but it went out of use in the 12th century, any subsequent runic alphabet did not have a symbol for j. Therefore, the fact that the carver used a symbol (an invented one) for j is a strong indicator that he was not from the 14th century. Richard Nielsen has therefore put forward the idea that the rune actually should not be read as j at all, but as a ~, a symbol that stands for a palatized L. Thus the runic word normally transliterated as skjar (‘skerries’) becomes skylar (‘shelters’). This, however, is simply an ad-hoc solution. Nielsen’s formula for it reads as follows: sk-f-ar > sk-~ ar > skjlar > skylar. /i/ and /j/ ahead of or after a consonant were indeed used to palatize that particular consonant. That does not give Nielsen any reason or grounds to introduce the vowel y here, just to get the desired skylar. jl and yl are not the same, neither phonetically nor orthographically. The vocabulary used in the inscription is as peculiar as the runes, for example the word opdagelsefard. It is used in the sense of “voyage of discovery” (land) on the Kensington Runestone. The lexem itself is of Dano-Norwegian origin. This alone wouldn’t rule it out for the inscription, since we know that the party was from a mixed origin, namely 8 Swedes and 22 Norwegians, but it is a modern word. The word uppdaga is not recorded in the sense ‘to find’ in Swedish before the beginning of the 19th century. This word and its meaning entered the Scandinavian language area from Low German at a late date. The word opdagelse (it should be upptäckt in Old Swedish) is not recorded in Swedish for any period, and furthermore is not even found in Older Danish, Middle Dutch or Middle Low German, languages around the presumed KRS date and even significantly later in the case of MLG [1400-1600]. It is therefore a modern- ism and very likely taken from a heated newspaper discussion in the 1890’s. Gustav Storm wrote at that time about Norse voyages of exploration in a Norwegian newspaper that was widely spread in Minnesota using the word opdagelse 12 times in a single article. Not only the word alone, but also the concept is a modern one refering to the seizure of land by law, clearly not what the hypothetical KRS explorers would have been doing. We do have two verb phrases in Old Icelandic that describe the activity of exploring land. These are leita landið, ‘to search out the land’, and kanna landið, ‘to explore the land’; therefore any word that would have been used to describe a journey of discovery would have been most likely landaleitan. Because of the obvious moderness of this word, some proponents have argued that it should be spelled opðagelse instead of opdagelse. Although the latter would demonstrate an older possible date of origin, which would disprove the standard argument about the lexem being from a 19th century origin, it does not change the fact that the semantics are a modern concept and the word remains impossible for a 1362 usage. The other anachronism is dags rise (‘one day travel’). Old Swedish and Old Norwegian would be daghs færdh or daghs ledh; the word resa in Old Swedish was a transitive verb, meaning ‘to raise’. The intransitive verb resa, ‘to travel’ and the noun resa, ‘journey’ are of a later origin, apparently Middle Low German. The combination of both, dagsresa, is first recorded in 1599. It could have been in oral use earlier, but we have to assume that the Kensington explorer used it because it was standard; after all, they wanted to be understood. This is rendered impossible, however, by the fact that the word resa meant ‘to raise’ (see above). In Old Icelandic, too, the verb reisa is transitive, meaning it has to be reisa ferð, ‘to start a journey’. Common terms for maritime travel were dags-roðr “day’s row(-ing)’ and dags-sigling ‘day’s sail’. The orthography used on the stone also is inconsistent and faulty. The two r’s in norrmen (modern Swedish norrmän) are pointing towards a modernism here, because the correct older spelling would be norðmæn or normæn. Other abnormali- ties are the fact that og (‘and’) and ok are both used on the stone, with ok being the correct older Scandinavian spelling and og being the modern form. Likewise, the forms 22 norrmen and The Kensington Runestone went on dispay in Sweden in 2003 (photo courtesy of Scott Wolter) ASC Newsletter 15 10 mans both show up, with men being the correct plural form of maðr. Mans gave way to a few speculations. It might be the influence of the English plural system, in which the plural is usually formed by adding an –s ending to the noun in question. This, however, is doubtful, because the plural for man in English is irregular as well, and somebody with even a rudimen- tary knowledge of English usually knows the correct form men. Others have speculated that it could have been a hidden hint to Öhman’s name and his authorship of the inscription. I have mentioned only the biggest mistakes, because the list of grammatical, orthographical and syntactical mistakes is too long to include here in full. Had the stone just been carved for fun those idiosyncrasies wouldn’t be any problem, but if we believe that it is a genuine and tragic message Norsemen left in terror, hoping to leave a message about the disaster that had befallen them, then its purpose above all would have been to communicate to all who could read. A 14th century Northman would have been unable to understand the inscription unless he was aware of a bizarre array of language traditions. It seems to be a fact that the language used on the stone is a mixture and/or pidgin of some kind. Within the inscription, the party is described as 8 Swedes and 22 Norwegians, and they would have had to spend quite some time together before they reached Minnesota. But the Minnesota area was also an area with a mixed Norwegian-Swedish population; Öhman’s own language shows quite a few traces of Norwegian influence. This was probably the case for all people there with a Scandinavian first language. This argument therefore works for both sides and can’t be used to prove the KRS genuine, especially since the words that are from a mixed linguistic background seem to be from a modern origin. In general, the inscription is too detailed; genuine old inscriptions are extremely laconic in their formulation. The proper name of the carver or whomever ordered the carving are generally given, but the expression of a date in terms of calendar years is out of place in runic inscriptions. Where dating occurs, it is related to important events, such as the reigns of kings. In the rare cases numerals appear at all, they are written out or in later times expressed in Roman-style (as opposed to the pentadic number system used on the KRS). Nothing here stands in tradition with other runestones. We know now that the experts of the first hour made some mistakes and that ongoing research has revealed some information that gives new details: the n-rune was found in later inscriptions (very sparsely, though); the possibility for fra to be a preposition; and the word ‘resa’ that apparently didn’t exist in either the 14th century or in the 19th century, but was solely used in the 1500’s. On the other hand, they all were able to read and to translate the inscription in agreement. Even though the first person to translate it was not an expert in Old Swedish, he made a translation that, despite minor modifica- tions, is still correct; just as if he were reading modern Swedish. If presented in isolation, none of the historic-thematic, graphical-runological, linguistic-stylistic arguments would suffice to support the conclusion. However, their combined weight should not leave any doubt that the Kensington inscrip- tion is from the 2nd half of the 19th century and not from 1362 (Iver Kjær, Runes and Immigrants in America, p.16) If this holds true for the hoax argument, then the opposite side, that is, in favor for an authentic inscription, has to fulfill the same requirements: a single disproven argument that was made by the old runologists against the Kensington runestone will not invalidate their whole work. But the fact is that the n-rune and ‘resa’ are also problematic for the 14th century, and the X, G, K, J and Ö runes are still unattested in the 13th, 14th, or 15th century. When I began my internship at the Arctic Studies Center, I didn’t have a set opinion about the Kensington inscription, but I very soon understood why the early runologists, linguists and Scandinavian Studies experts dismissed the stone so quickly. The 14th century was a century of significant changes in the Scandinavian linguistic environment, but even in times of drastic language changes people out of the same language group still can communicate. We pick up one neologism or another, we use grammar forms that were frowned upon a decade ago, but are acceptable now, but a single speaker of a language will not use all of the changes at once. The Kensington Runestone simply combines too many aberrant forms, and, moreover, simply reads too easily like a 19th century Swedish inscription. I do not necessarily believe in the Öhman-as-forger theory, but I do believe that the inscription is not from 1362 or anywhere near that date. During the time I spent with the KRS research I often heard that the scholarly world is afraid of changes or too narrow minded to accept new finds; the fact is that if I would have found anything remotely new, I would have had a doctoral thesis on my hands and could have transformed the year I spent with this into something really fortunate for me. But even though I was not able to make a significant new find, I enjoyed my time at the ASC a lot and I want to thank William Fitzhugh and Elisabeth Ward for the possibility to work here, for their cooperation, and for their criticism and the input they offered me. They also gave me the possibility to learn about museum work and to go to the opening of the Viking Show, and the Kensington Runestone Workshop in Minnesota. For this I’m really grateful because it gave me the opportunity to work with both sides — proponents and the opponents. Even though we sometimes had different opinions, I appreciate their support and ideas. Special thanks also goes to the Kensington Runestone Museum in Alexandria, MN for the permission to use their collections. The pictures of the runes in this article are all taken out of their “rune library”. Discussion and debate continue over dinner at the KRS workshop with ASC’s Elisabeth Ward (right) ASC Newsletter 16 THE NARWHAL TOOTH EXPEDITION AND RESEARCH INVESTIGATION By Martin Nweeia, D.D.S. The narwhal, Monodon monoceros, has long fascinated sea explorers, scientists and aristocracy. This arctic whale is characterized by a single spiraled tusk extending six to nine feet that emerges from the upper jaw and through the lip of adult males. In some cases, females have an elongated tooth and in rare instances whales with two protruding teeth have been found. Often associated with the mythical horn of the unicorn, the narwhal tooth has found its way into the books of scientific rarities and mythical tales. Researchers have proposed myriad theories to explain the tooth’s purpose and function, yet considerable debate surrounds these studies. It is with the spirit of wonder and scientific curiosity that we have planned a research expedition and investigation to solve one of nature’s most intrigu- ing mysteries. During the months of May and June, 2003, The Narwhal Tooth Expedition and Research Investigation will carry the Explorers Club Flag #176 to the southeastern edge of an ice floe outside Pond Inlet in northern Baffin Island, Nunuvut in search of some answers. With Institutional support from the Smithsonian Institution, The Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology, the Harvard School of Dental Medi- cine, and a corporate grant from the J.O. Butler Company, field observations will be documented and previously harvested tissue samples will be collected and brought to the United States for further examination. Throughout history, the narwhal tooth has inspired legend and lore. Centered on the mythical creature with the single horn protruding from its head, the unicorn story traces a myth as unique as the animal that inspired it. The Greek physician Ctesias, in the 8th century B.C., told of a creature from India whose description inspired the image of a rhinoceros with a horn that had both magical and medicinal powers. This belief created a trade on rhinoceros horn for its qualities of healing and protecting the user from poisons. The Roman naturalist Aelian (ca. AD 170-ca. AD 235) later described the horn of the unicorn as a spiral. This changed the perception of the fabled creature’s protrusion from the rhinoceros horn to the narwhal tooth. With help from its newfound association with the unicorn, the narwhal tooth became both prized and cel- ebrated. So prized was the fabled horn of the unicorn that in the 16th century, Queen Elizabeth paid 10,000 pounds for one (equivalent to the cost of an entire castle). The tooth is revered by many cultures around the world. In Japan, two crossed narwhal teeth adorn the entrance to the Korninkaku Palace. In Denmark, multiple teeth comprise the frame of the Danish throne. The royal scepter in England is made from the rare tusk. Artists know the narwhal for its unique association with the famous Unicorn Tapestries. These tapestries, six of the Lady and the Unicorn hanging at the Cluny Museum in Paris and seven of the Hunt of the Unicorn at the Cloisters Museum in New York are among the most well known tapestries in the world. The unicorn, with its narwhal tooth protruding from the head, continues as an endless source of fascination in modern culture. Scientists, equally intrigued, support author and explorer, Ivan T. Sanderson’s comment on the narwhal as being “the most extraordinary of all living mammals”. It has retained its legendary character because of its remote, harsh, and inaccessible living area, and because it has what many scientists describe as the most unusual tooth in nature. Narwhal teeth are unique for several reasons. Among them is the spiral nature of the tooth, observed as a left-handed helix, only rarely seen in the teeth of other animals. Narwhal teeth are also characterized as an extreme example of directional asymmetry. Normally the teeth appearing on either side of the cranial midline in most mammals are symmetric in both size and morphology. Narwhal teeth are an exception to this rule. The elongated male left tooth is quite dissimilar to the right side, or its antimere. The tooth on the right side remains embedded in the skull and extends only about one foot in length. In addition to the size difference, the morphology also breaks the expected pattern. Each tooth exhibits a left-handed helix. A true symmetric antimere would have an opposite or mirrored appearance, expressed here as a right-handed helix. Lastly, as the elongated tooth is almost always observed in males, the narwhal displays the most unique example of sexual dimorphism in the teeth of all mammals. Whales in general exhibit an unusual array of teeth and mouth organs, which have puzzled researchers. Many toothed cetaceans have no upper teeth and the lower teeth are of questionable use. Sperm whales, for example, have only soft tissue sockets that receive the 18-25 lower teeth on each side of Unicorn Tapestry, Cloisters Museum ASC Newsletter 17 the jaw. The strap-toothed whale has two oversized lower teeth that can completely wrap around the upper jaw restricting its ability to open. Contrary to the more common finding of lower teeth, the narwhal teeth are upper teeth, the left front tooth of the male commonly being expressed as the elongated tusk and the right usually remaining imbedded in the jaw. These varied expressions of teeth in whales are difficult to study and understand. Why does the narwhal exhibit such an unusual array of dental traits, and how can we explain them? Investigators in the fields of dental research, marine biology, genetics and mathematics have been assembled to examine these questions. Preserved, narwhal tissue will be analyzed at The Biostructure Core Facility at The Forsyth Institute, Harvard School of Dental Medicine, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, in addition to being examined by CAT scans at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. Findings from the scans will help determine 1) basic anatomical soft tissue structure and morphology of the head region currently not well documented, 2) nerve pathways in the head region, 3) inter- relationships between different organs and tissue in the head e.g., the tooth and brain, the tooth and nerve pathways to the ears, 4) histology, and cell formation patterns of the tooth, and 5) understanding structures and cells at the base of the root. Infrared micro-spectroscopy will be utilized to examine the crystalline structure and formation of narwhal teeth to gain insight into the composition and growth pattern. Radiographs and T-scans, a three-dimensional high resolution laser surface scanner recently developed by Steinbichler Optotechnik, will be utilized for recording data of skeletal samples and teeth from museum samples housed in Canada and the United States. Recording and analysis of the tooth spiral will be examined as it relates to function and to other spirals in nature Research will begin on a molecular level finding the gene responsible for the tooth and uncovering the genetic mechanism for the trait exhibiting as a male characteristic. Micro-structural analysis of the soft and hard dental tissue will be examined and reported as well as the formation patterns of these developing tissues. Crystalline analysis of the apatite crystals of narwhal dentin will also be examined. In addition to the laboratory examination, field-testing will also be conducted to study the possibility of an electric field or potential created around the tooth’s surface. The upper plate of bone supporting the elongated left tooth of the male is barely thicker than the diameter of the root. In addition, the weight of the male tusk is several times that of the supporting bony plate. How then does a thin, proportion- ately small jaw plate of bone generate such a large, heavy, and seemingly unsupported tooth? The dentin component of narwhal teeth has previously been reported as a weaker crystalline structure when compared to the teeth of other marine mammals. The emergence angle of the tooth from the jaw is often seen as off center when viewing aerial photographs and harvested specimens. This then creates a considerable drag on the whale while swimming. Why would evolutionary factors favor what appears to be a detrimental and burdensome trait? Prior work on the paddlefish and platypus suggests electrical sensors used to detect food sources may be present in other fish and marine mammals. Thus, the possibility of an electric field surrounding the narwhal tooth will be examined. Its use as a probe for myriad purposes including hunting and navigation may provide an unusual mechanism and purpose for the narwhal and may lead to findings about teeth in other marine mammals. Such a theory is also supported by the potential for distorted apatite crystals in the spiral formation of the tooth creating an electric potential. The significance of this possible finding is far reaching. Descriptions and specula- tion about the male tooth as a weapon of aggression or defense, hunting implement, sexual display organ, and ice breaking tool are noted in the literature. Breaks in the tip of narwhal tusks have also been observed and used as evidence to support such findings. However, stress from such activities as ice breaking could significantly impair the tooth and the thin bony skull plate that supports the large, heavy, and awkwardly protruding tooth. Jaw plate fractures have not been observed or cited in the literature as might be expected from such behavior. The possibility of the tooth as a probe will be explored in this study. Information and observa- tion on the electrophysiology of the tooth will be gathered and include tests to evaluate the potential relationships to electric fields, acoustic signals and echolocation, and temperature control for the whale. Any proposed theory must address the prevalence of the elongated tusk primarily in males. Observa- tions and knowledge from Inuit hunters will also be analyzed and studied in relationship to the scientific information gathered since the Inuit spend a great amount of time around this otherwise elusive marine mammal. Much of the current documented information about the narwhal tooth needs to be updated or corrected. The very classification of narwhal teeth as incisors or canines is debated, as are the comments and speculation about the purpose and function of the tooth. Skull and jaw anatomy, and gross anatomy of the head region will be described and added to the limited published work, as will the results of micro-structural analysis of narwhal tissue associated with the teeth. What possible answers and insight may come from such an investiga- tion? As there is no other precedent set for such an unusual expression of teeth in nature, the insights gained will help us understand both the narwhal and links to the teeth of other animals including humans. We hope that our investigation to examine and explain what we consider to be the most extraordinary tooth in nature, may bring new attention to this deserving marine mammal. ASC Newsletter 18 SITE SELECTION CRITERIA OF THE NORSE IN THE EASTERN SETTLEMENT OF GREENLAND. By Katherine J. Rusk When I first tried to decide which project to develop for my doctorate thesis, I was given a sound piece of advice: choose something that has not been done before in an area that has been understudied and look at a culture that you enjoy being with. For me, that advice translated into investigating the Norse in Greenland; specifically, the reasons why they chose certain spots for their farmsteads instead of others when they first arrived. The majority of the archaeological investigations of Norse Greenland have centered around reasons why their settlements were abandoned between 1350 and 1500 CE. Other workers, notably Tom McGovern of Hunter College New York, have examined the settlement known as the Western Settlement near Nuuk. McGovern’s work focused on the needs of the Norse as pastoralists, raising sheep, goats, and cattle, which strongly require grass or hay for their food. In his study, a technique was developed to assess the availability of grass in the areas immediately around the farmsteads of a sample of the Western Settlement. I was interested in the Eastern Settlement, which is an area of the southwest coast near Narsaq. This is the area first settled by the Norse, led by Erik the Red, in 985 CE and remained a major power center throughout the apparent life of the colony, as it held the Bishop’s seat across the fjord and the Lawspeaker’s farm. Why did they come here? What were they looking for when they sailed up the fjords? McGovern’s pasturage assessment was tried on a selection of 69 Norse sites around Erik the Red’s farm Brattahlið, including a major portion of the farmsteads in the hinterlands. A small secondary sample was chosen from the Laxá valley of northeastern Iceland as a comparison because some of the settlers of Greenland came from Iceland and it was useful to test pasturage assessment as a technique in new environments. Around Brattahlið and Qorlortup Ittinnera there were a large number of main farms which appeared to have been used year-round. There were also an equally large number of farm sites at much higher elevation that were much smaller. In other parts of the North Atlantic such as the Faeroes, Iceland and Norway such farms are used in the summer by herdsmen who take their flocks and herds away from the main fields of the farm so that hay or other crops can be grown undisturbed by grazing needs. These farms, sæters to give them their proper name, also produce butter, milk and cheese as well as an alternate source of hay. In McGovern’s model, these sites could not exist as the vegetation line in his sample was too low at only 200m a.s.l., whereas, in Qorlortup Ittinnera the vegetation line was at 700m a.s.l. The Norse were pastoralists: good pasturage, although not necessarily determinant, nor a complete explanation, remains of great importance in selecting a site. The Norse did not practice arable agriculture because they did not have the plant varieties that would withstand the growing season. The current Inuit favorites of rhubarb and potatoes are late introductions (to Western Europe); the rhubarb came from Siberia in the 17th century and potatoes arrived in the 16th from South America, even now in Greenland they require hot housing. So what could explain this complex distribution of sites? It is well to remember that, to medieval European eyes, there are very few sources of fuel in Greenland for cooking or heating purposes and the winters are notoriously cold. So what could they have done to stay warm? They did not appear to use seal oil except for lighting small lamps. The evidence from a midden site in my sample area indicates that mammal bones were used as fuel. This would have been very smoky and not particularly warm. Other usual European sources of fuel such as peat or charcoal are very limited in this area of Greenland. One possible method Norse Greenlanders used to attain a warm domicile is based on the site of the house relative to how much sunlight the area received in winter. They had well-insulated houses, with a meter thick skin of sod on the external walls and roof, so if the interior ever did heat up it wouldn’t escape outside. Which criteria are the most important for selecting a site for the Norse? The site selection criteria that seem most likely are: 1) A low-lying, slightly sloping site with good drainage (except for sæters), 2) Access to fresh water, 3) Good pastur- age for sheep and cattle, 4) Good sunlight (and therefore warmth) in winter with the possibility of low snow levels, 5) Access to neighbors in all seasons. How to test this idea? One of my tutors, Peter Halls, had developed a computer model based on GIS and the physics of solar exposure through the year for a sample area in Tanzania. He suggested that, as I already had the sample area mapped out in GIS, I should try his model as a comparison for his equatorial sample. This worked so well that I was able to find a new sæter the following summer by looking in areas that should have had sites but none had yet been found. Obviously, the Norse did choose large areas of the Eastern Settlement based on the lushness of pasture available, but they selected their house sites for how much sunlight was available to them in winter. A house that stands in the sun is easier to keep warm than one in the shade. The settlement density of a site about one kilometer distant from its neighbors indicates that the study area was highly prized by the Norse. It also indicates that the area was the first settled by Erik the Red and the last to be abandoned because such densities are not commonly found in Norse Greenland, nor are there any other regions with sites of such high status. The site selection criteria listed above are found at the majority of sites within the study area. What remains to be done is to test the model in other parts of the North Atlantic to see if this pattern holds true for other Norse communities. Site 534, an abandoned Norse farmstead, July 1995. Looking due west , height of building is 1.63 metres. ASC Newsletter 19 THE DEER STONE PROJECT 2003 FIELD REPORT William W. Fitzhugh The Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center conducted a three-week investigation in the Muron - Darkhat region of northern Mongolia in May and June, 2003, pursuing studies of archaeology, climate history, and ethnology of the Tsaatan (Dukha) reindeer-herding people whose existence is threatened by rapid social and environmental change. The project has explored issues of culture history and environmental change, seeking to understand the origins of northern Mongolian cultures and their relationships with other peoples of China, Mongolia, and Siberia, as well as their influence on more distant cultures, including Scythians and Eskimos. Staff schedules required that the 2003 effort be split into two components: an anthropological project led by William Fitzhugh in May and an ethno-botanical and environmental project led by Paula DePriest in August. Funding for the anthropological work was supported by grants from the Trust for Mutual Understanding, the SI/NMNH Robert Batemen Fund, the National Museum of Natural History, and Arctic Studies Center. Work was conducted in partnership with the University of Pittsburgh, the National Museum of Mongolian History (NMMH), and the Mongolian Academy of Sciences. The research team included William W. Fitzhugh and Matthew Gallon of the ASC; Bruno Frohlich of the NMNH Department of Anthropology; Julie Singer, who collected beetles for NMNH Entomology; and University of Pittsburgh honors geology student Kevin Robinson and biology student Scott Stark. Mongolian researchers included archaeologists Ochirkhuyag Tseveendorj and Jamsranjav Bayarsaikhan of NMMH; ethnologist Ts. Ayush of NMMH; geographer O. Suhkbaatar of Chingis College and the International Reindeer Fund; and archaeologist T. Sanjmiatov of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences. Local planning support was provided by the Santis Foundation’s Dooloojin Orgilmaa with Namkhai Adiyabold serving as primary field coordinator and translator. Erkhel Deer Stones and Horse Head Burials Field work began after the crew arrived in Muren on May 29, where we received a warm welcome from the aimag Deputy Governor O. Gunaashav. We had visited the deer stone site west of Erkhel Lake for the past two seasons, and last year conducted test excavations at the base of Deer Stone 5 in an attempt to locate dating samples, recovering charcoal that dated to 2100 BP, about 500 years later than expected. This year we spent nearly a week excavating the southwest quadrant of Deer Stone 4, obtaining important results. From surface indications it is difficult to interpret the distribution of the many rocks that surround the deer stones, but when we began excavating most of these rocks were found to be part of separate burial features containing individual horse heads accompanied by neck vertebrae (usually seven), with the horse head facing east. Based on our observations at DS-4 it appears that most deer stones are surrounded by a series of these horse head burials. Furthermore, in and around these features we found pecking stones whose edges were the same diameter as the grooves in the deer stone engravings. The association of pecking stones with horse head burials suggests the deer stone carvings were produced at this location at the same time that the horses were sacrificed and buried, and that dates from the horse remains should also date the deer stones. If this is confirmed by future work, it will be a major break- through. Until now, the deer stone carvings have been difficult to date by direct radiocarbon methods and their age has been determined indirectly by art historical means – by the styles of tools (daggers, axes, bows, etc) seen in the carvings. This method has produced estimates of ca. 2500-2800 B.C., placing the carvings at the early end of the Scythian art period. These dating and stylistic similarities have led Russian experts and Esther Jacobson, an art historian who has worked closely with these specialists, to suggest that the Mongolian deer stone art may be a prototype of Scythian animal-style art, core charcoal samples associated with DS-4 produced a 2800 BP date. Now we will be able to compare this and other dates with the date obtained from DS-5. Further work at this site is needed to help pin down the actual dates of the deer stones and their associated features. The other important result is that the deer stone horse head features are similar or identical to features found at burial mounds in the vicinity of deer stone sites. Bruno and Matt’s survey data illustrate clearly that these small horse-head features are found along the southeast margins of the stone ‘fence’ that surrounds the burial mound. Many of these mounds also have smaller oval hearths or ‘altars’ located outside the ring of horse head mounds that contain cremated bone of sheep, horse, and other animals. Similar oval cremation features occur at the Erkhel deer stones sites, outside the circle of horse head burials. If this pattern holds, it suggests that the deer stone complexes closely parallel the F I E L D W O R K William Fitzhugh, Matt Gallon and Ochirkhuyag Tseveendorj at the WAC-5 reception at NMNH (see p.30) Deer Stones at Erkhel with anthropomorphic engravings of elk ASC Newsletter 20 construction form of burial mounds. While the latter contain human remains in a central mound crypt, the deer stones have no human remains, but otherwise have similar patterns of horse head burials and cremation hearths. This suggests that deer stones and burial mounds are complimentary aspects of a mortuary system which has two major expressions, one with a body and the other without; it also seems likely now that burial mounds and deer stone sites are contemporary or near-contemporary rituals rather than palimpsests that develop over time as people utilize ‘sacred ground’ for their own rituals. If we are able to confirm concurrence, it will be possible to study burial mounds, deer stones, and their associated features as related aspects of a single late Bronze Age mortuary and symbolic tradition. Our work at Erkhel was graced by superb weather and occasional fierce thunderstorms, one of which blew away our maps and nearly blew away our entire camp. We were saved only by using the jeeps as windbreaks and anchors for our large work tent. During this time Kevin and Scott searched the steppe environs for lakes suitable for coring, but found none; all were too shallow or too hard- bottomed to sample with their gear. While this work progressed, Ayush and Sukhbaatar, canvassing the countryside for information on the ethnic history of the region, discovered that this area had formerly been a boundary between Mongol groups to the south and others more closely related to the Tsaatan/Dukha to the north. Expanding Mongol influence had gradually transformed the local population into its current Mongol identity. Soyö Excavations Shifting north to Soyö in the West Darkhat, we set camp on the terrace between the sharp-pointed Soyö (canine) Hill and the Khugin-gol (Melody) river where we had found remains of a microblade-bearing Neolithic site last year. We excavated test pits across the terrace, isolating several productive areas for future work, and dug two eroding hearths at the edge of the terrace. Last year the eroding faces at these locations produced microblades, blade cores, ceramics, bones, hearth rocks, and charcoal that dated to ca. 1000 BP. These results were problematic, 4000 years too late for Neolithic. This year we worked back into the dune- covered terrace, exposing these hearths horizontally and discovered they contained two components: a Neolithic level (with very crude cord-wrapped stick ceramics and large deposits of tiny calcined bone fragments) a few centimeters below the 1000 BP horizon, and above that fire-cracked cobble hearths with well- preserved bone and charcoal and well-made red-stained ceramics, no lithic tools, and curious edge-ground discoid stones. Charcoal and burned bone samples from the Neolithic level should clarify the dates of these components, which we discovered were also present in a blown-out portion of the terrace several hundred meters east of our sites. A charcoal sample from a feature 3 Neolithic hearth produced a date of 5800 BP. Tsaatan Spring Camp The final phase of work was in the mountainous taiga to the north, where we settled for a week with our West Darkhat Tsaatan friends at their spring camp west of Tsaagan-nuur (White lake). Previously we had visited them at their summer camp northwest of Soyö. But we were a few weeks earlier this year, and they had not moved to their summer camp, giving us a chance to see what their life was like in a different season and location. Unfortunately this meant that we could not work the archaeological site we had tested last year, and our efforts to locate new sites in the heavily bushed taiga and marshes were unsuccessful. But we were able to learn more about the spring camp cycle and observed reindeer subsistence and herding methods in a different season. Most striking was the discovery that the reindeer spring diet consists nearly exclusively of newly-leafed shrub birch, which the reindeer strip from the branches as though they were eating ice-cream cones. Almost no lichen or other ground cover was being consumed. Another interesting observation is that the females are not milked at all during this time and are allowed to give all of their milk to the young. This leaves the human diet without cheese and milk products, which we found dominated the summer camp diet. Another interesting observation was that the community is much more dispersed in spring than in summer, with one or two tipis in family-linked clusters separated from others by a mile or more. This apparently is necessary to provide the deer with larger foraging range. Finally, we discovered that wolves are a major menace to herders at this time of year, when their young are learning to stalk. It was a rare night that did not erupt in the howling of watchdogs, followed by rifle-fire as herders attempted to drive the predators off. Despite these intrusions, the spring calving was very successful this year and the herd has continued to grow, as it has for the past several years. While we were in the taiga we gathered information on Tsaatan children who suffered from treatable medical conditions. An effort organized by Santis Foundation had discovered that the Save the Children Fund could offer these and other Mongolian children with bone or tissue deformities treatment in hospitals in the United States. Batsaya’s daughter, who has a hip malformation that without care will eventually cripple her, was selected for treatment this year Kevin and Scott struck pay-dirt, in the small chain of taiga lakes west of the Tsaatan camps. Guided by Sanjin, the Tsaatan’s naturalist-par-excellence, their ungainly pack-trains bristling with oars, core tubes, and an inflatable boat, bush- whacked their way into these lakes, and discovered excellent sediments. Over the course of four days they assembled eleven one-meter cores from four lakes and identified some as prospects for future coring with long Livingston cores that might span the Holocene era. Several of the cores had visible stratigraphy, and upon inspection back home in the lab at Pittsburgh, more stratigraphy and interesting features were noted. Kevin is expecting these cores to produce interesting data on the last few thousand years of climatic history, which we hope will have a bearing on culture history and reindeer herding. Note at publication: Bilgun’s hip opperation took place in California this fall and was a complete success. She took her first independent steps in early December! Batsaya, Wife, and Daughter Bilgun ASC Newsletter 21 Bronze Age Burial Mounds Mongolia is covered with burial mounds. Some are huge and extensive and impossible to miss, and others, and most likely most of them are barely identifiable and only recognized by the trained archaeologist’ keen eye. It is unknown how many mounds scatter the Mongolian landscape. It is also unknown which time periods are represented with mound structures. Mounds also known as khereksurs have been reported extensively by Russian, Mongolian and more recently European and American researchers. Some excavations have been completed although little scientific data has been published. Our time in the field was short, thus we had to limit our objectives and focus on smaller and well-defined areas and use fast and efficient data collection including GPS, Total Stations, and digital photography. We decided on a limited data collection thus focusing on geographical location and elevation, horizontal distribution, density, size and shape variation and possibly description of burial contents as observed in cases where the tombs had been either excavated by professionals or robbed. We limited our search to cover smaller selected areas in three regions: (1) Soyo, (2) Ushkin Uver, and (3) Erkhel Lake. One of our objectives was to apply modern and high precision surveying equipment which in this case included Global Positioning Systems. All data was processed in the field by using a combination of lap-top computers, generators and battery power. We obtained ranges of precision from 5 meters (for hand-held units) to better than two centimeters (less than one inch) using a Base/Rover combina- tion of Ashtech/Magellan Locus GPS units. We recorded more than 300 mounds using GPS equipment and probably around 100 to 150 additional mounds found in areas where we did not have the time to stop and do accurate recordings. We found that most of the mounds are located on hills facing the South, Southwest and Southeast. The larger mounds are found on the flat land facing the southern hills and medium size and smaller mounds are located on the hill sides possibly getting smaller as you climb higher toward the top of the hills. There is some variation of course. In a few cases we did find larger mounds in ‘saddles’ between hills and smaller mounds at lower levels. In four we found some geographical association between deer stones and burial mounds. This was clearly the case at Erkhel Lake were Bill Fitzhugh did some excavations and at Ushkin Uver where Japanese teams have been excavating recently. However, two small deer stone sites were found in the Soyo area although both of a much smaller number when compared to the first two. Also, in both cases we found signs of clandestine excavations which may have resulted in the removal of some of the better looking stones. Although the connection between the deer stone monuments and the burial mounds have not yet been established, some finds may suggest that such a connection may be proven to exist (see Bill’s article). The burial mounds ranges in size from a few meters in diameter to more than hundred meters. A majority of the mounds include a centrally-located mound of rocks surrounded by a circular ring-wall or a squared wall. At this time we have SURVEYING AND EXCAVATING BRONZE AGE BURIAL MOUNDS AND 20TH CENTURY MASS BURIALS IN MONGOLIA. By Bruno Frohlich(1), Matt Gallon(2), and David Hunt(1) (1)Department of Anthropology, Smithsonian Institution (2)Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan Introduction This year resulted in two visits to Mongolia. Both of them in association with the ASC and nicely covered under Bill Fitzhugh’s administrative umbrella. The first visit in May - June focused on Bruno Frohlich’s and Matt Gallon’s surveying of Bronze Age burial mounds around the town of Muron, Lake Erkhel and in the Soyo area. The second visit in September – October by Bruno and David Hunt was on an invitation from the Mongolian Academy of Sciences helping the Institute of Archaeology survey, evaluate and excavate newly identified mass burials at Hambiin Ovoo outside Ulaanbaator. Both our visits were administratively and economically supported by ‘The Deer Stone Project’ directed by Bill Fitzhugh, with funds from the Natural History Museum’s CT Laboratory, and private funds. We enjoyed the company of many new friends both in the field and in Ulaanbaatar including Naraa Bazarsad (physical anthropologist and our main supporter and collabora- tor in Mongolia), T. Galbaatar (President of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences), D. Tseveendorj (Direc- tor of the Institute of Archaeology), B. Enkhtuvshin (Vice-President of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences), S. Idshinnorov (Director of the National Museum of Mongolian History), J. Batsuuri (Director of the Mongol Tolbo Association), and Lama G. Purevbat (Director of the Mongolian Traditional Cultural Art Center at the Gandan Tekchenlin Monastery). Our work made us appreciate the hard work, interest and support of researchers, academics, and students, including J. Bayarsaikhan and T. Ayush, both of the National Museum of Mongolian History, and Erdene Batshatar, Tsend Amgalantugs (Togso), Enhtor Enkhtur (Turo), and Batsukh Dunburee all of the Institute of Archae- ology. Kevin Robinson and Scott Stark added a fresh and friendly component in our research by sharing their experience with sediment core drilling for the study of late Holocene climatical variations. Also, Julie Singer who collected insects, mostly beetles, for our museum’s entomology department assisted us during the mound surveys with data recording and photography. During our second visit we had the great pleasure to collaborate with the American Embassy in Ulaanbaatar visiting and discussing our projects with Ambassador Pamela Slutz and Armanda Morrow (visiting from the State Depart- ment). Nancy Tokola from the embassy joined our team during the second visit as a pathologist adding clinical pathological descriptions of finds from the mass burial at Hambiin Ovoo. Matt Gallon and Bruno Frohlich at work ASC Newsletter 22 later time and that the Mongolian Academy of Sciences would coordinate this with the Gandan Monastery and let us know when they were ready to proceed. This occurred a few months later and resulted in the visit of Bruno (assisted by David Hunt) working for almost three weeks on the mass burial at Hambiin Ovoo outside Ulaanbaatar during September and the beginning of October month this year. The mass burial had been found at Hambiin Ovoo earlier this year by construction workers and because of the obvious finds of Buddhist monk clothing and other similar objects the Lamas at the nearby Gandan monastery were notified. It became Lama Purevbat’s job to retrieve as many bodies as possible and apply Buddhist ceremonies and burial practices. Lama Purevbat did a good job on this. He retrieved about 600 bodies as counted by the number of crania and femora. His method included the removal of bodies by the use of construction equipment, and cremating the remains at the site of the findings. Lama Purevbat kept around 80 skulls and some post cranial material in a small building within the Gandan monastery as proof of the killings. We managed to get an introductory view of the bodies. About 70 out of the 80 crania included two suspicious holes most likely depicting projectile entry and exit holes caused by the use of firearms in the execution of the victims. The projectile caliber appeared to be around 7.6 mm and in a few cases 9 mm. In the majority of the cases, the individual was executed by firing a gun directed at the lower right part of the head (occipital). The power of the gunshot resulted in an exit of the projectile at the front of the head (upper frontal bone) and massive fractures of cranial bones especially around the exit hole. Some of the finds associated with the bodies strongly suggested that the executed individuals all were Buddhist monks and some of the artifacts/objects could be dated to between 1930 and 1940. Most likely, the bodies derive from mass executions carried out by the Mongolian Stalinist regime between 1937 and 1939. It is possible that this was more than one mass burial, leaving thousands of human bones scattered all over the place. Therefore the removal of one bone most often resulted in the appearance of two new ones. In terms of volume, the remains collected from the surface added up to between three and five cubic meters (yards) of bones. We decided to make a few test pits, all measuring one by one meter. All yielded human remains. It was impossible, however, to evaluate the degree of articulation because of the destruction of the original surfaces and because we were probably dealing with secondary deposits resulting from the removal of remains from earlier mass burials while preparing for newer mass burials. After obtaining a tentative idea about what was going on at the site we started excavating a four meter by five and a half meter square. In forensic parlance we talk about a ‘modified archaeological technique’ which has the purpose of satisfying the archaeological methodology as much as possible and also produce the speed and accuracy most often necessary in forensic work and at the same time securing good and reliable evidence. Our finds yielded several layers of human bodies of which all skulls, except for one, depicted an execution style similar to those recently reported by other forensic teams in Eastern Europe. In general we concluded on the following reconstruction on how the executions and interments took place: the person was brought to the site of burial (pit already been excavated or excavated by the victim before execution), forced to kneel down at the border of the burial pit and shot in the back of the head not completed all the analysis. Tentative results should give some ideas about the variation: We divided the mounds into three classes based on location and elevation: on low and flat land (25%), on lower parts of hills (21%), and on medium to high on hills (54%). More than 75% of the larger mounds are found on flat land and a majority of the smaller mounds are found at higher elevations. Fifty eight percent of mounds include a circular ring-wall and 42% include a squared complex of walls surrounding the mound. Some of the medium and larger size mounds include external features such as smaller mounds and rings of stones most often located in straight lines to the South of the ring-walls or, when the number of such external features are high they will surround the basic mound architec- ture. We found that 30% of the mounds include external mounds ranging from one single unit to as many as 94. We also found that only eight percent of the mounds include smaller additional rings of stones external to the ring-walls and externally to the external mound structures. Only in one case do we find circular rings of stones but no external mounds, thus it may be con- cluded that presence of external rings of stones is highly correlated with the presence of external mounds. We found that the circular ring-wall surrounding the centrally located burial mound is always depicted as a perfect circle. We also found that the additional structures such as smaller mounds and rings not always depict perfect circles but are very irregular. Smaller burial mounds do not have these external structures and it is obvious that the frequency of external structures increases with increasing size of the general mound structure. We did not have the time to carry out any excavations. However, increased amount of robbery has resulted in many mounds being destroyed by looting. The excavators are not very experienced, thus the destructions are enormous. They have not yet learned to use stratigraphy and changes in soils to evaluate and narrow down the excavations. During the short time we spend at Soyo we saw a new generation of tomb robbers in action, and it is obvious that the clandestine excavations are becoming more and more advanced and especially better organized. By observing the results from the thieves and from some ‘professional’ archaeologists we did verify that all centrally mounds included some remains which could be identified as human. In a few cases we found that external structures were either empty or included horse skeletons, most often crania, mandibles, and a few cervical vertebrae. It is impossible to establish any deductions from such data, however. It is known, however, that the burial of horse remains is an important factor and can be found in most excavated mounds. Such remains have also been proved to be associated with the deer stone. This does not necessarily ‘connect’ the two structures. Mass Burials A fascinating introduction to Buddhist mortuary practices and Buddhist treatment of human remains was given to me (BF) by Lama Purevbat. We viewed about 80 bodies which had not been cremated and found that all of them had entry and exit openings in the crania strongly suggesting that they had been executed. It was decided that a new exploration and excavation of the mass burials should be completed at a ASC Newsletter 23 ST. LAWRENCE GATEWAYS PROJECT: 2002-2003 FIELD REPORT By William W. Fitzhugh Since our last newsletter we have conducted two more field seasons on the Gateways Project on Quebec’s Lower North Shore (LNS). Our initial 2001 survey covered the region from the Mingan Islands to the Strait of Belle Isle (Fitzhugh 2001), while 2002/3 research concentrated on the region between Harrington Harbor and La Tabatiere (Fitzhugh and Gallon 2002). Project goals include (1) exploring a little-known region; (2) identifying local Maritime Archaic and later Indian sites; (3) defining the western limits of Dorset Paleoeskimo and historic Inuit (Eskimo) cultures; (4) identifying trade and culture contacts; (5) searching for early European (Viking, Basque, and later) European sites; and (6) studying European-indigenous contact. Research to date has contributed results in each of these areas. To date more than fifty sites have been located and studied. Full reports on 2001, 2002, and 2003, field activities have been submitted to the Ministry of Culture and Communication, Government of Quebec, together with artifact catalogs prepared by Anja Herzog of Laval Univer- sity. The collections obtained are housed at the Quebec Archaeo- logical Repository. Approaches and Departures In 2002 we spent several days working at Maritime Archaic sites on Petit Mécatina Island from our anchorage at the eastern end of Havre de la Croix, a former cod-fishing harbor. Mapping and excavation of the PM-1 (EdBt-1) site with its 28m long boulder structure took several days, during which we also located a second longhouse site, Petit Mécatina 4 (EdBt-4), which we mapped but did not fully excavate. After finishing work at PM-1 we shifted east to the Hare Harbor Basque site (EdBt-3). Mapping and testing of this site occupied the better part of a week. During this period we were joined by General and Mrs. Raymond E. Mason Jr., who helped sponsor the project and who visited Harrington and our sites from Amy Evans’ Bed and Breakfast, a sumptuous retreat of hospitality. As people became familiar with our work they began bringing old heirlooms for us to inspect, including a fine 18th c. iron axe now owned by Larry Ransom of Harrington, found by his grandfather near Chevery. We also were shown two Late Maritime Archaic ground slate spear points, one of which (owned by Lloyd Jones) had been recovered from a drag net off south of Petit Mécatina, suggesting that these implements were used for hunting marine mammals (probably seals), and another found by Wilson Evans in his deceased father’s toolbox, without identification as to origin. Our work in 2003 was similar, concentrating on testing General and Mrs. Mason at Hare Harbor resulting in an entry opening in the lower left occipital bone and an exit opening in the frontal bone. Our time was limited, thus we could not complete the excavation and retrieval of all the bodies known to be located in this specific area. This was expected, since our visit was primary for the purpose of identifying if any bodies were left in this specific area, to estimate the horizontal distribution of the mass burial site or sites, and to introduce forensic techniques to our Mongolian colleagues. The remains which had not been removed were all covered up, and later it will be decided by the Mongolian Government if they want us to continue this investigation. Our tentative conclusion is based on the initial analysis and description of the human remains and also on the finds of associated objects such as clothes (mostly similar to items used by Buddhist monks), Russian artifacts such as metal cups, and other objects. Several gun casings were identified as being of German origin although a few definitely were of Russian origin. We have, so far, only found adult males although some could be older teen-agers. This may be consistent with a mass burial of Buddhist monks. However, our sample size is not adequate to derive to a full conclusion on this issue. The data obtained from analyzing the casings will be studied by weapon experts at the Henry C. Lee Institute of Forensic Sciences at the end of October 2003. Also, one cranium and mandible were brought to the Smithsonian Institution for detailed analysis including x-rays and CT scanning. The identified mass burial or mass burials are not an isolated case. Our survey found that an area covering at least 600 meters in length and about 100 meters in width may have been used for executions and burials of anything ranging from a single individual to several hundreds, or maybe thousands of people. Additionally, the Hambiin Ovoo area is only one reported place in Mongolia with mass burials. We are told that similar burials are to be found in Dornod (north-eastern Mongolia) mostly including murdered Buriats, In Ulaangour (northwestern Mongolia), Khovssol (northern Mongolia), Bayankhongor (central-southern Mongolia), Tsetserleg (central Mongolia) and at Shar Khad (close to Hambiin Ovoo). It is believed that investigations of all these places and others, unknown to us will show that the 30,000 number of individuals known to have been murdered is a very conservative number. All the human remains and associated objects collected during our two week investigation were transported to the Institute of Archaeology. Before we left Mongolia we spent some time helping the Institute organizing the newly arrived skeletal collections. We obtained excellent computer boxes from the U.S. Embassy and with David’s great expertise we had a small computerized collection management system up running within a few days. This was combined with an in-depth training in recording forensic data such as sex, age at death, metric and non- metric data, and in some cases paleopathology. We used recording forms developed by Doug Owsley’s laboratory at our department in Washington and relied on David’ expertise in doing the best possible job. We had the pleasure of working with some very intelligent, very enthusiastic people. Bakzuk, Turo, Tukzo, and Erdene from the Institute of Archaeology, and Bayaraa from the National Museum of Mongolian History were all great assistants and supporters. ASC Newsletter 24 the Hare Harbor site, and during several weeks of the finest weather I have seen on the LNS we opened a Basque workshop floor, tested more Maritime Archaic sites, and excavated a small Groswater seal-hunting camp at Seal Net Point near Cape Whittle. With the assistance of Harrington volunteers Chris- tine and Wilson Evans, Helen Morency, and Georgie Maurice we completed the workshop excavation and were rewarded twice over when Wilson located a 19th C. schooner anchor in the cove adjacent to the Basque land site. While investigating the anchor, Wilson found the bottom strewn with Basque roof tiles, cut timbers, whale bones, and pottery vessels that were identical to those we had been finding at the land site. Apparently we not only had a fascinating late Basque land site but a potentially rich underwater deposit that calls for a full underwater survey that might include boats and other materials! While en route to Newfoundland in late August, 2003, we stopped for a day in the St. Augustine region, where we met Nicholas Shattler, who had reported several sites and finds to us by email last spring. Nick joined us for a brief survey among the outer islands. The rest of our return voyage was spectacular for its calm, beautiful weather. Arriving at Long Island a few days early gave us a chance to inspect some of the quarries, caves, and living sites where Beothuk remains had been discovered here in early days. Selected Site Reports Petit Mécatina 1 (EdBt-1): Our 2002 work at this longhouse sites was exciting, as it is the only Maritime Archaic dwelling site known south of the central Labrador coast. Over the course of several days we mapped the site and excavated two of the three dwelling structures (House 1 and House 2). The structures are in the middle of the highest boulder beach at the site. The largest of the structures (H1), measuring 28.5m long and 6-8m wide (outside dimensions), follows the boulder beach crest and consists of five oval or sub-rectangular rooms or floors each measuring ca. 2.5- 3.0m by 4m. The floors were created by removing beach rocks down to a depth of ca. 50cm. The wall foundations are slightly mounded and about 1.0-1.5m wide, and were made from cobbles cleared from the floors. At the center of each room a low mound of rocks 50-75cm in diameter and about 10-15cm higher than the surrounding floor probably functioned as a hearth, although no fire-cracked rocks were found. Unlike the prolific stone tool assemblages from Labrador MA houses, PM-1 produced little cultural material other than a distal fragment of a faceted ground slate celt, a few flakes of flaked rhyolite, a quartzite grindstone, utilized flakes of quartz, and a possible quartzite biface preform base. The faceted celt is typologically similar to Rattlers Bight and Port au Choix celts and probably dates ca. 3500-4000 B.P. We also excavated portions of House 2 and House 3, Hare Harbor-1, Basque excavation Beads found in Hare Harbor-1 excavation (Courtesy of J-F Moreau) which appeared to be smaller versions of longhouse dwellings. House 2 is 18m long and had three rectangular rooms, each of different sizes: R1, 7x4m; R2, 2.5x4m; and R3, 3x3m. No artifact finds were recovered. Three conical pits, each about 1.75m in diameter and 75cm deep, within a meter of the walls of H3 and H1, appear to have been food caches. Petit Mécatina 4 (EdBt-4): About 1.5 km east of the PM-1 we found another site closely resembling PM-1. The deepest of the habitation structures, H1, is an oval or sub-rectangular structure with internal dimensions of 7x4m and external wall dimensions of 10x7.5m, with a cache outside its southwest wall. Like PM-1 H-3, the bowl-like interior of this structure had no discernible internal features, and produced similar finds: a few slate flakes and the exhausted re-flaked core of a slate celt. House 2 lay several meters south of H1 and had a cache outside its northwestern corner. The floors of the four rooms or segments of this structure had not been excavated below grade, making its wall boundaries indistinct, and there was no indication of hearth mounds or transverse platforms. Nevertheless, PM- 4 H1 rooms are contiguous, aligned with the beach front, and similar in size and shape, and in these respects follow the pattern known from other Maritime Archaic structures at PM-1 and in Labrador. Hare Harbor 1 (EdBt-3): This site’s historical important is well- matched by its dramatic physical setting at the base of a huge cliff whose in- slanting lower wall creates a 100-meter long shelter ranging from 5- 10 m deep. Some of this shelter is cluttered with rock-fall, but much is accessible, and fragments of tile, iron spikes, charcoal, and bone from two test pits excavated at the drip-line suggest the Basque may have erected structures inside the dry zone. Access from the harbor is by a steep grass-covered bank. Test pits excavated at the top of the bank revealed a thin culture layer with tile fragments, small spikes, small amounts of ceramic, and charcoal. One pit contained faience or majolica earthenware fragments with glazed decoration, a fluted earthenware strap handle, large quantities of charcoal, and several clay pipe stem fragments. On the north side of the cove the land rises steeply to the cliff in a jumble of huge blocks that separated from the cliff face in a massive rock-fall. Roof tiles pinned below the fallen blocks raise the possibility that this portion of the site received a catastrophic blow that may have contributed to its abandonment. In 2002 we produced a detailed map, searched unsuccessfully for ovens, excavated new test pits, and opened a 40-square meter trench in Area 1. Here we found a a structure with a rough slab rock floor. The black, humus- rich soil above this floor contained large amounts of roof tile (some lightly glazed), large numbers of iron spikes ranging in size from small nails to heavy spikes 25cm in length, shards of thick dark bottle glass, extremely thin flat and curved glass fragments, highly- ASC Newsletter 25 fired grey stoneware in a variety of vessel shapes, soft earthenware, large amounts of charcoal, and a chunk of beeswax. No wood or bone remains were found, although charcoal was present in large quantity. Among the peculiar finds was a lump of wax and a corner fragment of a blubber-encrusted Inuit soapstone lamp. Our work this past summer confirmed much of the interpretation from the previous season and provided a clearer picture of activities in the Area 1 structure. Opening the area to the limits of its 8-by-8 square meter floor, we recovered an excellent sample of grey stoneware vessels of several types, earthenware with fluted strap handles and stamped panel decoration; a variety of glass bottles and fine glassware; large and small iron spikes, pipe-like fragments, a large-headed iron pin resembling a rudder pintle, and a tanged iron spear point. Charcoal was abundant everywhere in large quantities, but there was no evidence of smelting or smithing; however lead sheet and melted lead sprue are present. A slab-lined sunken chamber 30 cm below the structure floor covered with small beach cobbles suggested the possibility that the structure may have served as a bath-house with a hot-rock steam generator. We also found scattered fragments of baleen. However, the most interesting finds were a small number of glass beads of 5 or 6 different types, a large variety of clay pipe stems and bowls, and the broken end of an Inuit soapstone cooking pot with single- grooved rim decoration. Pipes, beads, Inuit soapstone, baleen, and the continued absence blubber rendering facilities raise interesting new questions vis-a-vis other Basque sites from the Straits and Gulf. The highlight of the 2003 work was the discovery of an underwater Basque component in the site’s landing area. Although only briefly inspected, we recovered fragments of roof tile, nearly- whole earthenware vessels with broad strap-handles and stamped panel decoration like that found in the land site, pieces of whale bone, cut timber, and ballast stone. We surmise that these materials accumulated as detritus from the land operation, fragments of vessels, and remains of roof tile and ceramics that had been dumped after breakage during the sea-crossing. The Petit Mécatina site seems to have been a 17th C. Basque operation of modest size with work shops, middens, and activity areas distributed over 500-1000 square meters of land and an untold area of the adjacent sea floor. While furnaces and blubber-stained remains have not been located, baleen and whale bones are present in small quantities. Organic remains other than charcoal are rare, but the artifact inventory includes a variety of plain, stoneware, and decorated, glazed ceramics; iron spikes, spears, and tool fragments; other types of metal goods like lead; and glass beads and smoking pipes. Fragments of an Inuit oil lamp and a rectangular cooking pot indicate contact with or presence of Labrador Inuit whose presence in the years around 1600 extended at least as far south as Blanc Sablon. Such artifacts are normally associated with Inuit women. Interestingly, residents of the nearby village of Tete-a-la-Baleine recall that Hare Harbor was once known as L’Anse aux Esquimaux. One wonders if there might have been an Inuit woman who served as custodian of our Basque ‘bath-house’. Work to date has generated the following tentative conclusions: Site Distribution: Surveys to date have produced evidence of nearly fifty new sites, dating from ca. 7000 B.P. to the present. Surprisingly, research in the Mingan Islands produced little new evidence of prehistoric occupation, suggesting that these islands were occupied sporadically and less intensely than the adjacent mainland, where some sites contain large quantities of Ramah chert, dramatically exemplified by the Stubbert Cache from Kegashka. Evidence of prehistoric and historic settlement increases markedly between Baie Mouton and Blanc Sablon. In part, this results from the more open, less forested terrain in the eastern LNS region; but it may also be attributed to the greater concentration of maritime resources available as one approaches the Strait of Belle Isle. We located five prehistoric sites in Baie Mouton (four of Early Maritime Archaic affiliation, at elevations of 30-51 m), while raised beaches in the 10-14m range at Pointe des Belles Amours contained post-Maritime Archaic boulder pit dwellings probably dating to ca. 3500-1500 B.P. Paleoeskimo finds indicate that both Groswater and Dorset peoples occupied the LNS between Cape Whittle and Blanc Sablon. So far we have found no evidence of Thule or historic Inuit sites or stone monuments (grave cairns, fox traps, tent rings), apart from the Inuit soapstone finds at Petit Mécatina. Early/Middle Maritime Archaic: Mouton Bay 3 site provided only modest information about the early phase of this culture period, in part because this and other sites in the area have been surface- collected for many years by local residents. Nevertheless careful inspection of the eroded remains and excavation of in situ materials indicates a low frequency of diagnostic finds (scarpers, bifaces, ground slate) and an absence of hearth deposits and interpretable settlement data. Mécatina Complex: Work at Petit Mécatina 1 and 4, at Pointe des Belles Amours 1, and at Gros Mécatina 2 are beginning to provide a consistent picture of a LNS Late Maritime Archaic culture that differs from Newfoundland and Labrador MA sites and can be provisionally designated the Mécatina complex. All four sites share similar types of multi-segment rooms, low rubble walls, shallow interior room floors, and a tendency for lineal segment agglomeration within a single ‘longhouse’ type structure. PM1 and 4 both have 4-5 segment dwelling units located adjacent to smaller oval structures with a single large room excavated a meter or more below grade, with cache pits near their outer walls. While this type of large single-room pithouse is not present at PBA-1, the PBA-1 rooms have similar construction, shape, size and suggestions of a central hearth/room divider. Slate and quartz flakes are present in small quantities at both PM-1 and PBA-1, but finished tools are scarce. These sites and PM- 4 are located on beaches that were available during the Maritime Archaic period, and similar sites and structures are not found on lower beaches such as Belles Amour Peninsula (EiBi-7), which we suspect are later in time. Chronological correspondence between Mécatina complex components also exists, albeit tenuously, since the LMA style celt at PM-1 should date to the period indicated by the 3930+/-90 PB radiocarbon date from PMA-1. Further, each of these sites exist in outer coast environments and have caches that suggests Ceramics from underwater survey of Hare Harbor ASC Newsletter 26 these locations were occupied when sea mammals – most probably harp seals – were available in quantity. Hence, spring or fall seasonality is more likely than summer or winter. The closest comparison with Mécatina complex is found at Aillik West and Aillik 2 in central Labrador. Like Mécatina, Aillik West has longhouse structures with two or three rectangular 4x6m segments excavated slightly below grade on barren shingle beaches, with low rubble walls and room dividers and central hearths. While the dating of the Aillik West structures is not precise, ranging from 5200-3500 B.P., Mécatina and West Aillik sites share similar crude and apparently impoverished technology, poor quality lithic materials, geographical settings that suggest spring or fall seasonality, and similar site settlement patterns with pit caches. Similarities also exist with the intermediate 3-5 segment houses of the Aillik 2 series. Uncertainties exist for both sets of sites as to their relationship to the more common type of Middle and Late MA longhouse sites, most of which are found on sandy rather than on rocky beaches, are often larger and are presumed to be multi-family summer camps, and contain large amounts of finely-crafted lithic tools, exotic lithics, and sometimes burial or ceremonial components. Such features, while not evident at Mécatina complex sites, are known for the LNS area at La Tabatière and other locations, and appear to date to the Late MA period. This raises interesting questions about seasonality, resource scarcity, and settlement pattern variability within the Middle/Late MA period of the LNS and whether MA groups occupying the western fringe of their culture area were significantly different from those occupying Newfoundland and Labrador, where great resource abundance may have encouraged greater technological, social, and demographic development. Basque and later European Settlement: Our second major accomplishment has been identification of a significant late 17th C. Basque presence on the central portion of the LNS. Although we have not fully resolved the issue, the absence of blubber-rendering facilities suggests that Hare Harbor may have been a baleen-hunting, fishing, and trading site. Recovery of a Inuit soapstone lamp and pot fragments raises questions about an Inuit presence, and the presence of glass beads and clay pipe fragments may be important chronological and functional markers suggesting a new economic focus on trade and native contact. Records suggest that Hare Harbor may be the site known on Basque maps as ‘Babaçula’ or ‘Petit Canada’. With few Basques sites known for this period on the LNS, Hare Harbor may offer information on changing Basque economy, environmental conditions, and contacts with the Native groups for fishing, trapping, and trade, which are likely to have become important concerns for Basque entrepreneurs by 1600 AD. The newly-discovered underwater site at Hare Harbor may hold special surprises to clarify these and other issues. Finally, the discovery of several later European sites dating from the 17th to early 20th C. at Petit Mécatina, Boulet Harbor, and Chécatica provide insight into later European settlement of this region. These components need further testing to determine their precise dating and function, but each offers interesting and different research potential. Future work will elucidate cultural and historical sequences and the changing conduct of the seasonal sealing economy; study of these sites will also reveal changing political and demographic pressures as Europeans began to appropriate LNS resources from Native groups and to define their roles as the dominant traders and marine zone exploiters. Such studies will help document the long and relatively unstudied history of European-Native relations in the St. Lawrence ‘gateway’ region. Acknowledgments The 2002 and 2003 field projects were supported by permits from the Ministry of Culture and Communication. We thank Gilles Samson, Anne-Marie Balac, and Claudine Giroux for their assistance. These projects could not have been accomplished without the generosity of Major General and Mrs. Raymond Mason of Columbus, Ohio, and of Mrs. Anina Glaize of Winchester, Virginia. Both years, Perry Colbourne of Lushes Bight, Newfoundland, piloted the Pitsiulak, assisted by Cristie Boone, who also performed duty as an archaeological field crew member. Other crew in 2002 included Matthew Gallon, Alyssa Fisher, and Anja Herzog. Will Richard recorded the project photographically and prepared a website on our joint work (www.wrichphoto.com) and at the ASC site (www.mnh.si.edu/ arctic/gateways). The Gateways 2003 field crew included Cristie Boone, Christie Leece, Helena Sharp, Warren and Andrew Hofstra, with enthusiastic volunteer help from Christina and Wilson Evans, Georgie Maurice, and Helen Morency, and with Will Richard again providing photographic coverage. In Harrington we were assisted by Mayor Paul Rowsell, Keith Rowsell, Amy Evans, the Fish Coop, and many other residents. We also thank the Colbourne family of Lushes Bight for their warm hospitality, as well as Boyce Roberts of Quirpon, and Gina Nordhof of L’Anse aux Meadows. Matthew Gallon shot in the PM-1 and HH-1 site maps in 2002 and prepared most of the illustrations for the 2002 field report. Anja Herzog identified and catalogued the collections. ARCTIC STUDIES CENTER’S LABRADOR INITIATIVES, 2003 By Stephen Loring The summer of 2003 marked the fifth field season for the Central Coast of Labrador Community Archaeology Project, a long-term research collaboration between the community of Makkovik (including the local historical society and it’s White Elephant Museum and the J. C. Erhardt School), the Arctic Studies Center and Brown University. The Central Coast of Labrador Community Archaeology Project integrates high- school curriculum development and local heritage concerns with archaeological fieldwork at the mid-18th century Labrador Inuit village site at Adlavik Harbour (GgBq-1). Project co-directors Stephen Loring and Leah Rosenmeier (Brown University PhD candidate and the Confederacy of Mainland Mi’kmaq) spent the latter part of July and much of August conducting fieldwork with a team of four Inuit students from Makkovik. When it was occupied, ca. 1750, the site at Adlavik Harbour was situated about half way along the Labrador coast between the French and English fishing stations in southern Labrador and Newfoundland and the Thule Inuit whaling villages scattered about the north coast. During the 2003 fieldseason archaeological veterans Erin Andersen and Jillian Mitchell welcomed newcomers Julia Ford and Jason Voisey to the vagaries of life on Adlavik ASC Newsletter 27 ment to promoting cultural heritage initiatives in Labrador. In addition to the museum exhibition we have been busy develop- ing school curriculum materials on archaeology which includes a small book about the site. As yet untitled and modeled in part on Bob McGhee’s The Burial at L’Anse Armour the book attempts to put a human face on the past with a story of what life might have been like for the inhabitants of the sod-houses at Adlavik around two hundred and fifty years ago. Aimed at a Grade-8 audience the story, presented in the voice of an Inuit hunter reflecting on the memories of his childhood, seeks to incorporate as many aspects of the archaeological site (specific artifacts, aspects of the physical layout of the houses, the local environment) as possible and weave them into the story of a late winter adventure on the ice. Following the narrative is a short descriptive essay on the actual site with archaeological drawings and plans presenting the data on which the story was based. The first part of the book features a series of fabulous drawings by Cindy Robbins of Forteau, Labrador. A significant portion of this publication and curriculum development materials has been funded by a grant we received from the International Grenfell Association and from Newfoundland’s REDAS (Regional Economic Development and Schools) program. Joan Andersen in Makkovik and Tim Borlase, the Director of Memorial University’s Labrador Institute in Goose Bay are an integral part of the team working on this project. A STUDENT’S PERSPECTIVE By Erin Andersen The first time I heard of the dig out at Adlavik was about five years ago. Steve Loring and Leah Rosenmeier came into my school in Makkovik, Labrador and did a presentation for us about archaeol- ogy. It was not until two years later, in late June of 2001, that I first spoke to Leah about working for them. The way it all went down was pretty simple. She asked if I wanted a job, I said I did and I was hired. At the time I could have never guessed what accepting that job would mean for me. When I reminisce about my three summers in the field, I get a nice, content feeling. Like I just ate something with a lot of substance like mashed potatoes and gravy. Going out the first time, I was really nervous. Having never even camped out before, I had no idea what to expect once we got there. I know that people have gone farther then this, for longer periods of time and in the worst of conditions. But for me, going off like this was a huge thing. It wasn’t like walking down the road and looking at the hills way off in the distance. You were no longer admiring nature from the outside but became a part of it. It was just the ocean, a few islands, and the crew. We were completely alone, but never lonely. For a time, we were a world unto ourselves. A world I always came back from revitalized, refreshed and ready to take on the challenges in this one. When you are standing on the edge of a cliff, and everything as far as you can see is absolutely perfect and beautiful, it is impossible Julia Ford excavating an 18th century walrus skull in House-4 at Adlavik Harbour Island. The team completed excavation of the large communal house structure (House-1), further sampled the midden in front of House-2 and partially excavated a newly recognized feature; House-4. Previous field-seasons had focused on excavations in House-1 as well as in the House-1 and House-3 middens so that with the House-4 excavations of this year a fairly substantial and representative portion of the site has been excavated. The preservation in House-4 was excellent and over 100 kgs of faunal remains – principally seal, but also polar bear, black bear, caribou and walrus – and a nearly equal amount of mussel shell, were recovered. The faunal material is being analyzed by Leah Rosenmeier and Sarah Lansing (Michigan State University). Prior to our fieldwork it was hypothesized that Adlavik Harbour’s strategic location most likely meant that the families who lived there could have served as middlemen or entrepre- neurs in the emerging global capitalist system by serving as a conduit by which Inuit resources –baleen, ivory, seal and whale oil, furs, feathers and fish– could be exchanged for European products and raw materials. However, the artifact assemblage lacks many of the expected material correlates of an emerging social hierarchy based on formal trade and control of European materials. Evidence of firearms remains exceedingly rare, as are pipes, beads, European clothing and tea-paraphernalia which would be expected if the Adlavik residents had been in formal trading relations with the Europeans. Instead, the Adlavik assemblage is dominated by hand-wrought iron nails and spikes as well as pieces of sheet lead, copper and brass, all of which was quite likely looted from seasonally- abandoned Basque and English fishing stations along the Strait of Belle Isle. By the middle of the18th century stone tools, except for the ubiquitous soapstone pots and lamps, had disappeared from the Inuit tool assemblage, replaced by cold-hammered iron knives, spears and end-blades. Analysis of the Adlavik Harbour collection forms an exceptionally vivid picture of 18th century Labrador Inuit lifeways and provides insight to a critical link in the transformation of Inuit economy from one of regional self-sufficiency to one increasingly linked to western capitalist, colonial and evangelical influences. In addition to our fieldwork we completed an exhibit on the research at Adlavik for the White Elephant Museum –the oldest building in Makkovik which, newly refurbished, now houses the collection of the local historical society– and participated in its formal grand opening. The archaeology of Adlavik is presented in a series of photographs, maps, text panels and quotes from students who have participated in the program. Plans are underway to build a special display case to house the Adlavik artifacts once they have been cataloged and conserved. Both the Labrador Institute in Goose Bay and the Newfoundland Museum have expressed support for this project and are committed to seeing Labrador archaeological collections displayed in their local context and we thank both organizations for their sustained interest in the project and for their commit- ASC Newsletter 28 to obsess over every little thing. Whether or not I chose the right college, moving into my own place, having to leave home. It didn’t matter on the island. I always felt very present and aware. I think that feeling is what brought me back for three years. That and the sense of community. People you may have never talked to or gotten to know become intimate friends. And by intimate I mean the person you work in a one metre by one metre square with all day is the same one that sleeps a foot away from you at night . You depend on each other, you come to accept and appreciate what everybody has to offer. And when that person who shares your square and your tent has to go into town for a night or two, it doesn’t feel right until they come back “home”. I will never forget the smell of the canvas tent and the Coleman lamps, even the soil. I will never forget that one really great day when we came back in from a few late nights in town. It rained and rained so we stayed inside cleaning bones all day. I will never forget the hours spent laughing until my sides hurt, though I have already begun to forget most of the things we laughed about. Only after being home for awhile have I been able to think about what I have taken away from this experience. How strange it is now to think that, all this time there was something there like this out there. When we were going to the cabin when I was a kid, which is very near Long Tickle, I had no clue something this amazing was there. Just waiting for someone to find it. To think it was destined to play such a large role in this time of my life, and turn it into such a great one. I never even had an inkling. Erin Andersen working in House-1 on a cold morning. LOOKING DEEPER: SUB-SURFACE SURVEY IN NORTHERN ICELAND AND THE LONG-HOUSE AT GLAUMBÆR John Steinberg “I don’t believe it” V. Gordon Childe is supposed to have said as he overlooked the grassy lowland sheep and cattle farms during a tour of Iceland in 1956. Childe was referring to the idea that this volcanic island, warmed by the North Atlantic Drift of the Gulf Stream, was not settled until the Viking Age. Childe’s seminal books had synthesized long-term trends of European prehistoric social evolution. As a materialist, he did not think that the magnificent resource he was looking at could go for so long without being exploited. “Dig deeper!” Childe commanded, thinking that the archaeologists must be wrong. But even today, there is no reliable evidence that the island had inhabitants any earlier than the Viking Age settlement, which began in 874 AD. With only a little more than 1100 years of occupation, Iceland is one of the last inhabitable places on earth to be settled, making it an ideal location to study certain anthropological questions. This includes questions of social evolution, my primary interest and the reason I started working in Iceland in 1998. In addition to the archaeological record, there are stories, called sagas, written about the people and events in Iceland during the first 400 years of settlement. Many of the stories describe the actions of three-dozen chiefs and how they managed to organize disparate elements of the society. For the most part, the sagas were not written at the same time as the events they describe, but rather several hundred years later. Nonetheless, these stories relate to the dramatic changes that the Icelandic chiefdoms went through as they became more complex, eventually resulting in a medieval manorial society around 1250 A.D. Surface remains hint at some of the social transitions described in the sagas. Farmsteads at the higher elevations (above 200 meters) and towards the interior of the island are abandoned, sometimes quite early. This is probably due to climatic deterioration and substantial soil erosion. However, farmsteads at the lower elevations, close to the coast, seem to be continuously occupied. Not only are they believed to have been continuously occupied, but stable in terms of land usage, such that the structures existed on the same spot through time. Icelandic Viking Age and later structures were made of turf, which is cut from the upper portion of a peat bog and then dried, making an ideal insulator. As newer turf structures were built on top of older ones the remains of previous turf buildings began to form large farm mounds. Continuous occupation of the same spot forming large farm mounds certainly suggests remarkable stability in lowland settlement patterns. It struck me as odd that the lowland settlement pattern would be so stable through the social changes described in the sagas and through the abandonment of the farms at the higher elevations attested to by the archaeological record. Settlement patterns are very sensitive to socio-political changes. In situations without textual records, settlement patterns identi- fied in the archaeological record are usually employed to assess socio-political changes. If the Icelandic chiefdoms became more complex, but the settlement pattern remained almost identical, then settlement patterns in general may not be as sensitive to prehistoric social changes as anthropological archaeologists have imagined. Unwilling to simply accept this disconcerting possibility, I reasoned that it could be that a substantial portion of early sites are not in farm mounds. This would mean that the distribution of farm mounds is not a proxy for Viking Age settlement patterns. Where then were the earliest sites, and how could they be found? The erosion of the highlands, which had contributed to the abandonment of those sites, is known to have caused substantial soil deposition in the lowlands: anywhere from 50 centimeters to 2 meters of windblown soil has been deposited over the last 1100 years. Therefore, the earliest turf structures could easily be buried and not apparent on the surface. Certainly there have been structures found in low-lying areas, away from farm mounds. When these sites are identified, their preservation can be very good. What percentage of early farms these buried sites represent is unknown. In 1999, funded by NSF, Doug Bolender of Northwest- ern University and I began to develop a series of methods to identify buried turf structures. We found that even when ASC Newsletter 29 deeply buried, intact turf walls did not conduct electricity as well as the surrounding soil, resulting in a recognizable low- conductivity profile. We believed that a program of sub-surface survey, based on coring and remote sensing, could reveal a more complete settlement pattern by identifying buried turf struc- tures. In 2000, Tim Earle of Northwestern University and Antonio Gilman of Cal State Northridge joined Doug and me as we searched for a region to conduct a settlement pattern survey. We identified Skagafjörður as an ideal region. It seemed to have gone through dramatic social changes, including the growth of powerful chieftains and the founding of a Bishopric in 1106 at Hólar, a site that would become the second most powerful farm in Medieval Iceland. A major Icelandic project was in the works to explore Hólar (http:// www.holar.is/~fornleifar/) and the highlands above Skagafjörður had already been surveyed. The lowlands had received 1.5 to 0.5 meters of soil, most of it during the first 300 years of settlement, which made for ideal preservation of the earliest farmsteads. Furthermore, Skagafjörður has received a series of distinct volcanic ash, or tephra, layers in the years 871, 1000, 1104, and 1300 AD, which corre- sponds quite well to major political shifts. Frost disturbance is minimal below the topsoil and because there are no rodents and little soil mixing, the soil profiles read like books. In 2001, funded by NSF and Wenner-Gren, we started the Skagafjörður Archaeological Settlement Survey (http://sass.ioa.ucla.edu). The team then began to develop a protocol for identifying and exploring buried turf structures. After much experimentation, we arrived at the following sequence. A traditional document survey was carried out which included a walk around, where structures mentioned in various sources were associ- ated with features in the landscape. Following that, targeted soil cores were taken to ascertain soil depth ranges and to make sure that the field had not been substantially altered. We then cored every 50 meters and recorded tephra layers and soil depths and took samples for environmental reconstructions and phosphate levels. Areas that had received at least 30 centimeters of soil over the last 1100 years and were without modern electrical contamination (for example, buried iron structures, pipes, power lines, telephone cables, etc.) were then selected for conductivity survey with the EM-31. The readings of the EM-31 were then examined by geophysicist Brian Damiata of UCLA for the low conductivity anomalies characteristic of buried turf walls. Promising locations were then investigated with a power auger, which bores an eight-inch hole, just large enough to reliably identify turf walls. Once a turf wall was identified, we used another piece of equipment, the Syscal Kid resistivity meter, to provide a pseudo-profile of the sub-surface to a depth of about 6 meters. Each of the 30 to 50 meter long pseudo-profiles from the same field could then be combined to get a good idea of the wall or building orientation. Finally, several test trenches are excavated into what is, hopefully, the outside of the wall. Not only do the test-trenches provide critical ground truthing to the remote sensing readings, they provide necessary dating material. After applying the protocol on a series of farms, it became apparent that a substantial percentage of the earlier turf structures are not at the bottom of large farm mounds, but rather spread around the landscape. Many of the sites that we have identified and explored have little or no surface sign and are not specifically mentioned in historical documents. We are now working on understanding the changes in the settlement pattern, which appar- ently shifts dramatically during the first few hundred years of occupation. Of the several early sites identi- fied, one in particular needs special mention, Glaumbær. Towards the end of the 2001 season, Tara Carter and Nilka Dabare of Cal State Northridge, using the power auger to confirm a low conductivity anomaly, discovered a series of turf walls and a thin, but extensive, peat ash midden at a field on the farm of Glaumbær, 150 meters to the east of the old turf manner house that has been preserved as the Glaumbær Folk Museum (http://krokur.is/ glaumb/home.html). The walls and midden were under an in- place 1104 tephra layer. Local tradition had it that the present location of the turf house museum was also the location of a well-known Viking Age farmstead. A test trench into the ash midden outside the back door of the museum indicates that the area around the turf museum was inhabited after the newly discovered structure was abandoned. We found that the ash midden is on top of the 1104 tephra layer, which is on top of natural soil. No other structures from before 1100 were identified on the other hay fields of Glaumbær. This farm is significant because it figures in the sagas relating the Viking exploration of North America. According to Conductivity profile, from the EM-31, across short axes of the Glaumbær long-house. Excavation trench across the short axes of the long house. The façade of the turf house museum is in the background. ASC Newsletter 30 these sagas, an Icelandic trader named Þorfinnur Karlsefni Þórðarson had journeyed to Greenland, where he met Guðríður Þorbjarnardóttir. Guðríður and her father had followed Eirík rauða Þorvaldsson (Erik the Red) to Greenland, and after she married Karlsefni, they decided to travel to Vínland, which had been recently discovered by Leifur Eiríksson (Leif the Lucky). While in Vínland, she gave birth to a son, Snorri Þorfinnsson, who—if he existed—would be the first European born in the New World. Their time in Vínland was difficult, so the family returned to Iceland, via Greenland and Norway. In Iceland, the Saga of the Greenlanders relates that the family bought Glaumbær, and then, when Karlsefni died, Guðríður went south (to Rome) on a pilgrimage. When she returned to Glaumbær, Snorri had built a church for her on the family farm. Guðríður was a prominent part of the National Museum of Natural History’s exhibit, Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga. The discovery of the walls and midden at Glaumbær intrigued Elisabeth Ward, who helped curate the Smithsonian Viking exhibit, and Guðmundur Ólafsson, of the National Museum of Iceland, who had re-excavated Eiríksstaðir. Both Elisabeth and Guðmundur joined the project for the 2002 season to further test the archaeological deposits at Glaumbær. E. Paul Durrenberger of Pennsylvania State also joined the project to help with the settlement pattern interpretation. The more extensive excavations of 2002, which included cross trenching the structure, revealed a narrow, rectangular longhouse, with 2 meter thick turf walls and 1.8 meter benches lining each side of a tramped earth floor. The structure is almost 30 meters long. Less than 10% of the structure has been excavated. Bog iron working seems to have been a major activity at the site. An AMS Radiocarbon date from part of the floor indicates an occupation at 1017 AD ±56. However, there is a problem interpreting this site as the home of Karlsefni, Guðriður, and Snorri. The other version of the Vínland story, the Saga of Erik the Red, states that Karlsefni returned to his father’s farm, Reynistaður, just to the north of Glaumbær, and does not mention the family purchasing Glaumbær. Furthermore, many scholars, including Helge Ingstad, who discovered the Viking site of L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, believe that the last section of the Saga of the Greenlanders, which concerns Glaumbær, is unhistorical and anachronistic, since it so heavily emphasizes the family of Karlsefni, rather than that of Eirik and Leif. Sigríður Sigurardóttir, the Director of the Glaumbær Folk Museum, and a great supporter of the excavation, had dismissed this apparent discrepancy by assuming that both Reynistaður and Glaumbær were in the possession of the same family (not unusual, considering how well-established his family was— several of Karlsefni’s decedents became bishops at Hólar) and that Karlsefni, Guðríður, and Snorri had merely established a separate farm. Interestingly, there is one turf wall at the site that seems to have been built before 1000 AD, which would predate the family’s occupation. Further excavations will be required to determine how all of this relates to the details in the Vinland sagas, although the main long-house occupation certainly appears to be consistent with the timing indicated for the return of Guðríður and her family to Iceland. Is this newly discovered structure Guðríður’s farmstead? We now have many more questions than answers. I suppose we may have to follow Childe’s advice after all and look deeper. C O N F ER E N C E S Igor Krupnik traveled to Stockholm, Sweden where he was invited to attend the international scientific conference, “Mountain Areas: A Global Resource,” held September 7-9. The conference, organized by the Swedish Polar Board as “The Royal Colloquium 2003,” was attended by 20 scientists and public activists from Sweden, US, Britain, Switzerland, and India. His Majesty, King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, chaired two days of sessions that dealt with environmental and human impact on mountainous areas. Topics included preserving biological complexity, new environmental threats to mountains, and mountains as the main source of fresh water in the 21st century. Igor was a guest speaker for the panel on cultural diver- sity in mountain areas and presented a talk on “Mountains as Cultural and Heritage Landscapes: Diversity and Integration.” Saami filmmaker, John Erling Utsi, from Jokkmokk in northern Sweden, was Igor’s discussant and talked about the role of mountains in supporting Saami identity and oral tradition and the Saami’s deep affiliation with the land of their ancestors. Meeting attendees also visited the Abisko Scientific Research Station near the northern city of Kiruna and the Tarfala Research Station located in the glacier valley at the foothill of Sweden’s highest mountain peak, Kebnekaise at 68° N. The symposium concluded with a dinner at the Royal Palace in Stockholm. The conference’s proceedings will be published next year as a special issue of Ambio, the Swedish environmentalist journal. For this issue, Igor and John Utsi have been asked to contribute a joint paper on the role of mountains as heritage resource for northern indigenous people. WAC-5 COMES TO D.C., THANKS TO SMITHSONIAN PARTNERSHIP By Joan Gero The Fifth World Archaeological Congress, held June 21 – 26, 2003 in Washington D.C., was a great success, thanks in large part to the roles played by the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History, the Department of Anthropology, and especially the Arctic Studies Program. After meeting in Britain, Venezuela, India and South Africa, this is the first time WAC has convened in North America, and it is especially noteworthy that NMNH was an official partner to the event (together with the National Museum of the American Indian and the Getty Conservation Institute). Plans for the congress were not without worry, especially with a US military engagement in Iraq, a move that proved unpopular in much of the rest of the world. Since the goal of the World Archaeological Congress is to bring together scholars, researchers and others with a genuine interest in the past (including native peoples from different parts of the world, whose pasts the archaeologists are recreating), it was not clear if international participants would be able to attend the congress… or would be willing to come. Funding was suddenly harder to come by, and there were many distractions. Nevertheless, more than 1100 people attended the congress, representing 77 different countries and tribal nations. ASC Newsletter 31 The four-day program was convened in 23 concurrently-running sessions that totaled some 1400 presentations (some people offered more than one presentation). Topics under discussion varied widely, from regional sessions dedicated to presentations of new research within a specific geographic region, to reflective theoretical discussions about such ideas as how decision making in fieldwork affects what we know about the past. Underwater archaeology, the management of public archaeological sites, use of remote sensing techniques, ancient system of astronomy, and women’s roles in hide preparation were all large and popular topics. At the same time, many native, indigenous and tribal people attended in order to bring their minority voices to the discussion (see Loring, below). The Smithsonian Institution’s help was evident at every turn. Sessions were organized by Smithsonian researchers from both the Natural History and the American Indian Museums, including Dennis Stanford (“The American Paleolithic”), York Rowan (“UNESCO and Cultural Heritage Preservation”), Dorothy Lippert (“Room for Both Research AND Repatria- tion”), Bill Billeck (“Logistics of Repatriation”) and Terry Snowball (“Returning the Sacred”). George Horse Capture (NMAI) organized a plenary panel titled “Archaeology from Native Americans’ Perspective” and Ramiro Matos (NMAI) offered a plenary address on “La Práctica de la Arqueología en los Paises Pobres y Ricos. Even more visible was the hugely popular reception offered jointly by the two SI museums in the central rotunda of the Natural History Museum on Sunday evening, June 2nd. Amid flowing libations and great mounds of delicious food, Bill Fitzhugh (as Chair of the Department of Anthropology) and Rick West (Director of the Museum of the American Indian) both addressed the many hundreds of WAC-5 participants gathered there to enjoy themselves. This opportunity for informal exchange among people from so many nations and archaeological traditions was as important for the dissemination of information and for the future of archaeological cooperation as were the more formal paper presentations. Special thanks to Laurie Burgess who so ably coordinated this event! A very special and much appreciated Smithsonian contribution to WAC-5’s success was the behind-the-scene tours of the nation’s archaeological and ethnographic collec- tions, housed in Natural History’s Museum Support Center and in the Cultural Resources Center of the American Indian Museum. Coordinated by Stephen Loring, these tours were offered on the days before and after the congress, and on the free day scheduled midway through the congress. In groups of 10-12 people, a total of 400 archaeologists and native people ultimately got to see either a general tour of collections and facilities, or a specialized and customized tour of their special areas of interest. For many people attending WAC-5, this was a highlight of their visit! And there was still more. Head librarian of the Smithsonian’s NMNH Anthropology library, Margaret Dittemore, was critical to developing a plan to allow visiting WAC-5 scholars to use local libraries for research assistance, in conjunction with attending the congress. The SI Anthropology library opened its own doors to many scholars, giving them access to the invaluable bibliographic materials housed here. Finally, an unexpected and completely successful addition to the WAC-5 program was offered by Smithsonian NMNH Information Technology specialist Dan Cole who voluntarily coordinated and taught a free GIS (geographic information systems) workshop to WAC-5 participants on the day following the congress. This opportunity was offered on a first- come-first-serve basis and was eagerly oversubscribed by people who, in some cases, changed their travel plans to be able to take advantage of Dan’s generous offer to learn GIS. In all, the Smithsonian played a critical role in the enormous success of the Fifth World Archaeological Congress and thus contributes to extending the organization’s vitality for future meetings. WAC is a unique venue for the global exchange of information about recent advances in archaeology, about methodological and theoretical innovations, and for planning future cooperative international research projects, and it is fitting that the Smithsonian was at the center of this enterprise. We are very grateful for their participation. ASC’S NORTHERN CONNECTIONS AT WAC-5 By Stephen Loring A generous grant from the National Science Foundation’s Polar Program created a fantastic opportunity to invite a select group of northern indigenous community members to attend WAC. The ASC and Dr. Randall McGuire of the State University of New York/ Binghamton with whom we submitted the grant request wish to acknowledge our profound appreciation and gratitude to Dr. Anna Kerttula at NSF for her support. The inclusion of northern native representation at WAC represented an important opportunity to encourage and enhance the perspectives of Native Alaskans, Canadian First Nations, and Inuit, as they pertain to archaeology, oral history and “mythol- ogy”. In communities across the circumpolar North there still resides a band of elders who grew up on the land prior to the advent of modern village life. The wisdom and perspective of these community elders is a rapidly diminishing voice and an irreplaceable link to humanity’s common hunting heritage. In northern communities the emergence of a league of young professional as well as avocational folklorists, oral historians, educators and archaeologists by dint of their language skills, interests and web of social relations, are uniquely situated to be a bridge between the knowledge and observations of the “elders” and various community and academic interests that share a common desire to preserve and interpret native histories of the north. The Fifth World Archaeology Congress offered an Rick West, Director of NMAI and Joe Watkins at the WAC-5 reception in NMNH ASC Newsletter 32 academic setting that is uniquely situated to address the needs and interests of northern native groups. The emergence of “community archaeology” is arguably one of the most signifi- cant developments in North American archaeology of the past decade. Throughout the north, native communities have become empowered to participate in the full spectrum of research and investigations from planning to excavation and analysis and the construction of knowledge concerning their history. At WAC-5, the northern delegates had an opportunity to interact not only with a broad range of professionals but also with members of native groups from around the world to exchange strategies on how to collect, interpret, preserve and present their versions of the past, how to negotiate with professionals who would dominate their accounts, and how to preserve what they see as sacred while also contributing to scientific accounts of their regions’ past. The NSF grant supported the travel and participation of two prominent native Alaskan scholars, Herbert Anungazuk, an archaeologist, educator, and resource manager with the National Park Service in Anchorage and Wales, and Deanna Kingston an anthropology professor at Oregon State Univer- sity Corvallis with family and research connections in Nome and King Island, Alaska. Traveling with Aron Crowell from Anchorage were four Sugpiaq/Alutiiq colleagues of his who had worked closely with him on many aspects of the Looking Both Ways Exhibit: Lillian Elvsaas (Seldovia), Nick Tanape, Sr. (Nanwalek), and Nancy Yeaton (Nanwalek). NSF also spon- sored three Inuit students and colleagues from Makkovik Labrador: Lena Onalik (Memorial University), Tracy-Ann Evans (Carleton University) and Amalia Tuglavina (Labrador Inuit Association, Nain) and two colleagues working on community archaeology initiatives with the Innu from Utshimassit and Sheshatshiu, Anthony Jenkinson (Tshiapisk Foundation) and Richard Nuna (Innu Nation Environment). Stephen Loring, along with Anthony Jenkinson and Richard Nuna made a presentation in a session on ethnoarchaeology entitled “From Archaeology to History: An Emerging Innu Perspective on the Past” on their current research in Nitassinan (the Innu homeland in the interior of the Quebec-Labrador peninsula) under the supervision of the Tshikapisk Foundation. Tshikapisk is an organization of Innu educators and community members deeply committed to trying to resolve the social and economic ills plaguing their community by looking to core Innu values and traditions. Most Tshikapisk programs are centered in nutshimit (the “country” as opposed to the village) where small inter-generational groups can camp together in a setting that teaches and reaffirms Innu skills and knowledge. A Tshikapisk initiated program in archaeology seeks to reconnect and empower Innu youth with the production of knowledge about their history. Richard Nuna made a presentation (“Innu history: exploring the paths of stories, mythology and archaeology — an Innu perspective”) in which he explored the relationship of Innu story-telling traditions and archaeology. Stories and story- telling link Innu and Innu ancestors down through the ages and provide a critical perspective to explore the meaning of history. Richard argued that to be legitimate “Innu archaeology” must find a way to incorporate Innu oral tradition as an integral part of the story of Innu history and tenure in Nitassinan. And finally, Stephen, joined by Leah Rosenmeier (The Confederacy of Mainland Mi’kmaq) and Lena Onalik (Memorial University) reported on their community archaeol- ogy project in Labrador (“Challenges for the future of the past: new directions in Inuit archaeology in Labrador”) in which they sought to integrate the practice and product of archaeology with the wishes and interests of the host community in an effort to define a new set of criteria by which archaeology can meet the social and intellectual interests of the Inuit. THE “NORTHERN VECHE” OF 2003 By Elisabeth Ward In 2000, the inaugural meeting of the Northern Research Forum took place in Reykjavík, Iceland (see ASC NL #9). The second Forum continued in the spirit of that first meeting by including an array of “stakeholders” in the North, ranging from politi- cians and business investors to scholars and native peoples. This time the venue seemed to be almost a participant as well; the conference took place in Veliky Novgorod (Great Novgorod), Russia. This locale, the former capitol of the independent state of Novgorod, has a tradition of democratic participation expressed in the practice of veche, an open public assembly. The organizers set the tone and spirit of the conference by calling it “Northern Veche”, and a proposal was adopted at the closing session so that this term will continue to be used for upcoming meetings. Certainly the in-depth and lively interchanges throughout the conference demonstrated this spirit. The town of Veliky Novgorod came to embody one of the sub-themes of the meeting: Applying the Lessons of History. The timing of the Northern Veche coincided with the 1140th anniversary of the founding of the Russian state, which was celebrated by a parade of historical figures (by towns- people in appropriate costume), clearly demonstrating that the past has real agency in how people define themselves in the present. Witnessing this ceremony gave all the participants a renewed energy for the conference topics. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, this grand town struggling to redefine itself in the post-Soviet era provided the perfect backdrop to demonstrate the urgency of this meeting. Since a large percent- age of the participants were Russian, themes of indigenous rights, sustainable development, tourism, and trade all came back to the reality of post-Soviet Russia. Russian government officials publicly declared their appreciation of the foreign delegates for sharing their perspectives, many of which differed At WAC-5 (L-R): Lena Onalik, Richard Nuna, Tracy-Ann Evans, Ken Isaacson, Pierre Desrosiers, and Amalia Tuglavina ASC Newsletter 33 MUSEUMS ALASKA 2003: EPHEMERA FOREVER! By David Shayt, NMAH Alaska, that least ephemeral of all the fifty states, was the focus of a session on the museum acquisition and interpretation of “ephemera,” all that one-time or short-term use flotsam of commerce and popular culture: ticket stubs, food packaging, postcards, bookmarks, bottle caps, cigar bands, napkins, key tags, all the routine detritus of city life and retail activity. Once sufficient years have passed to render ephemera non-current, museums collect it and call it archival or “reference.” Libraries collect it and struggle to create logical numbering systems for it, or despair and dump it into vertical files sorted by topic. Alaskan ephemera proves particularly rich. The conference session, “The Ephemeral North: Collecting and Using Northern Ephemera,” featured a display of the Candy Waugaman Collection. Railroad schedules, movie posters, fruit crate labels, wall calen- dars, AlCan road maps, Skagway song sheets, oil spill bumper stickers, saloon beer mats, matchbooks, sailing ship announce- ments, empty salmon cans . . . all the basis for a lively discussion among the participants: David Shayt of the Smithsonian’s Division of Cultural History at the National Museum of American History, Steve Hendrickson, Curator of Collections at the Alaska State Museum Juneau, and Richard Engeman of the Oregon Historical Society. Shayt offered a slide presentation of Smithsonian ephemera collections housed at his American History Museum, highlighting the Eskimo Pie advertising collection, the Ivory soap ad campaign, and 19th-century African elephant ivory trade literature for piano keys and hair from traditional Russian methods. For instance, the local, grass-roots approach to cultural heritage management demon- strated by Canadian and Alaskan indigenous groups is not commonly practiced in Russia. Ways to incorporate ideas presented at the conference were actively discussed by the Russian attendees, lending an air of real communication to the proceedings. The differences in approaches between Western Europe, the US, and Russia was seen in the session at which Elisabeth Ward presented her paper “Modern Interest in the Vikings: history in the service of political realities”; along with the presentations of Lassi Heininen and Joonas Ahola of Finland, a post-modernist analytical flair was evident in these non- Russian presentations. In contrast, Vlasimir Konetsky, Vasily Adreev, and Gennadi Kovalenko presented a chrono- logically organized and detailed history of Novgorod. Despite these divergent approaches to the topic, all agreed that the Viking history of Novgorod was an important component worthy of further research and support. Similar examples of divergent methodologies were explored in the various sessions throughout the three-day conference. While the first meeting of 2000 was called “North meets North”, it might be tempting to dub the 2002 meeting “West meets East”. In fact, the cooperative and open-minded atmosphere gave a new level of appropriateness to the name Northern Veche. Elisabeth would like to express her appreciation to the Secretariat of the Northern Research Forum for awarding her a Young Researchers travel grant, which allowed her to attend the conference. combs. What meanings can be teased out of such an accumulation? Is this a new archaeology, with flimsy everyday relics gathered up before they reach the privy? Or must this interest in ephemera be necessarily ephemeral, saving serious history and scholarship for artifacts with more heft, more gravitas. General agreement prevailed that Northern ephemera matters. In areas of technology, ephemeral documents such as dated price guides, operating manuals, and parts lists serve a vital surrogate role when original machines such as the Iron Chink salmon-processing machine are too vast or too scarce to collect outright. In other cases, postcards and pamphlets validate and reinforce otherwise anonymous artifacts such as store-bought fishing tackle or trinkets from the Alaska-Yukon- Pacific Exposition of 1909. As art, Alaskan ephemera takes on high-end value in the lush 1920s posters luring tourists by steamship, rail, and float plane to the Last Frontier. Ephemeral tchotchkes for tourists occupy a large class of miniature totem poles, dolls, basketry, carvings, and fur garments whose deeper cultural meanings await anthropological scrutiny within the context of Alaskan tribal traditions. As with much in Arctic studies, ephemera’s value is determined by the questions asked of it and the particular passions brought to its analysis. As witnessed at Museums Alaska 2003 (and at www.ephemerasociety.org), scholars increasingly embrace the serious acquisition, organization, and study of ephemera. What to make of it all, beyond collector’s connoisseurship, may not be the question. More likely, what particular significance do individual pieces have to larger studies. How well did Levi’s jeans sell in the Klondike? Look to the ephemera. Postcard of Siberian Yup’ik Traders ca. 1910, Nome. “JESUP-2” INITIATIVE ENTERS ITS SECOND DECADE By Igor Krupnik Time is indeed running faster these days. It was hardly a twinkling of time ago, in October 1992, when our “Jesup-2” program focused on the legacy of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition (JNPE – see ASC Newsletters, nos. 1,2,3,5, and 6) was officially inaugurated at its opening session held during the first International Congress of Arctic Social Sciences in Quebéc City, Canada. Now, almost eleven years and several efforts later, we are much more realistic about the goals to be set and the input needed to match the expectations. We can always say that ‘it takes time to get started,’ particularly in the funding environment, especially in ASC Newsletter 34 the Governorship of Hokkaido, Hokkaido Commission for Education, Sapporo Branch of the Japanese main air carrier, JAL; offices of two newspapers, Hokkaido Shimbun and Hokkaido Branch of Asahi Simbun; Ainu Research Center; Hokkaido University; Hamanasu Fund, and others offered their support for the meeting. There is a preliminary agreement that the proceedings of the symposium will be published in both English and Japanese, as two parallel volumes. Hence, it would be our responsibility to prepare a new collection of the Jesup-2 paper for one of the forthcoming issues under the ASC Contributions to Circumpolar Anthropology series. This forthcoming volume, the third in the string of the ASC Jesup-2 publications, will feature new results of our studies in the history of the JNPE collections and collectors, and its role to many today’s efforts in cultural revitalization in the North Pacific region. It is also going to include some new topics, such as major review papers covering the state of critical fields in the North Pacific research (archaeology, linguistics, study of myths, etc.) as well as the status of many individual Jesup-2 initiatives of the past decade, 1992-2002. The Raven’s Arch symposium was accompanied by several public events, including public lectures given by Barbara Mathé (on the Jesup Expedition historical photography at the American Museum in New York), Bill Fitzhugh (on the history of the Smithsonian Ainu exhibit), Shigeru Kayano (on the status of Ainu culture in today’s Japan), and Chuner Taksami (on Ainu collections in Russian museums). A photo exhibit made of several dozen historical Jesup pictures from the American Museum and of modern photographs from the Jesup ‘old sites’ in East Siberia taken by the late Japanese photographer Michio Hoshino was organized at the Hokkaido University museum. The final event of the symposium was a trip to the Ainu Museum at Shiraoi, where the Jesup-2 team met our long-term partners from an earlier Ainu exhibit project, such as Masahiro Nomoto, Shigeki Akino, Miyuki Muraki, and others. So, the Raven’s Arch brought together not only the two sides of the North Pacific, once studied by the JNPE teams but also the two main ASC collaborative projects of the 1990s: the Jesup-2 and the Ainu exhibit. There were several other important developments in the Jesup-2 field during this past year. A new Jesup web site is under development, thanks to the unyielding dedication of Barbara Mathé, Museum Archivist and Head of Library Special Collections at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. The site will be a guide to the AMNH Library collections pertaining to the Jesup North Pacific Expedition. It includes a brief overview of the expedition, biographical notes of the expedition members, a timeline, a bibliography of the JNPE-related publications (prepared by Igor Krupnik), and a list of cultures represented in the collections. The photographic collection will be available through a searchable database. In addition a link will be provided to the database of the Jesup Expedition’s ethnographic collections held in the AMNH Anthropology Department. It is hoped that links to Jesup resources held in other institutions will also be made available through this site. Several volumes of the Jesup Expedition publications (AMNH Memoirs) are presently being imaged and will be soon available online as part of the AMNH Digital Library project, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. the absence of Boas and Jesup. But as the program finally gained its own momentum, it gradually began generating more products. Many personal bonds established during this past decade among the Jesup-2 participants are also paying off. In fact, the past year 2002-03 was quite successful to many Jesup-2 efforts. We had one more volume of papers out in print and one more international conference, of twenty more new papers to build a core for our next volume. “Jesup” website is now running; several new papers have been published, and new projects were initiated. There are still no signs of any “Jesup-fatigue” and a lot of enthusiasm is radiating from the trenches. If “Jesup-1” is to be any guide, their peak of activities spanned over some 13-14 years, before the program’s energy started to wind down. So, it looks like we are up for at least a few more years of active work, until we may consider our mission accomplished. In addition to Publishing Constructing Cultures, another big event of the past year was an international symposium that was held at another end of the JNPE original field of operation, the Island of Hokkaido, Japan. The symposium was dedicated to the centennial of the completion of the JNPE field surveys; as such, the choice of the Asian side of the Pacific, where the last expedition party headed by Waldemar Jochelson continued to work until the summer of 1902, was quite natural. The symposium was co-chaired by Kazuyuki Tanimoto, Director of the Ainu Research Center in Sapporo and Bill Fitzhugh. All the practical preparations for the session were undertaken by our tireless symposium secretary, Dr. Koichi Inoue from the Slavic Research Center at the Hokkaido University in Sapporo, who was assisted by Igor Krupnik. The emergence of this ‘gang of four’ as an organizing body for the new Jesup-2 symposium was a direct result of personal bonds built during earlier collaborative efforts, Jesup ‘centennial’ conference of 1997 and Ainu: Spirit of a Northern People Smithsonian exhibit. The symposium was titled The Raven’s Arch: Jesup North Pacific Expedition Revisited and it was held on October 24-28, 2002 in Sapporo, Japan, at a truly lovely meeting place, Sapporo International Guest House. About 15 invited speakers, mainly from the U.S. and Russia, mixed with about the same number of Japanese scholars who arrived from all across Japan. Again, we were very happy to meet with many old friends and partners from our earlier ventures, such as the previous Jesup- 2 panels and publications (Nikolay Vakhtin, Barbara Mathé, Thomas Miller, David Koester, Molly Lee), Ainu exhibit (Kazuyuki Tanimoto, Koji Deriha, Shinko Ogihara, Shiro Sasaki, and others), and Mini-Crossroads (Olga Shubina). New ‘intellectual blood’ was also pumped into the Jesup-2 veins, as represented by Yuri Berezkin (myth distribution in Siberia and North America), David Yesner (early adaptations of the North Pacific coastal people), Machiya Mashiko (comparative study of the Raven myth cycles), Hiroki Takakura (reindeer herding in Siberia), Tatyana Roon (Amur-Sakhalin collections in North American museums), Elena Mikhailova (Jesup collections in Russia), Sergei Slobodin (ethnoarchaeology along the JNPE surveys in Siberia), and others. We are grateful to our Japanese colleagues, particularly to Koichi Inoue and Kazuyuki Tanimoto, who carried the main load of logistical, financial, and other responsibilities for panel organization. Several Japanese agencies and institutions, including ASC Newsletter 35 Bergy Bits DISTINGUISHED SCANDINAVIAN VISITORS By Elisabeth Ward During the Spring of 2003, the Arctic Studies Center hosted two separate delegations of distinguished Scandinavians, showing that the roots planted with the Vikings exhibition are continuing to bear fruit. The first group was members of the Parliamentarians of the Arctic Region, which is a body com- prised of elected members of parliament from each country with a vested interest in the Arctic. Kjell Myre-Jensen and Hill- Marta Solberg of the Norwegian Parliament, Guy Lindström of the Finnish Parliament, and Thórunn Sveinbjarnadóttir and Lilja Grétarsdóttir of the Icelandic Parliament, were in Washington D.C. to discuss Arctic issues with their US counterparts. Igor Krupnik and Elisabeth Ward were invited to meet with the delegates, and we had a wide-ranging discus- sion including the usefulness of exhibitions in rural communi- ties, ASC efforts at knowledge repatriation, and possible collaborative efforts with the University of the Arctic. Brian LeMay of the Smithsonian’s International Office briefly joined the group to express welcome from the Secretary and to give an overview of Smithsonian activities in the international arena. It was certainly our pleasure to have been included in the Arctic Parliaments official visit to Washington, D.C. Several months later, we again found ourselves participat- ing in an official government visit, this time organized by the Meridian International Center for the Department of State’s International Visitors Program. This prestigious program matches international leaders in various fields with their counterparts in the United States for an exchange of ideas and to build contacts. Normally lasting up to six weeks, Margrét Hallgrímssdóttir, THE WORLD’S WORST SKIING TRIP By Elisabeth Ward From February 16th, 2000 until June 5th, 2000, a life or death drama was playing itself out on the Arctic ice-shelf as two Norwegians, Rune Gjeldnes and Torry Larsen attempted to cross-country ski across this unstable mass without any hope of being re-supplied. Dragging behind them a sled with all the provisions they had, the two military-trained comrades embarked on this journey, which has not since been repeated. Their physical struggles to climb the fluctuating ice, paddle across leads in the ice, and endure the unrelenting cold were equal only to the mental challenges to maintain a positive attitude and ignore the pangs of hunger that set in as they began to ration food. From the moment they departed Cape Arctichesky in Siberia to the time they arrived in Cape Discovery in Northern Canada, they had only each other to depend on. Along the way, they took detailed meteological observations of the weather and ice—the last observations before global warming disrupted the formation of a solid ice- mass—as well as providing readings to the US Naval Research Institute on the physical strains such a trek places on the human body, measuring endurance in extreme situations. Through the internet, many Norwegians were well aware of this feat, since they linked up by satellite each night to report on their progress, and the Norwegian media had closely followed their preparations before they departed. But those of us in the US, and especially those of us busy with the Vikings exhibition in the summer of 2000, were not aware of this accomplishment. It was therefore a great pleasure when Fæsta Tora Thorsrud and Bjarte Wetteland of the Norwegian Embassy informed us that these two men were coming to Washington D.C. and asked us if we would like to them to give a talk at our museum. Deborah Rothberg arranged for a Friday noon lecture on May 16th featuring this adventurous tale. Through video, slides, and the remarkably honest delivery style of these two men, the paradoxical commonness and surrealness of their journey came to be appreciated by all who attended. And it became apparent that the Viking spirit is indeed live and well among their State Antiquarian of Iceland, accompanied by Guðríður Sigurðardóttir of the Culture House in Reykjavík, were only able to make a three week tour of the United States, due to pending projects in Iceland, including the reopening of the National Museum. But they expressed a strong interest in spending a day of their busy tour at the Smithsonian. The Department of State contacted Elisabeth Ward at the Arctic Studies Center, and she arranged for Margrét and Guðríður to get a behind the scenes look at the Natural History Museum and the Office of Exhibits Central. Deborah Hull-Walski began their enlightening visit with a look at the Museum Support Center collection storage fascility, which Margrét found especially helpful since the Icelandic national collection storage is currently undergoing renovation. Lora Collins then gave a thorough overview of the creative process of exhibition development at the Office of Exhibit Central, including a peak at some of the components for the new Mammal Hall. Back at Natural History, the ladies met with Robert Sullivan concern- ing outreach efforts and then with Museum Director Cristián Samper, before taking time to visit the museum’s standing exhibitions. Thanks to all who made the visit so enjoyable and informative. This trove of JNPE treasures will soon be accessible to researchers and general public. The dream is to use the new Jesup site at the AMNH as a platform for further research and for educational web exhibit projects. Igor Krupnik is already exploring such an opportunity for a new cooperative project with the AMNH, Archives of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and Museum of Anthropology and Ethnology (MAE) in St. Petersburg. The project will focus on a block of some JNPE 300 photos made by Waldemar Bogoras during his trip along the southern shore of the Chukchi Peninsula in 1901. Last but not least, the first “Jesup-2” Ph.D. thesis is up for its defense at Columbia University in New York in January 2004. Thomas Miller has completed his dissertation in anthropology, “Songs from the House of the Dead: Sound, Shamans, and Collecting in the North Pacific (1900/2000).” It is focused primarily on the context and interpretation of shamanistic wax-cylinder recordings from the Jesup Expedition produced by Jochelson, Bogoras, Teit, and Boas himself. Thomas’ thesis is the first true ‘brain-child’ of the Jesup-2 project: from museum and archival research including his work as Guest Curator of the Jesup centenary exhibition “Drawing Shadows to Stone” (1997, with Barbara Mathé) to the initial dissertation proposal, to his fieldwork in Siberia, Alaska, and British Columbia, to comparative analysis of the old and new data collected, to its supervision and reviewing by several members of the Jesup-2 team. We wish Thomas well and hope that his thesis will be published soon, and that he will be followed by many successful “Jesup-2” Ph.Ds.” ASC Newsletter 36 HONORS AND AWARDS By Katherine Rusk The ASC notes with great pride that Dr William Fitzhugh presented the fourth annual Secretary’s Distinguished Researcher Lecture. These lectures are given by a staff member of the Smithsonian with sustained achievements in research, a long-term commitment to the Institution, outstanding contribution to their field of research by either broadening the scope of study or substantially enhancing understanding within that field, and have the ability to communicate this research to a wider audience. The series was inaugurated by the Secretary of the Smithsonian, Larry Small, to showcase the breadth of contributions to science made by workers at the Institution and is sponsored by the offices of ALASKA NATIVE ELDERS FURTHER THE ALASKA COLLECTIONS PROJECT By Dawn Biddison In the spring and fall of this year, Alaska Native Elders have joined the Artic Studies Center in Anchorage to work as translators on the Alaska Collections Project . Frances Charles, a retired teacher from Unalakleet, spent two weeks at the Center in April. She transcribed and translated Qawiaraq (also Kawerak) Iñupiaq from 16 hours of museum consultation discussions and for 138 object names. Frances made recordings of object names and brief discussions of key objects that she transcribed and translated. She also worked on a glossary of terms in Qawiaraq Iñupiaq, a dialect for which no dictionary exists. Frances was one of the Elders on the first Alaska Collections Project museum consultation trip to Smithsonian. This month Vera Kaneshiro has joined the Center to transcribe and translate St. Lawrence Island (SLI) Yupik discussions and object names from the second Alaska Collections Project museum consultation. Vera, a fluent SLI Yupik speaker whose second language is English, was born and raised in Gambell and currently resides in Anchorage. She has worked with the Alaska Native Lan- guage Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks for thirty years on educational materials and SLI Yupik dictionaries and is also teacher in Alaska Native Studies at the University of Alaska Anchorage. Future Elder collaborators will include speakers of Bering Strait Iñupiaq, North Slope Iñupiaq, Central Yup’ik and Unangan (Aleut). the Under Secretary for Science, the Under Secretary for American Museums and National Programs, and the Director of the International Art Museums Division. Bill Fitzhugh’s lecture “Down to Earth: An Archaeologist’s Search for Circumpolar Connections” was presented to a crowded Baird Auditorium at NMNH on October 20 2003 and featured highlights of his career at the Smithsonian, particularly his fieldwork in Canada, Siberia, and Mongolia. Introduced by Secretary Small and Director Cristián Samper, we learned the mystery of Bill’s minuscule tie collection: they are presents hand-woven by Saami craftspeople as tokens of their appreciation and esteem. Bill’s lecture was attended by an invited audience of numerous colleagues, friends, family and well- wishers and was followed by a delicious reception which featured, as a treat for Bill, Mongolian lamb dumplings! AINU WEBSITE LAUNCH By Andrea Neighbors Following the successful Ainu: Spirit of a Northern People exhibit in 1999 at the Smithsonian’s Museum of Natural History, the Arctic Studies Center and the creative minds at S2N Media, Inc., brought the sights and sounds of Ainu life to the Internet. With commentary given by curator Bill Fitzhugh and co-curator Chisato Dubreuil, viewers can journey into the exhibition rooms which display the various artifacts that were shown to the public. Launched in September of 2002, John and Kathy Prusinski at S2N Media, Inc., provided ingenious assistance in immortalizing the Ainu exhibit, and in 2003 their hard work paid off most handsomely in receiving the South by Southwest award in arts and culture for best display in interactive multimedia. South by Southwest (SXSW Inc.) is an annual festival devoted to works done in film, music, and web production in all fields and genres. When viewing the website, visitors can see photo- graphs, bone carvings, knives, baskets, models of ships, even a grinding bowl for poisonous plants that can be studied by anyone curious about Ainu life. Seven rooms show Ainu culture, housing styles, spirituality, and the unique genetic make-up of the people. With a simple click, all the knowledge and information you would need about the Ainu is available, along with very exclusive pictures to match the wondering mind. The CD-ROM of the exhibit is available through our order form in the newsletter and through our website, free of charge. If interested, the book is also available in both hardback and paperback. To view the Ainu website, the address is http://www.mnh.si.edu/arctic/features/ ainue/index.html, and if interested in the South by Southwest Festival, please visit http://www.sxsw.com. PRIME MINISTER ANNOUNCES DIPLOMATIC APPOINTMENT By Katherine Rusk Prime Minister Jean Chretien of Canada announced on December 2, 2003 the appointment of Jack Anawak as Canada’s Ambassador for Circumpolar Affairs. The Ambassador Vera Kaneshiro. Frances Charles descendants, as they, like the Vikings, continue to push beyond the horizon of the known world in seek of adventure. ASC Newsletter 37 DONATION TO THE NATIONAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL ARCHIVES By Stephen Loring The ASC wishes to acknowledge the thoughtful donation of a small collection of twenty 35mm kodachrome slides taken in the vicinity of Iqualuit (formerly Frobisher Bay) on Baffin Island, Canada in September 1956 by Morton Margulies of Potomac, Maryland. Mr. Margulies, an officer in the U.S. Army Judge Advocate Generals Corps stationed in Labrador, had a brief assignment that took him to the joint US-Canadian Air Base in Frobisher Bay. During his very brief visit Mr. Margulies had the opportunity to photograph Inuit families in their summer encampment and visiting the Hudson’s Bay Company store. The Margulies photographs will be accessioned into the Papers of the Arctic Studies Center housed at the National Anthropological Archives where they will be available to future scholars and researchers. The Smithsonian’s National Anthropological Archives and Smithsonian Institution Archives have become recognized as an important repository of archival photography pertaining to the peoples of the circumpolar North. Much of this material ASC ESTABLISHES DARTMOUTH CONNECTION WITH STEFANSSON FOCUS By William Fitzhugh During the past year the ASC has begun discussing the possibil- ity of developing a formal relationship with Dartmouth College to facilitate joint research, education, and public programs. These discussions have emerged from a decade of periodic collaboration with Dartmouth’s Institute of Arctic Studies (Oran Young, Gail Osherenko, Nick Flanders), its Anthro- pology Department (Deb Nichols and Sergei Kan), the Hood Museum, and the Native Studies Program. Dartmouth students have been ASC interns and field assistants over many years, and ASC staff have worked closely with staff of the U.S. Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (Mary Albert, David Cate, Debra Meese) on education, publication, and science policy. These contacts accelerated after 2001 when Lynne and I began to spend more time in the Hanover area following our purchase of a residence near Hanover, in Fairlee. However, the immediate catalyst was the recent departure of Oran and Gail for new positions at UC San Diego in January, 2003, which resulted in the immediate need to replace Oran’s role in a special interdisciplinary course on arctic and antarctic issues scheduled for spring, 2003. This seemed like an ideal way to become more directly involved with the campus, and so Igor Krupnik and I readily accepted the invitation extended by IAS acting director Ross Virginia to spend a week lecturing on Arctic history, circumpolar cultures (using the Hood Museum ethnographic collections), and contemporary issues of Arctic Native peoples. Igor also presented a talk on ‘knowledge repatriation’ to the Anthropology Department, and we both met with the Native Studies Program and with the staff at the Dartmouth Library that houses Stefansson’s archives and book collection. Stephen Loring gave a lecture sponsored by the IAS on early Labrador links with New England in October, 2003, while Aron Crowell hosted a Dartmouth intern in our Anchorage office. As currently envisioned, the ASC-Dartmouth connection will involve three types of activities: (1) ASC assistance in Dartmouth’s formal instructional program (sporadically, or perhaps through ASC staff being in residence for periods of time); (2) training in northern research and museum studies at the Smithsonian (primarily the National Museum of Natural History) through internships, fellowships, and field opportuni- ties; and (3) collaboration in joint research, education, and public programs. Ideally, all of these activities may share a for Circumpolar Affairs represents Canada at international meetings on circumpolar issues; consults with interested Canadians, particularly northern governments and Aboriginal groups; and coordinates Canada’s participation in the Arctic Council, which was created in 1996 to advance circumpolar cooperation. Ambassador Anawak was born near Repulse Bay, Nunavut and was raised in traditional outpost camps in the Kivalliq region, where he learned the traditional Inuit survival skills. Mr. Anawak has served as hamlet councillor and mayor of Rankin Inlet. He has also served on the executive board of the Tunngavik Federation of Nunavut and as Speaker of the Keewatin Regional Council. Mr. Anawak is also a former president of the Keewatin Chamber of Commerce. In 1986, Mr. Anawak was appointed Executive Director, and was later elected President, of the Keewatin Inuit Association, where he served until his election to Parliament in December 1988. Mr. Anawak served two terms as the Member of Parliament for Nunatsiaq. During that time, Mr. Anawak served as Official Opposition critic for Northern Affairs and Environment, Vice-Chair of the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Develop- ment, and Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development.In April 1997, the federal Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development appointed Mr. Anawak Interim Commissioner of Nunavut. As Interim Commissioner, he was responsible for establishing the administra- tive framework for the new Nunavut government, Canada’s third territorial government. Mr. Anawak resigned from his position as Interim Commissioner in January 1999 to run in the first election for the Government of Nunavut, and in February 1999 the con- stituents of Rankin Inlet North elected him to the Nunavut Legislative Assembly, where he served as Minister of Justice; Community Government; and Culture, Language, Elders and Youth. Mr. Anawak and his wife, Caroline, have 17 children, including seven adopted children and seven foster children. originates from the fieldwork of Smithsonian naturalists and archaeologists working between 1877 and 1940. It can be said that these early photographs form the intellectual bedrock of pictorial materials from the Arctic. However, the profound cultural transformation that has taken place across the Arctic since WWII is poorly represented in our collections. The ASC has adopted a policy of trying to acquire collections of photographs and moving pictures from the post-war period so that future researchers will have a corpus of materials as rich and varied as are the materials left by earlier Smithsonian scientists. Towards that end the Margulies photographs form a modest but valuable addition to our holdings with their insight to camp life among the Inuit of Frobisher Bay prior to their adopting a more settled life in the village that became Iqualuit. ASC Newsletter 38 Roxy C. Laybourne, a Smithsonian ornithologist who pioneered the identification of birds from the barest remains of the downy barbules at the base of their feathers, died on Aug. 7 at her farm in Manassas, Virginia, at the age of 92. For many years Roxy helped the ASC identify bird feathers used in the manufacture of arctic native clothing and artifacts, pointing out that TRANSITIONS common theme where Smithsonian/ASC interests can be found to match the educational needs of the College and its students, staff, collections, and financial resources. We were delighted that our discussions with Ross Virginia quickly established common ground in the archive collections of Vilhjalmur Stefansson held by Dartmouth College Library and the Hood Museum’s collections of Arctic ethnography and archaeology. At present neither of these collections fall into the current range of Dartmouth faculty research or knowledge. The Stefansson Archives include large numbers of photographs taken during Stefansson’s many arctic explorations to northern Alaska and the Canadian Arctic in the early 1900s. Many of these photographs have never been identified, researched, or published and have never been made available to communities in the North. The same may be said of the Hood’s artifact collections. Both are important collections which would be of great interest to scholars and northern natives and residents. Both collections have poten- tial for multiple student projects supervised by ASC in collaboration with relevant academic departments. Once research data has been assembled, the projects could be prepared by student-faculty teams for web or multi-media publication with assistance from the College’s media training, for Hood Museum displays, and for Smithsonian program- ming. This relationship can make important contributions to two forthcoming ASC projects. The first is the approaching anniversary of Stefansson’s first arctic expedition in 1907, which has special relevance to Dartmouth, as well as to the northern science community which is planning a national effort celebrating the Fourth International Polar Year, 2007- 08. We propose to organize projects in which Dartmouth students utilize the College’s unique collections to learn research skills and take part in the development of scholarly products and public programs in Hanover, Washington, and Anchorage. A second focus of collaboration may involve collaboration with Dartmouth faculty specializing in Basque literature and contemporary arts on planning and programs related to our proposed Basque exhibition. Roxy C. Laybourne many of the feathers used in the fletching of arrows and darts came from birds like cormorants and hawks that were the natural predators of the fish and land game for which the weapons were intended. Roxy was a colorful character who liked to drive a red sports car and was a great scientist who found a practical use for her identification skills. In 1960 when a plane crashed taking off from Logan Airport in Boston, killing all 62 people aboard, Roxy helped investigators determine the cause of the crash was a flock of starlings that got sucked into one of the planes engines. Since then she has identified remains of hundreds of birds involved in air crashes, becoming famous around the world for her skill at teasing identifications from the most mangled and charred remains. The breakthrough came when she realized that feathers could in many cases be identified to species or family based on the shape of the tiny fluffy barbule structures found on the quill at the base of the feather. Her skills were especially important after engine manufacturers were required to rate their engines for strikes of certain types and sizes or weights of birds. The identification of the bird could determine who was to pay the insurance bill: the manufacturer or the carrier. Imagine an engine being rated to gobble a goose! However, Roxy told me that other than seeing them in living birds she much preferred seeing feathers put to use in beautiful garments and artifacts than inside airplane engines! Once when I brought her a mass of grimy feather remains from one of our permafrost archaeological sites in the Torngat Mountains in northern Labrador, she ordered: “Git them feathers into a light bath of Ivory Snow! Then I’ll look at ‘em. But don’t you scrub ‘em too hard now, y’hear!” Roxy had a great career at brightened the lives all everyone around her with her enthusiasm, her southern twang, and her bight wit. She’s gone, but her skill lives on in Carla Dove, and Carla also likes pretty northern featherwork! Carolyn L. Rose, 53, Smithsonian administrator and internationally recognized leader and educator in conservation, died August 29, 2002, after a thirteen-year battle with cancer. A Smithsonian employee since 1971, Carolyn most recently was chairman of the Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History. She also was adjunct associate professor in anthropology and art at George Washington University, where she continued to teach courses in conservation and museology until her death. In 1974, Carolyn helped create and later directed a pioneering graduate training program in ethnographic and archaeological conservation. This joint George Washington University/Smithsonian Institution program was developed in conjunction with the Smithsonian’s Anthropology Conservation Lab, where she served as laboratory supervisor for many years. In 1982, Carolyn married her department colleague, chemist David von Endt, now with the Smithsonian Center for Materials Research and Education, with whom she collaborated on numerous projects. In 1988, Carolyn became a senior research conservator, serving in that position until 1993 when she was appointed deputy chair and acting program manager of the Handbook of North American Indians, Department of Anthropology. Carolyn L. Rose ASC Newsletter 39 PUBLICATIONS Book Release: Inuit Artists Print Workbook Published by Arts and Culture of the North Edited by Sandra Barz. The Inuit Artists Print Workbook is a culmination of 30 years of research about the specifics of Canadian Inuit prints produced in the arctic since the first experiments at Cape Dorset in 1957. It includes detailed information on all community and cooperative collections as well as special collections and commissions, experimental collections and prints and anomalies, footnoted with additions, corrections and anecdotal material. It will be an historic document because many of the advisors, artists and printmakers who have been interviewed during my approx 30 trips to the Canadian Arctic are not longer with us. This is also the only source of its kind which contains all the details of the 5,000+ prints in one place. This Volume III, contained in two separately bound books, is an extension of Volumes I and II, with much new and revised information. Orders must be postmarked by January 30, 2004 as supplies are limited. Sandra Barz Arts & Culture of the North 19 East 88th Street New York, NY 10128. USA E-mail: sbarz@worldnet.att.net Over the course of her career, Carolyn directed six archaeological conservation field laboratories; conducted conservation assessments for 16 U.S. and international museums; and organized many workshops, symposia, annual meetings, and conferences. During the last two decades, she had traveled to 22 countries throughout the world to lecture, teach, and advise on museum preservation and collections management. Carolyn is survived by her husband Dr. David von Endt, her daughter Elizabeth from her first marriage, and two grandchildren, as well as her mother, two sisters, a brother, and many other family members. Tireless in her pursuit of expanding the field of conservation and preservation, Carolyn Rose leaves behind a legacy of research and educational opportunities and a vast body of students and colleagues who remember her with respect and warm affection. To honor her memory, the Department of Anthropology has named the Carolyn L. Rose Seminar Room and is raising funds to establish a permanent legacy in her honor. Contributions to the Carolyn L. Rose Fund can be sent to Dr. William Fitzhugh, Chair, Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, 10th and Constitution Avenue, N.W., P.O. Box 37012, NMNH- MRC112, Washington, D.C. 20013-7012. Graham Rowley, an Arctic traveler, archaeologist and student of Inuit culture, was born in Manchester, England on October 31, 1912. He died peacefully at home in his 92nd year, surrounded by his family, on December 31st. He is survived by his loving and devoted wife, Diana Rowley (nee Crowfoot), his daughters Anne, Susan and Jane and their husbands and grandchildren Katharine, Sarah, Edward, Jason, Francis and Emma. Graham first visited the Arctic in 1936 as a member of the British Canadian Arctic Expedition and was captivated by it. He spent the rest of his life on northern issues, working at first for the Department of Defense and later for the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. After his retirement, he joined the faculty of Carleton University where he taught in the Canadian Studies Programme. If desired, donations may be made to the University of Ottawa Heart Institute Foundation, 40 Ruskin St., Ottawa, ON., K1Y 9Z9. [Note from Bill Fitzhugh] As we go to press I have just learned that Graham Rowley died a few days ago at his home in Ottawa. Graham was one of the most delightful persons I have ever known — a scholar, gentleman, explorer, and an ‘anthropologist-without-portfolio’ who pioneered in the archaeology of the Canadian arctic and gave us our first detailed look at the wonders of Dorset bone technology and art, from his work at Abverdjar. For many years the Rowley home was the Graham Rowley (left) displaying a Harp lager bar towel which he presented to Elmer Harp (right) at the 1993 “Elders Conference” in Hanover, N.H. coziest spot in all of Ottawa, for me and many others. A true pioneer who had the grace to share his knowledge with everyone, and an infectious cheerfulness and interest in all things ‘northern’, he did much to build the foundation of Inuit-friendly arctic research in Canada. We are fortunate that his scholarship and love for the North lives on in the work of his daughter, Susan, who continues his research interest in Igloolik. In 1993 Graham was honored at the time of his 80th birthday in the Dartmouth “Elder’s Conference,” and a chapter of what later became his autobiographical memoir, Cold Comfort, appeared in the ASC volume, Honoring Our Elders: a History of Eastern Arctic Archaeology (CCA-2, 2002). Graham was also a true sartorial connoisseur who owned the largest cache of hand-woven Sami ties in North America! Book Release: Native Voices In Research Edited by: Jill Oakes, Rick Riewe, Kimberley Wilde, Alison Edmunds and Alison Dubois Aboriginal Issues Press University of Manitoba,Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada Native Voices in Research explores innovative ways of learning based on traditional Aboriginal Peoples’ ways of knowing. Authors include Aboriginal practitioners, academics, and community leaders in the fields of anthropology, community health, dentistry, education, history, nursing, linguistics, literature, political sciences, economic development, and women’s studies. The book has five sections: I; Health and Education, II; Colonization, III; Ethics and Methodology, IV; Consultation and Public Policy, and V; Traditional Knowledge in Planning. The first section presents Aboriginal Peoples’ perspectives on ASC Newsletter 40 Book Release: Honoring Our Elders: the History of Eastern Arctic Archaeology Contributions to Circumpolar Anthropology 2, 2002, 319 pp Edited by William W. Fitzhugh, Stephen Loring, and Daniel Odess Dedicated to Elmer Harp, Jr., the volume is introduced by a personal reflection by Fitzhugh on Elmer Harp’s career and the huge impact that he had on the education of a generation of arctic researchers, on his field studies of Dorset culture through- out its geographic range, and on the use of photography and environmental analysis techniques. This is followed by an essay by Fitzhugh and Loring presenting a history of key themes that have dominated arctic archaeology during the past Book Release:To the Aleutians and Beyond, The Anthropology of William S. Laughlin Volume 20 Ethnographical Series The Danish National Museum Edited by Bruno Frohlich , Albert Harper , and Rolf Gilberg A volume has recently been published in honor of William S. Laughlin, one of the pioneers in Aleutian archaeology and anthropology. Includes twenty two articles covering topics on shamanism; archaeology of the Aleutians, southwestern Alaska, and Kodiak Island; mortuary practices and Aleutian site surveys (Bruno Frohlich and Sara Laughlin), mummy studies; DNA typing; paleopathology, epidemiology, and migrations ; and other articles on museum collections, bird feather identification, and William Laughlin. The volume is well-illustrated of which a majority have been produced by Bill Laughlin’s students, friends and colleagues reflecting more than 60 years of archaeological and anthropological research in the Aleutian Islands, Greenland, Canada, and mainland Alaska. Copies can be ordered from Bruno Frohlich, Department of Anthropology, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC (frohlich.bruno@nmnh.si.edu) or from Rolf Gilberg, The National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen (rolf.gilberg@natmus.dk). In September 2003 the press released the printed volume of proceedings of the “centennial” Jesup conference held in New York in November 1997. This collection of 20 papers edited by Laurel Kendall and Igor Krupnik was produced as Volume 4 under the Arctic Studies Center’s Contribution to Circumpolar Anthropology Series. The book follows the template of the first opening Jesup volume in the series, “Gateways”; it features a great body of new archival and documentary data, and over 100 historical photos and other illustrations. Papers in the volume cover a broad range of the issues pertaining to the history of the Expedition and careers of its individual participants (collectors); the intellectual impact of the multi-decade venture; and the role of Jesup-generated cultural resources to modern efforts in heritage preservation, museum anthropology, and local communities once studied by the members of the first expedition. Over 100 copies of the 800-strong print-run have been already disseminated. We would appreciate assistance from our Newsletter readers in spreading the message about the new volume to libraries, museum and research centers, and individual scholars worldwide. Avaiable from the Arctic Studies Center. Book Release: Constructing Cultures Then and Now: Celebrating Franz Boaz and the Jesup North Pacific Expedition Contributions to Circumpolar Anthropology 4, 2003. Edited by Laurel Kendall and Igor Krupnik the meaning of “place or home”, collaborative field work, distance education nursing programs, the meaning of cancer, and university life. The second section presents colonization through changes in Mi’kmaq-Acadian alliances, Anglican missionaries, use of Guarani by indigenous peoples in Paraguay, and the role of Coyote! The third section introduces ethics and methods based on Aboriginal traditions highlighting experiential learning, storytelling, relationship building, and inclusive learning, The fourth section questions policies in Canada and India, provides advice on effective consultation, and discusses the essential need for respect in presenting traditional ecological knowledge. The final section shares examples of how commu- nity-based research was used to learn invaluable perspectives on topics ranging from Arctic climate change, lake sturgeon and moose, northern economic development, Greenland fisheries, and indigenous potato farmers in Bolivia. riewerr@ms.umanitoba.ca Associate Editor Aboriginal Issues Press University of Manitoba Winnipeg, Manitoba R3T 2N2 half-century, as well as a discussion of the ‘sea change’ that occurred when the research mode shifted from strict adherence to scientific objectives to a more public-minded, native-oriented approach. This shift is documented also by statements made by Inuit who participated in the ‘Harp Fest’ conference held at Dartmouth College in 1993, in several of the papers in the volume, and as represented in the life of native archaeologist Daniel Weetaluktuk. These papers and an historical essay on arctic ethnology by Ernest Burch, Jr. set the tone for the four sections that follow: Historical Perspectives (Burch, James V. Wright, Bryan Gordon, David Morrison); High Arctic: Travel, Philosophy, and Theory (Ted Carpenter, Jørgen Meldgaard, Hans-Christian Gulløv, Moreau Maxwell, Daniel Odess, Graham Rowley, Guy Mary-Rousseliere); The Far Northeast: Archaeology of Quebec, the Maritimes, and Labrador (William Fitzhugh, Stephen Loring, Patrick Plumet, Charles Martijn, Jean-Yves Pintal, Moira McCaffrey); and The Future of the Past (Bryan Hood, James Helmer, Genevieve LeMoine, Susan Rowley, and Norman Hallendy). Available from the Arctic Studies Center. STAFF PUBLICATIONS 2002 Honoring Our Elders: the History of Eastern Arctic Archaeology, edited by William Fitzhugh, Stephen Loring, and Daniel Odess. 319 pp. Contributions to Circumpolar Anthro- pology, 2. Washington, DC: Arctic Studies Center, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution. 2003 Constructing Cultures Then and Now. Celebrating ASC Newsletter 41 and Policy, edited by G. Carleton Ray and Jerry McCormick- Ray. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, pp. 181-182. 2003 The Walrus in Native Marine Economies. In Coastal-Marine Conservation: Science and Policy, edited by G. Carleton Ray and Jerry McCormick-Ray. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, pp. 196-97. 2002 “Shifting Patterns, Lasting Partnerships. Inuit Knowledge and Academic Science in Arctic Cultural Research.” Inussuk. Arctic Research Journal (2):55-74. 2002 The Surveyor of the ‘Bridge’: Interview with William S. Laughlin. In: To the Aleutians and Beyond. The Anthropology of William S. Laughlin, edited by Bruno Frolich, Albert Harper, and Rolf Gilberg. Publications of the National Museum. Ethnographical Series, 20. Copenhagen: The National Museum of Denmark, pp. 207-226. Stephen Loring: 2002 Introduction. In, Honoring Our Elders: A History of Eastern Arctic Archaeology, pp. 1-29 2002 “And the took away the stones from Ramah”: lithic raw material sourcing and Eastern Arctic archaeology”. In, Honoring Our Elders: A History of Eastern Arctic Archaeology., , pp.163-185 2002: INVITED SPEAKER: The Inuit of the Makkovik and Hopedale Areas: the archaeological record. From Nisbet Harbour to Nain: the Early Moravian Exploration of Labrador Symposium, Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation, Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, Makkovik, Labrador. 2003 “The Archaeology and Ethnohistory of a Drowned Land: Innu Nation Research Along the Former Michikamats Lake Shore in Nitassinan (Interior Labrador).” (co-authored with Moira T. McCaffrey, Peter Armitage and Daniel Ashini). Archaeology of Eastern North America 31:45-72. 2003 Aleut Archaeology and Cultural Heritage: The Legacy of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition (co-authored with Douglas W. Veltre) In, Constructing Cultures Then and Now: Celebrating Franz Boas and the Jesup North Pacific Expedition, pp. 306-318. Aron Crowell: 2003 “Implications of ‘Punctuated Prductivity’ for Coastal Settlement Patterns: A GIS Study of the Katmai Coast, Gulf of Alaska”.( Alaska). Journal of Anthropology 2(1): 62-96. 2003 Film, Archaeology and Memory: Ancestral Alutiiq Villages of the Outer Kenai Coast. 21 minutes. Produced by the Arctic Studies Center and Talking Circle Productions, Anchorage. 2002 Russian Colonialism. In Encyclopedia of Historical Archaeology, edited by C. Orser, pp 486-489. Routledge, London. Franz Boas and the Jesup North Pacific Expedition, edited by Laurel Kendall and Igor Krupnik. Contributions to Circumpolar Anthropology, 4. Washington, DC: Arctic Studies Center, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution. William Fitzhugh: 2002 Introduction. In: Honoring Our Elders: the History of Eastern Arctic Archaeology: pp. 1-35. 2002 Nukasusutok 2 and the Paleoeskimo Transition in Northern Labrador. In: Honoring Our Elders: the History of Eastern Arctic Archaeology: pp. 153-184. Washington: Arctic Studies Center, Smithsonian Institution. 2002 Saving Cultures, Reconstructing Museums: Smithsonian Anthropology and Native Relations. In: Museums 2000: Confirmation or Challenge? Edited by Peer-Uno Agren and Sophie Nyman, pp. 177-183. Swedish Traveling Exhibitions. ICOM Sweden and the Swedish Museums Association. 2002 The Gateways Project 2001: Archaeological Survey of the Quebec Lower North Shore, Gulf of St. Lawrence, from Mingan to Blanc Sablon. 90 pp. report. Washington D.C.:Arctic Studies Center, Smithsonian Institution. 2003 The Gateways Project 2002: Surveys and Excava- tions from Petit Mecatina to Belles Amours. 174 pp. report. Washington DC: Arctic Studies Center, Smithsonian Institution. 2003 Mongolia’s Arctic Connections: The Hovsgol Deer Stone Project, 2001-2002 Field Report. 114 pp. Washington, DC: Arctic Studies Center, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution. (Author/editor, with contribu- tions by Paula DePriest, Susan Lutz, Stephen Young, Ts. Tsendeekhuu). 2003 Heritage Anthropology in the “Jesup-2” Era: Exploring North Pacific Cultures Through Cooperative Research. In: Constructing Cultures Then and Now: Celebrating Franz Boas and the Jesup North Pacific Expedition: pp. 287-306. Washington, DC: Arctic Studies Center, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution. Igor Krupnik: 2003 The Aim of the Expedition …Has in the Main Been Accomplished: Words, Deeds, and Legacies of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition. With Nikolai Vakhtin. In: Constructing Cultures Then and Now. Celebrating Franz Boas and the Jesup North Pacific Expedition: pp. 15-31. 2003 Introduction: A Centenary and a Celebration. With Laurel Kendall. In Constructing Cultures Then and Now. Celebrating Franz Boas and the Jesup North Pacific Expedition: pp. 1-11. 2003 The Subsistence Era: Early Prehistory to Euro- American Contacts. In Coastal-Marine Conservation: Science ASC Newsletter 42 Ainu: Spirit of a Northern People. Edited by William W. Fitzhugh and Chisato O. Dubreuil. 1999. The Earth is Faster Now: Indigenous Observations of Arctic Environmental Change. Edited by Igor Krupnik and Dyanna Jolly. ARCUS, 2002. Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga. Edited by William W. Fitzhugh and Elizabeth Ward. 2000. Available from SI Press (www. sipress.si.edu) 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. Akuzilleput Igaqullghet: Our Words Put to Paper. Edited by Igor Krupnik, Willis Walunga, and Vera Metcalf. Contributions to Circumpolar Anthropology 3, 2002. 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. The Gateways Project 2001: Archaeological Survey of the Quebec Lower North Shore, Gulf of St. Lawrence, from Mingan to Blanc Sablon. 90 pp. field report. Washington D.C.:Arctic Studies Center, Smithsonian Institution. The Gateways Project 2003: Archaeological Survey of the Quebec Lower North Shore, Gulf of St. Lawrence, from Hare Harbor to Jacque Cartier Bay . 130 pp. field report. Washington D.C.:Arctic Studies Center, Smithsonian Institution. The Gateways Project 2002: Surveys and Excavations from Petit Mecatina to Belles Amours. 174 pp. field report. Washington DC: Arctic Studies Center, Smithsonian Institution. Mongolia’s Arctic Connections: The Hovsgol Deer Stone Project, 2001-2002 Field Report. 114 pp. field report. Washington, DC: Arctic Studies Center, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution. (Author/editor, with contributions by Paula DePriest, Susan Lutz, Stephen Young, Ts. Tsendeekhuu). ASC PublicationsTHANKS TO OUR SPONSORS Afognak Native Corporation Alaska Humanities Forum Alaska State Museum Grant-in-Aid Program Alutiiq Heritage Foundation Anchorage Museum of History and Art Anina Gaize Arco Foundation Bateman Fund Bristol Bay Native Corporation Inlingua/Santis Corp. International Grenfell Association James VanStone Estate Kodiak Area Native Association Koniag Inc. Marshall Cloyd Middlecott Foundation National Bank of Alaska National Aeronautics and Space Administration National Endowment for the Humanities National Oceanographic and Atmo- spheric Administration National Park Service National Science Foundation Newfoundland Rural Economic Developmentand Schools Oceans Alaska Science and Learning Center Phillips Alaska Inc. Rasmuson Foundation Raymond and Margaret Mason R.S. Peabody Museum Trust For Mutual Understanding ASC Newsletter 43 For information on ASC publications and to purchase please contact: Arctic Studies Center Smithsonian Institution PO Box 37012 10th and Constitution N.W. National Museum Natural History, Rm 307 MRC 0112 Washington, DC 20560-0112 Fax: 202-357-2684 Phone: 202-357-2682 Email: arctics@nmnh.si.edu Thank you for supporting the Arctic Studies Center and its research!