Newsletter

Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History

May 2023 https://naturalhistory.si.edu/research/anthropology/programs/arctic-studies-center Number 30

NOTES FROM THE DIRECTOR

By William W. Fitzhugh

It was a bit daunting to see ASC Newsletter #30 looming 

up on the horizon this past year! The round number 

makes one look back and take stock of all the ‘northern 

ground’ we have covered since the Arctic Studies Center 

was established in 1988. Each of our Newsletter issues 

have reported on some type of 

central activity that marked each 

of those years—not always so 

significant as the opening of 

the Alaska office in 1993 or the 

Ainu exhibit in 1999 or Vikings

in 2000. This year the ASC 

has embarked on a new set of 

programs designed around the 

topic of “Arctic Resilience”, 

highlighted by the growing 

awareness of the changing Arctic 

and global climate and its huge 

implications for the future, as 

documented in the Sixth IPCC 

Climate Assessment Report and 

the US IARPC Arctic Research 

Plan 2022–2026.

This past year saw the tail-end of 

the COVID-19 epidemic and the 

slow reassembly of ASC and our 

Smithsonian colleagues into some 

semblance of the new normal. 

Fortunately, ASC and its associates 

have emerged from the pandemic 

without serious losses or health issues, and the impact on 

northern peoples has been less than initially feared. 

On the other hand, the tragedy of Russia’s invasion 

of Ukraine has cast a pall on relations with our 

Russian colleagues and partner institutions, to say 

nothing about the huge loss of life and destruction. 

These collaborations over almost 30 years since the 

Crossroads exhibit era had become a major feature of 

the ASC operations.

Our emergence from covid isolation prompted a series 

of meetings to define a collective ASC program for 

the future around the concept ‘Arctic Resilience’. 

The result of the discussions was a research proposal 

to the NMNH titled “Arctic Resilience: Strategies, 

Sustainability, and Community Solutions” that explores 

historical and present-day strategies to increase 

resilience and sustainability across the Arctic. The 

proposal team includes ASC staff and associates, 

Indigenous and academic 

partners from Alaska, Canada, 

and Greenland, and a broader 

circle of collaborators from the 

US, Denmark, France, UK, and 

Japan. As this project moves 

forward—later in 2023 we 

hope—we are also developing 

plans for an exhibition 

component featuring the 

sustainable use of Arctic natural 

and animal materials so well 

represented in our Smithsonian 

collection, perhaps in 

collaboration with the University 

of Pennsylvania Museum.

Several major highlights of 

2022 need to be called out. 

One was the completion of 

Igor Krupnik’s 4-year term 

as chair of the Department of 

Anthropology. Igor’s service 

to the department straddled 

the COVID-19 pandemic 

and required a new form of 

remote management. Overall, we adapted, and Igor’s 

curator- and department-wide meetings were models of 

transparency and respect. Undeterred by administrative 

duties, Igor completed the monumental task of editing 

the 931-page Vol. 1 “Introduction” of the Handbook of 

North American Indians published by the Smithsonian 

Scholarly Press. Igor’s work with Aron Crowell

publishing Arctic Crashes: People and Animals in the 

Changing North, was awarded an NMNH Science 

Achievement prize. Another waypoint was the annual 

Yup'ik mask 101596. Anima Mundi, Photo 

Vatican Museums, Images and Rights 

Department © Governorate of the Vatican City 

State—Directorate of the Vatican Museums
2 ASC Newsletter

Ernest Burch Memorial Lecture given this year by 

Michèle Hayeur-Smith. Her lecture, “The Valkyries 

of Linen: Women’s Power and Cloth Production in the 

Viking North Atlantic” was delivered in the Q?rius 

Theater and enjoyed a large in-person and remote 

audience.

This year’s resumption of research activities included 

my return to fieldwork in Newfoundland and 

Quebec. I teamed up with Brad Loewen and Saraí 

Barreiro-Argüelles (University of Montreal), Ben 

Fitzhugh (University of Washington), and two Purdue 

University interns to investigate Quebec Inuit caribou 

procurement and stock identifications in northern 

Newfoundland, and with Saraí and Francisco RiveraAmaro tested a small 

Basque whaling station 

located near an Inuit 

settlement in St. Paul 

River, Quebec. I also 

published two volumes 

documenting two 

decades of Mongolian 

deer stone studies. 

While earth-bound 

pandemics kept most 

of us near home, 

Stephen Loring

traveled to the stars—at 

least figuratively—as 

one of the curators 

working on a multifaceted exploration 

of the night sky as 

part of an exhibition 

on the problems with 

light pollution and its 

consequences for life 

on earth. Lights Out: 

Recovering the Night Sky opened at NMNH in March 

2023. The ASC and NMAI were pleased to host a 

visiting delegation of Innu Chiefs and educators from 

the Innu communities of Natashquan (on the Quebec 

North Shore) and Mashteuiatsh (Lac Saint-Jean) in June. 

As always, such visits create an opportunity to explore 

aspects of cultural heritage and resilience made even 

more meaningful as the museum contemplates revision 

of its collections management policies and explores 

issues of ethical returns and shared stewardship.

Aron Crowell received a grant from the Smithsonian’s 

“Life on a Sustainable Planet” program for an 

archaeofaunal isotopic study with NOAA fisheries 

scientist Tom Helser that will yield a 6,000-year record 

of water temperatures in the Gulf of Alaska. He also 

collaborated with USGS marine ecologist Mayumi 

Arimitsu on “Climate Change and Pulse Migration: 

Intermittent Chugach Inuit Use of Glacial Fiords on 

the Kenai Coast, Alaska,” to be published in Frontiers 

in Environmental Archaeology. Crowell concluded 

his long-standing collaborative research program in 

Yakutat, Alaska by submitting a book manuscript 

for Laaxaayík, Near the Glacier: The Cultural 

Ecology and Archaeology of Yakutat Fiord, Alaska to 

Smithsonian Scholarly Press.

ASC Alaska was the co-recipient, with the NMNH 

Education office, of a two-year “Together We Thrive” 

education award from 

the Smithsonian's Office 

of the Undersecretary 

for Education that will 

support development 

of culturally responsive 

science curricula for 

Alaska schools in 

collaboration with 

Alaska Native educators. 

Nyché Andrew joined 

the Alaska office for 

a research fellowship, 

sponsored by The CIRI 

Foundation, which will 

focus on interviews and 

fact finding about cultural 

STEAM programs in 

Alaska, many recently 

funded by grants from 

the US Department of 

Education.

Dawn Biddison

received an award from 

the Smithsonian Office of the Under Secretary for 

Education for collaboration on educational activities 

on Athabascan cultures. She received a grant from 

the Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries, and 

Museums for a project on natural dyes from Dena’ina 

lands, from the U.S. Embassy in Canada to bring a 

delegation of Alaska Native representatives to the 

Arctic Arts Summit, and from the NMAI Community 

Loans Program to develop a collaborative project with 

an Ahtna group.

PLEASE JOIN US AS WE CELEBRATE THREE 

DECADES OF ARCTIC STUDIES CENTER 

NEWSLETTERS! 

Igor receives a leather-bound copy of v.1 of the Handbook 

of North American Indians, a gift from the Handbook and 

Anthropology staff. Photo by Phillip R. Lee
 ASC Newsletter 3

TABLE OF CONTENTS

NOTES FROM THE DIRECTOR����������������������������1

THANKS TO OUR 2022/2023 PARTNERS AND 

DONORS ���������������������������������������������������������������������4

ASC ANCHORAGE, ALASKA OFFICE

Preserving a Cultural Heritage Site at Yakutat ..........5

Batuk’enelyashi: Natural Dyes from Dena'ina 

Lands ....................................................................7

Developing Connections: Alaska Natives at the 

Canadian Arctic Arts Summit .......................................9

Ahtna Collection Access and Community Outreach: A 

Partnership with NMAI ...............................................10

Update on Alaska Boarding School Research ............ 11

Together We Thrive: Culturally Responsive Sustaining 

Science Education in Washington, D.C. and Alaska ....13

NEWS

From Northwest to Southeast (Alaska): A New Home 

and Job ........................................................................15

Dawn Biddison Receives Smithsonian Research 

Prize ............................................................................17

The COVID-19 Pandemic in Uummannaq 

Greenland ...................................................................17

William Honeychurch Receives Mongolian Polar Star 

Award ..........................................................................18

Arkhaios Cultural Heritage and Archaeology Film 

Festival ........................................................................19

My Travels from the Arctic Studies Center to the Asian 

Pacific American Center ............................................20

Meet the Smithsonian Scientist Studying the 

Mongolian Deer Stones ...............................................22

Training Mongolian Archaeologists ............................24

RESEARCH

2022 Ernest S. Burch Memorial Lecture: “The 

Valkyries of Linen”: Cloth Production and Women’s 

Power in the North Atlantic ........................................25

Burch Endowment Support for ASC in 2022 ................30

ASC Proposes an ‘Arctic Resilience’ Project .............30

Haulout: a Walrus Drama Nominated for an Oscar ....32

Studying Western Alaska Bow and Arrow 

Technology .................................................................34

Searching for Inuit on the Northwest Coast of 

Newfoundland .............................................................36

A Basque Whaling Station in St. Paul River, Quebec .39

Vikings, Volcanoes, and Ragnarök: Archaeology of 

Surtshellir, Iceland ......................................................42

Mercator, the Medici, and the Past and Future of the 

Arctic ...........................................................................45

Volume 1 of the Handbook of North American Indians 

Series Completed ........................................................47

The Gliddon Mummy Case .........................................48

Discovering Maritime Native America: a Half Century 

of Smithsonian Research .............................................51

The Forteau Bay-5 Groswater Site .............................54

Excavations at Aduun Ordon in the Mongolian Gobi ...56

COLLECTIONS

The Fosco Maraini Ikupasuy Collection .....................58

An ASC/NMNH—UPenn Museum Collaboration ....60

A Mix of Joy and Solemnity: the Collages of Janet 

Kigusiuq ......................................................................61

Photo-documentation and Digital Media in Museum 

Collection, Archaeological, and Environmental 

Eesearch ......................................................................63

An Unexpected Treasure .............................................63

Solving Another Museum Puzzle: the NMNH 

Poniatowski-Arseniev Collection ..............................64

Building an Oroqen Canoe ..........................................70

Central Yup’ik Masks in the Vatican Museums: 

Indigenous American Heritage ...................................70

The Sŭpunger Kayak Collected by Charles Francis 

Hall, Made from Wood Salvaged From HMS 

Erebus .................................................................71

OUTREACH

Knowing Nature: Stories of the Boreal Forest ...........73

Issumaqatigingniq: an Educational Model to 

Engage the Next Generation of Inuit and Scientific 

Collaborators ...............................................................73

Fish Skin Peoples of the Bering Strait: Encounters in 

Hokkaido, Japan ..........................................................74

BOOK REVIEWS

The sociality of Indigenous Dance in Alaska .............76

Memory and Landscapes: Indigenous Responses to a 

Changing North ...........................................................76

Resilience through Knowledge Co-production ...........77

Expedition Relics from High Arctic Greenland ..........78

Book announcement by William Fitzhugh .................79

The Amur River: between Russia and China ..............80

Once upon the Permafrost ...........................................80

An Exploration of Prehistoric Ontologies in the Bering 

Strait Region: Boundaries and Structures ...................81

TRANSITIONS

Kevin E. Wood ............................................................82

William Michael Lowe and Ilene Spencer Lowe ........82

Dorothy Harley Eber ...................................................83

Jean Blodgett ...............................................................85

George Noongwook ....................................................86

An Arctic Studies ‘Thank You’ to Our Recent retired 

Colleagues ...................................................................87

2022 ASC STAFF PUBLICATIONS�����������������������88
4 ASC Newsletter

Alaska Anthropological Association

Alaska Native Heritage Center

Anchorage Museum Foundation

Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries & Museums 

Ernest “Tiger” Burch Endowment

Carlson Family Trust

The CIRI Foundation

William W. and Lynne D. Fitzhugh

Heather Flynn

Inuit Art Foundation

Innu Nation

Jo Michalski and the Honorable Peter Michalski

National Endowment for the Arts

National Museum of the American Indian 

Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies 

National Resources Defense Council

National Science Foundation

Government of Newfoundland and Labrador

Newfoundland Provincial Archaeology Office 

The Frances and David Rose Foundation

Gail and Jan K. Sieberts

SI Legacy Challenge Fund

SI Office of the Provost

SI Undersecretary for Science (Life on a Sustainable

Planet)

SI Undersecretary for Education (Together We Thrive)

SI Institution Traveling Exhibit Service

SI Recovering Voices Program

University of Montreal / Brad Loewen

Whiteley Museum, St. Paul River, Quebec 

James Vanstone Endowment 

Kathie and Douglas W. Veltre

ASC STAFF

William Fitzhugh, ASC Director and North American 

Archaeology Curator: fitzhugh@si.edu 

Aron Crowell, Alaska Office Director and 

Archaeologist, Anchorage: crowella@si.edu

Igor Krupnik, Curator and Ethnologist: krupniki@

si.edu

Stephen Loring, Museum Anthropologist and 

Archaeologist: lorings@si.edu

Nancy Shorey, ASC Program Specialist: shoreyn@

si.edu

Dawn Biddison, ASC Alaska, Museum Specialist, 

Anchorage, AL: biddison@anchoragemuseum.org

RESEARCH ASSOCIATES AND 

COLLABORATORS

Noel Broadbent, Archaeologist, Washington, D.C.: 

nbroadb@pipeline.com

John Cloud, Geographer, Washington, D.C.: 

cloudj@si.edu, john.cloud666@gmail.com

Bernadette Driscoll Engelstad, Ethnologist: 

bdengelstad@gmail.com

Scott Heyes, Geographer: scott@scottheyes.com

William Honeychurch, Archaeologist, New Haven, 

CT: william.honeychurch@yale.edu

Anthony Jenkinson, Archaeologist, Northwest River, 

Labrador, Canada: shaputuan@hotmail.com

Martin Nweeia, Dentist/Narwhal Researcher, 

Cambridge, MA: martin.nweeia@hsdm.harvard.edu

Elisa Palomino-Perez, Fashion Designer, London, 

UK: elisapalomino@hotmail.com

Kenneth Pratt, Anthropologist, Anchorage, AL: 

kenneth.pratt@bia.gov

Wilfred Richard, Geographer/Photographer, 

Georgetown, ME: 34PondRoad@gmail.com

Michèle Hayeur Smith, Ethnologist/Textile Spec., 

Providence, RI: raggirl9393@gmail.com 

Kevin Smith, Archaeologist, Providence. RI: 

surtshellir2018@gmail.com 

Ted Timreck, Film Producer, New York, NY: 

ttimreck@gmail.com

Lana Troy, Egyptologist, Uppsala, Sweden: 

lana.troy@egyptologi.uu.se

Christopher B. Wolff, Archaeologist, Albany, NY: 

cwolff@albany.edu

The Arctic Studies Center is sustained through a 

public-private partnership. Philanthropic donations 

provide funding for essential community-based 

collaborations, impactful educational programming for 

the public, and continuous research in an ever-changing 

Arctic region. 

To make a tax-deductible donation, please contact 

the NMNH Office of Development at 202-633-00821 

or NMNH-Advancement@si.edu.

THANKS TO OUR 

2022/2023 PARTNERS AND DONORS

We extend our sincerest gratitude to the donors and partners who support the Smithsonian Arctic 

Studies Center
 ASC Newsletter 5

ASC ANCHORAGE, ALASKA OFFICE

PRESERVING A CULTURAL HERITAGE SITE 

AT YAKUTAT, ALASKA

By Aron Crowell

The Arctic Studies Center is assisting the Yakutat 

Tlingit Tribe (YTT) and the Sealaska Heritage Institute 

(SHI) of southeast Alaska to document and preserve 

a newly discovered archaeological site linked in oral 

tradition to the original Eyak residents of Yakutat Bay 

and to an Ahtna Raven clan, the Gineix Kwáan, that 

migrated there about five centuries 

ago (Fig. 1). House depressions and 

stone walls (possible fish weirs) 

found at Kwáashk’ Héeni (Humpback 

Salmon Creek) in Humpback Cove 

are threatened by clear-cut logging 

conducted by the community’s Alaska 

Native village corporation, leading 

to concern as well as disagreement 

among residents of the majorityTlingit town (pop. 600) about what 

can be done to preserve the site.

The ASC is providing historical and 

scientific background to YTT and 

SHI about the Kwáashk’ Héeni site 

in preparation for archaeological 

field investigations planned for 

June-July 2023 by the Alaska 

Office of History and Archaeology. 

ASC’s supporting role stems from 

collaborative archaeological research 

conducted in the community since 

2011, with results to be published this 

year by the Smithsonian Institution 

Scholarly Press (Laaxaayík, Near 

the Glacier: The Cultural Ecology 

and Archaeology of Yakutat Fiord, 

Alaska). 

Kwáashk’ Héeni in Oral Tradition

Anthropologist Frederica de Laguna, whose 

monumental ethnography Under Mount St. Elias: 

The History and Culture of the Yakutat Tlingit was 

published fifty years ago by the Smithsonian (De 

Laguna 1972), recorded local knowledge of an 

ancestral settlement at Kwáashk’ Héeni (De Laguna et 

al. 1964) (Fig. 2). The reported site and surrounding 

land were claimed by Sealaska Corporation under 

the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, but the 

claim was denied when no supporting archaeological 

evidence could be found (Sealaska Corporation 1975).

According to oral tradition, the creek was the scene 

of a dispute over fishing rights between resident 

Eyak clans and members of the newly-arrived Gineix 

Kwáan, an Ahtna clan that migrated over the St. Elias 

Mountains from the Copper River to Yakutat about 

500 years ago (Crowell 2022, 2023; De Laguna 1972; 

Swanton 1909; Thornton 2012). The Eyak discovered 

a Gineix Kwáan man fishing at the creek with a salmon 

harpoon, which they took away and broke because he 

was trespassing. The conflict over Kwáashk’ (the Eyak 

word for ‘pink or humpback salmon’) Héeni (Tlingit 

for ‘stream’) was resolved when the 

Eyak handed over the creek and a 

large amount of surrounding land to 

the Gineix Kwáan in exchange for 

valuable tináa, engraved ceremonial 

shields made of native copper that 

they had brought from the Copper 

River. According to the late Lena 

Farkas of Yakutat, the Eyak people 

said, “There is more copper in that 

canoe than this little creek is worth, 

so we’re going to give you all of 

Tłaxatà (Yakutat Bay) (Crowell 

2023). 

In honor of this event the Gineix 

Kwáan adopted a new clan name, 

Kwáashk’i Kwáan, meaning 

the “people of Kwaashk’”. The 

Kwáashk’i Kwáan built the 

large village of Tlákw.aan on 

nearby Knight Island and fished 

at Humpback Creek for pink and 

Coho salmon, Dolly Varden trout, 

and steelhead trout, judging from 

abundant fish bones preserved in 

the Tlákw.aan midden. Yaa Xooda 

Keit, a renowned Kwáashk’i 

Kwáan clan leader who died in 

about 1880, is said to have resided at Kwáashk’ Héeni. 

The area is still important for fishing and for hunting 

harbor seals that gather at the mouth of the stream to 

feed during the salmon runs.

Dating and Description of the Kwáashk’ Héeni Site

Although an on-the-ground survey of the Humpback 

Salmon Creek site (Alaska number YAK-014) has 

not yet been conducted, several inferences about its 

age and cultural features can be made. We know from 

oral tradition that establishment of the site preceded 

the Gineix Kwáan migration so it must be older than 

Tlakw.aan, where the earliest calibrated radiocarbon 

Figure 1. A Tlinkit man (left) with 

a musket, wearing sealskin pants 

and a trade cloth shirt. A Copper 

River Ahtna man (right) with bow 

and arrows, dressed in caribou 

skin clothing with porcupine quill 

embroidery, 1880. From Ivan Petroff, 

Report on the Population, Industries, 

and Resources of Alaska, 1884
6 ASC Newsletter

dates are in the range of 1450 cal. CE (Crowell 2022). 

Glaciers that filled Yakutat fiord began retreating about 

1200 CE and the Humpback Creek area could have 

been ice-free a century later, suggesting a maximum 

site age of about 700 years. House pits and midden 

layers could therefore contain stone, bone, and 

copper artifacts of the Eyak (800–1500 CE), Ahtna 

(1500–1700 CE), and Tlingit (1700–1900 CE) periods 

of Yakutat history as well as post-1780s Russian and 

American trade items including glass beads, ceramics, 

iron tools, and firearms.

Cultural features reported at the site and photographed 

from a drone by the organization Defend Yakutat 

include five probable house pits adjacent to a dry 

stream bed (Fig. 3). Five rock walls extend across 

the old stream, with parallel lines of evenly spaced 

boulders between the walls.

A detail from oral tradition—that the Gineix Kwáan 

man was caught fishing with a salmon harpoon—

provides a likely explanation for the stone walls. 

Traditionally, salmon were harpooned as they schooled 

behind stone or wooden barricades, and in some places, 

box traps made of wooden stakes were constructed in 

rivers, their mouths flanked by bank-to-bank weirs. 

In other situations, tidal weirs were constructed at a 

stream mouth so that salmon passed over the top of 

a rock wall when the tide was high but were blocked 

behind it as the water receded (Emmons 1991; De 

Laguna 1972). The walls at Kwáashk’ Héeni are likely 

evidence for one of these methods.

Today the settlement is no longer adjacent to an active 

creek and is above tidal range, suggesting that uplift 

of the shoreline has occurred, shifting the site upward 

and inland and eventually altering the stream flow so 

that it abandoned its channel adjacent to the house pits. 

The great earthquakes of 1899 caused tectonic changes 

around Yakutat Bay but there was little or no vertical 

displacement at Humpback Cove; therefore, isostatic 

rebound—land slowly rising after the weight of glacial 

ice was removed—was the likely cause. Isostatic uplift 

at the nearby North Knight Island Village site (YAK205) has been approximately 2 m since 1500 CE, so a 

similar or greater rise may have occurred over time at 

Kwáashk’ Héeni (Crowell 2023). The rock weirs might 

have been built one after the other as relative sea level 

declined in order to keep the trap system at the proper 

level in relation to the tides, with the oldest walls now 

located farthest inland. The site could have been used 

until the stream changed course.

To summarize, the Kwáashk’ Héeni site is potentially 

one of the most important cultural heritage resources 

in Yakutat Bay, with strong links to clan histories 

recounted in oral tradition. A remarkable set of features 

related to salmon harvesting appears to be preserved, 

and cultural layers at the site could provide a record of 

traditional lifeways and subsistence practices extending 

Figure 2. Map of Yakutat fiord showing locations of 

archaeological sites including winter villages, summer 

sealing camps, and Kwáashk’ Héeni (YAK-014)

Figure 3. Aerial view of Kwáashk’ Héeni showing clear-cut 

logging, house pits (yellow), rock walls (black lines), lines of 

boulders (black dots), and former stream channel (blue line). 

Drone photo and site interpretation courtesy of Defend Yakutat
 ASC Newsletter 7

back 700 years. Although the site has been clearcut, 

cultural features may still be largely intact and their 

preservation is of high importance to the Yakutat 

Tlingit Tribe and Sealaska Heritage Institute.

References

Crowell, Aron L. (2022) What “Really Happened”: A 

Migration Narrative from Southeast Alaska Compared 

to Archaeological and Geological Data. In Memory 

and Landscape: Indigenous Responses to a Changing 

North, edited by Ken Pratt and Scott Heyes, pp. 25-55. 

Athabasca University Press, Edmonton.

Crowell, Aron L. (2023). Laaxaayík: Near the 

Glacier: The Cultural Ecology and Archaeology of 

Yakutat Fiord, Alaska. Smithsonian Contributions 

to Anthropology, Smithsonian Scholarly Press, 

Washington, D.C. (in peer review).

De Laguna, Frederica (1972). Under Mt. St. Elias: 

The History and Culture of the Yakutat Tlingit. 

Smithsonian Contributions to Anthropology. 3 volumes. 

Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C.

De Laguna, Frederica, Francis A. Riddell, Donald 

F. McGeein, Kenneth S. Lane, J. Arthur Freed, and 

Carolyn Osborne (1964). Archaeology of the Yakutat 

Bay Area, Alaska. Smithsonian Institution Bureau of 

Ethnology Bulletin 192. Government Printing Office, 

Washington, D.C.

Sealaska Corporation (1975). Native Cemetery and 

Historic Sites of Southeast Alaska. Preliminary Report. 

Seattle: Wiley and Ham, Inc.

Swanton, John R. (1909). Tlingit Myths and Texts. 

Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office.

Thornton, Thomas F. (editor) (2012). Haa Léelk’w Hás 

Aaní Saax’ú: Our Grandparents’ Names on the Land. 

Juneau and Seattle: Sealaska Heritage Institute and 

University of Washington Press.

BATUK’ENELYASHI: NATURAL DYES FROM 

DENA'INA LANDS

By Dawn Biddison

“I really open my eyes to ‘What can I use for dyes?’ 

I’m just fascinated with just what our Earth supplies us 

with.”—June Simeonoff Pardue

In 2022, the Alaska Native Heritage Center (ANHC) 

collaborated on a project with the Alaska office of 

the Arctic Studies Center (ASC-AK) to perpetuate 

and strengthen Alaska Native knowledge of natural 

dyes stewarded for generations. The Batuk’enelyashi: 

Natural Dyes from Dena’ina Lands project included 

research and experimentation, a weeklong outdoor 

workshop led and attended by Alaska Native artists 

and students, and the production of educational videos 

and booklets. Master Artist June Simeonoff Pardue 

(Sugpiaq/Iñupiaq) was the lead instructor for the 

project, assisted by her granddaughter and apprentice 

Destinee VonScheele and by ASC-AK Museum 

Specialist Dawn Biddison. In addition to being 

June’s student, Dawn acted as the project manager, 

researcher, documenter/writer, videographer and editor. 

Key ANHC staff assistance was provided by Angie 

Demma, Curator of Collections and Exhibits.

The Batuk’enelyashi project was inspired by the work 

of renowned Yup’ik Elder and healer Rita Pitka 

Blumenstein, shared in the booklet Earth Dyes/

Nuunam Qaralirkai: Dyes for Grass Made from 

Natural Materials, edited by Jan Steinbright and 

published by the Institute of Alaska Native Arts (1984). 

June was a student in the 1983 grass dyeing workshop 

taught by Rita, which added to June’s knowledge about 

natural dyes learned from her mother Sophia Jane 

Johnson (daughter of Lucy Sagoonik and Daniel 

Bouchin) and from her own research over many years 

as an artist and teacher. 

June Simeonoff Pardue teaching students about barks 

and leaves to harvest for dyes, and teaching with her 

granddaughter and apprentice Destinee Von Scheele. Photos 

by Richard Perry, Alaska Native Heritage Center, May 2022
8 ASC Newsletter

Dawn began work for the project in March with online 

and library research, conversations with June, and 

planning meetings with Angie for the workshop on 

ANHC grounds. In early May, after leaf buds began 

to appear near June’s home outside of Sutton, inperson research, experimentation, and documentation 

began. June taught about sustainable harvesting 

and making and using natural dyes. Working with 

Destinee and Dawn, they harvested leaves and bark and 

defrosted hand-picked berries for dye baths, and they 

experimented with dyeing materials, including bearded 

seal intestine and commercially tanned moosehide, and 

with techniques like using baking soda as a modifier. 

June also began teaching Dawn how to hand-tan 

salmon skin and giving her homework so that she could 

also be documented for the project. 

After research and planning was completed, the 

project team held an outside workshop at ANHC in 

late May led by June and Destinee, where teaching 

and experimenting continued. There were four 

workstations set up for the instructors and twelve 

Alaska Native participants, an intergenerational group 

of artists and beginners. The long list of workshop 

supplies included aprons and gloves to protect clothing 

and hands; buckets, bags, pruning shears and peelers 

for harvesting; and for making and using dyes: pH 

paper, electric burners, pots, saucepans, potholders, 

spoons, tongs, strainers, bowls, mashers, measuring 

cups and spoons, alum as a mordant, cream of tartar 

as a mordant additive, baking soda and distilled white 

vinegar as modifiers, and paper towels. Students used a 

variety of plants to make dye baths and dyed a variety 

of materials. During the workshop, they harvested 

barks, leaves, dandelions and catkins. They also 

used defrosted blueberries, lingonberries (low-bush

cranberries) and black currants harvested and frozen 

in the fall, and devil’s club and stinging nettle buds 

harvested earlier in the spring and frozen. Students 

dyed a wide variety of materials, some provided and 

some brought from home: birch bark, caribou hair, 

commercially tanned deer hide, commercially tanned 

Canadian moose hide, porcupine quill, rye grass, 

commercially tanned Atlantic salmon skin, sockeye 

salmon skin, bearded seal intestine, silk fabric, spruce 

root, and merino wool yarn. Documentation forms 

with information categories were provided to students 

for taking notes about the dyeing process and results 

and for attaching samples, to help them with their 

own future dyeing projects and to help them improve 

techniques while experimenting.

Over the course of the project, June shared cultural 

values, detailed instructions, experimentation 

techniques and recommendations, and artists 

participating in the workshop shared materials with 

others and their dyeing experiments. The collaborative 

work and documentation resulted in three 

educational resources made available on the project’s 

Smithsonian Learning Lab website. Conversation, 

experimentation and workshop video footage yielded 

fifteen tightly edited videos with extensive detailed 

notes as text in interstitial title cards and in lowerthirds. The video titles are: Introduction, Meet 

Instructor June Simeonoff Pardue, Meet Apprentice 

Destinee VonScheele, About Harvesting, Harvesting 

Berries, Harvesting from Trees, Harvesting from 

Other Plants, Dye Bath Recipes with Berries, Dyeing 

with Berries, Dye Bath Recipes with Tree Bark, 

Dyeing with Tree Bark, Dye Bath Recipes & Dyeing 

with Leaves, Dye Bath Recipe & Dyeing with 

Cottonwood Catkins, Dye Bath Recipes & Dyeing 

Left: Reviewing labeled dye baths and dyed samples from the project workshop. Photo by Sarah Owens, Alaska Native 

Heritage Center, May 2022. Right: A dye bath made from wild lingonberries, also called low-bush cranberries, harvested in 

Alaska with baking soda added as a modifier and with alum and cream of tartar added as mordant. The name of the berries is 

written in Sugpiaq and English by June (Simeonoff) Pardue. Photo by Dawn Biddison at June’s home, April and May 2022
 ASC Newsletter 9

with Other Plants, and Hand-Tanning Salmon Skin 

& Adding Dye. The videos are also available on the 

Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center Alaska YouTube 

channel. The project website also provides a 46-

page educational booklet that includes: a forward by 

June; an introduction by Angie; information on how 

to harvest plants for making dyes, general dyeing 

notes—covering general preparations, preparing 

materials for dyeing, dye bath additives, dye bath 

temperatures, dyeing materials, using a modifier, 

rinsing and drying materials, and supplies lists—and 

detailed dye bath recipes written by Dawn based on 

June’s teaching; project photos; and eight pages for 

notes by readers. A 48-page booklet provides scans 

of annotated samples of materials dyed during the 

workshop. The website also includes PDFs about 

Alaska plants. 

In addition to the project website, outreach included 

statewide distribution of professionally printed 

booklets and DVD sets to Alaska cultural centers, 

museums, archives, libraries, Indigenous education 

and immersion schools, Alaska Native tribal 

organizations and workshop participants. Extensive 

email announcements were sent out, and during that 

week Dawn gave a presentation and materials to a 

University of Alaska Anchorage art class taught by 

June. Also, Dawn was contacted by staff at the UA 

Museum of the North at the University of Alaska 

Fairbanks to include the booklet and video links in 

a new teaching activities kit being developed for an 

interdisciplinary citizen science project that will reach 

K-12 teachers throughout Alaska. Future plans include 

a youth workshop led by June and Destinee at the 

2023 Elders & Youth Conference, which is part of the 

Alaska Federation of Natives Convention. 

“Essentially a teacher needs to let go and let the artist 

be the artist. Pass the knowledge along. Pass it down 

to the next generation. Pass it on to someone else. I 

think what I want to see in someone is that they can be 

as creative as they want. We have culture. Culture isn’t 

stagnant. It doesn’t stand still. And culture evolves.”—

June Simeonoff Pardue

The Batuk’enelyashi project was made possible through 

supporters of the Arctic Studies Center in Alaska and 

support from the Alaska Native Heritage Center, and it 

was made possible in part by a grant from the National 

Endowment for the Humanities: Sustaining Humanities 

through the American Rescue Plan in partnership with 

the Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries, and 

Museums. Note: “Any views, findings, conclusions, or 

recommendations expressed in this publication do not 

necessarily represent those of the Association of Tribal 

Archives, Libraries, and Museums or the National 

Endowment for the Humanities.”

DEVELOPING CONNECTIONS: ALASKA 

NATIVES AT THE CANADIAN ARCTIC ARTS 

SUMMIT

By Dawn Biddison

In January of 2022, the Inuit Art Foundation (IAF) 

asked the ASC Alaska office to collaborate again, this 

time on developing a program and grant for Alaska 

Native participation in the Arctic Arts Summit (AAS) 

at Whitehorse in June and for Alaska representation 

on the Summit website. Dawn Biddison worked 

closely with IAF Executive Director Alysa Procida to 

write a grant for the US Embassy in Canada’s Public 

Diplomacy grant program and it was awarded.

Alaska Native participants were researched and 

recommended by Dawn, and delegates were selected 

by IAF and AAS staff based on their engagement in 

cultural activism, arts practice(s) and their current/

recent job involvement with Alaska Native Heritage. 

Participants included: Darling Anderson (Unangax̂), 

Cultural Heritage Coordinator, Aleutian Pribilof 

Islands Association; Stephen Qacung Blanchett

(Yup’ik), Art Education Director for Juneau Arts and 

Humanities Council; Sven Haakanson (Sugpiaq), 

Curator of Native American Anthropology, Burke 

Museum; Nadia Jackinsky-Sethi (Sugpiaq), Program 

Officer, The CIRI Foundation; Emily Johnson

(Yup’ik), Choreographer/Director, Catalyst Dance and 

advisor to the First Nations Performing Arts Network; 

Princess Daazhraii Johnson (Gwich’in Athabascan), 

board member of Native Movement and NDN 

Collective; Sonya Kelliher-Combs (Iñupiaq, Koyukon 

Athabascan), former board member of the Institute 

of American Indian and Alaska Native Arts, Alaska 

Native Arts Foundation, and Alaska State Council 

on the Arts; Da-ka-xeen Mehner (Tlingit/N’ishga), 

Associate Professor of Native Arts and Director of the 

Native Arts Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks; 

Melissa Shaginoff (Athna Athabascan/Paiute), Alaska 

Native Place; and Tatiana Ticknor (Tlingit/Dena’ina/

Alaska delegates to the Arctic Arts Summit, (right to left) 

Da-ka-xeen Mehner, Melissa Shaginoff, Darling Anderson, 

Dawn Biddison, Nadia Jackinsky-Sethi, Sonya KelliherCombs and Emily Johnson (with partner IV Castellanos)
10 ASC Newsletter

Deg Hit’an Athabascan), Unguwat Resilience & 

Connections Program Coordinator, Alaska Native 

Heritage Center.

At the Summit, delegates participated in sessions with 

presenters from across the Arctic covering a broad 

range of topics: Centering Climate: International 

Collaboration, Cultural leadership, and Youth; 

Voices from the Land: Artists Speak; Duodji and 

Other Northern Craft Practices; Arctic Art in the 

Public: Transformative Platforms for Indigenous 

Voices; Cultural Revitalization: The Continuity of 

Our Traditional Practices; Artistic Creation through 

Research: Looking Back, Looking Forward; Waking 

Words: Revitalizing Languages Across the North; 

New Directions in Arts Education throughout the 

Arctic; Curatorial Practices around the Circumpolar 

World; and Land Defenders: Artists Confronting Arctic 

Colonialism. 

In addition to the June gathering, Alaska Natives and 

their work were represented on the Summit website. 

Dawn researched, developed and edited the Alaska 

“Spotlight” collection titled “Sharing Our Voices: 

Alaska Native Arts and Heritage” that presents 

eighteen posts. Nadia, a Summit delegate, contributed 

the posts “What is Alaska Native Museum 

Sovereignty?” and “ARTShops: An Alaska Native 

Arts Leadership Program.” Dawn also contributed 

seven posts, including a profile of Yup’ik artist Amber 

Webb, who advocates for missing and murdered 

Indigenous women and girls through art. Another post 

features the exhibition “Conversations of Ourselves” 

curated by Summit delegate Melissa Shaginoff. Dawn 

co-wrote four additional posts with writer Richard 

Perry (Yup’ik/Gwich’in Athabascan), including 

“Empowerment Through Culture: The Alaska 

Native Heritage Center” and “Renewals: Urban 

Unangax̂ Culture Camp.”

AHTNA COLLECTION ACCESS AND 

COMMUNITY OUTREACH: A PARTNERSHIP 

WITH NMAI

By Dawn Biddison

In the late winter/spring of 2022, Dawn Biddison was 

asked by Kelly McHugh, Head of Conservation for 

the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) 

and member of the Smithsonian’s Shared Stewardship 

and Ethical Returns implementation group, to submit 

a proposal for their Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies 

(MACP) program to facilitate collections-based 

collaboration with Alaska Natives. A large-scale, multigroup plan was submitted, which was revised down 

due to time constraints. The resulting ten-month project

Melissa Shaginoff, Agnes Denny, Dimi Macheras, Aaron 

Leggett and Jessica Denny discuss a Koyukon dog pack 

(161630.000) from the NMAI collection in the Living Our 

Cultures exhibition at the Anchorage Museum, November 

2022. Photo by Dawn Biddison

Agnes Denny and Melissa Shaginoff admire the crenelated 

bottom edge of an honor coat (E153754-0) likely made 

by an Ahtna skin sewer, based on specific design elements 

recognized by Agnes. Museum Support Center, NMNH, 

January 2023. Photo by Dawn Biddison

brings together an inter-generational group of Ahtna 

Athabascans to work on collections-based research 

and to develop a community project based on Ahtna 

interests for the benefit of their communities. 

The Ahtna project group is Kiana Carlson (Mitchell 

Hamline School of Law student; Denali National Park 

and Preserve cultural resources department), Agnes 

Denny (Chief of Chistochina; Tribal Administrator, 

Cheesh'na Tribal Council), Jessica Denny (Board of 

Directors, Ahtna Inc.; Adjunct faculty, Alaska Natives 

Studies, University of Alaska,), Dimi Macheras

(artist) and Melissa Shaginoff (cultural advocate, 

artist). In addition to Dawn and Kelly, the Smithsonian 

participants include interdepartmental staff. Project 

team members from NMAI are Michele Austin 
 ASC Newsletter 11

Dennehy (Conservation volunteer), Elizabeth Holford

(Conservator), Lavinia Lee (Conservation fellow), 

Emma Noffsinger (Program Specialist), Jen Shannon

(Program Manager, Curator), Nathan Sowry (Reference 

Archivist), NMAI project lead Tessa Shultz (Collections 

Care & Stewardship, Community Loans) and Emma 

Smith (Conservation fellow). The project has received 

assistance from National Museum of Natural History 

(NMNH) staff David Rosenthal (Collections Manager) 

and Carrie Beauchamp (Collections Data Manager), 

and from National Anthropological Archives staff 

Celia Emmelhainz (Director) and Daisy Njoku

(Media Archivist). Assistance has also been provided 

by Anchorage Museum staff: Aaron Leggett (Curator 

of Alaska History and Indigenous Cultures; President, 

Native village of Eklutna), Heather McClain (Photo 

Archivist), Janet Northey (Collections Manager), 

Monica Shah (Deputy Director, Conservation & 

Collections) and Julie Varee (Community Outreach 

Archivist).

The Athna group began monthly online meetings with 

Dawn in the fall of 2022. The group began reviewing 

notebooks containing research and documentation 

Dawn provided on navigating national and international 

online collections research to find both Ahtna heritage 

items and archival photographs, including institutional 

contacts. The group met online with NMAI and NMNH 

staff for introductions to their work and to the resources 

their departments offer. The group then focused on 

research and documentation with NMNH and NMAI 

collections, including items in the Living Our Cultures 

exhibition at the Anchorage Museum (AM). This work 

was in preparation for a week in November of inperson conversations, collections study and planning 

meetings in Anchorage, which also included time with 

Ahtna items in the AM collections. The group then 

shifted to gaining experience with virtual collections 

research in December, focused on Ahtna heritage items 

selected NMAI collections, which also contributed to 

preparations for a week of in-person research at NMAI 

and NMNH in January of 2023. Their experiences 

in Suitland inspired the Ahtna group to organize an 

online and in-person inter-village gathering of Ahtna 

people conducting cultural heritage work on behalf of 

their communities. The Anchorage “Ahtna Language 

and Culture Gathering” was hosted by the Cheesh’na 

Tribal Council in February and featured a presentation 

“Ahtna & Museums: Process & Experience.”

Throughout their online and in-person meetings, the 

Ahtna group worked with Dawn to discuss, document, 

and take action on recognizing and meeting community 

protocols, interests, needs and goals. Recommendations 

will be provided to NMAI, NMNH and NAA staff 

about specific heritage items, and in general, regarding 

cultural protocols and appropriate access. Across 

time together, the group developed ideas for multifaceted community outcomes to be completed in May 

that will include an outreach gift based on museum 

and community research and include comprehensive 

research documentation and museum resources to serve 

future Ahtna community-based work. In addition, there 

will be a presentation on the Smithsonian’s Learning 

Lab website that shares project stories and research, 

selected as culturally appropriate for the general public 

by the Ahtna group. The project will conclude with an 

in-person gathering at Chistochina in May to bring gifts 

and museum resources for the community.

UPDATE ON ALASKA BOARDING SCHOOL 

RESEARCH

By Ken Pratt

The “Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative” issued 

by Secretary Deb Haaland of the US Department 

of the Interior (DOI) in June 2021 promised a 

“comprehensive records assessment” intended to 

“identify all boarding schools that participated in the 

[Indian boarding school] Program and the students 

enrolled in each, along with each student’s Tribal 

affiliation.” These objectives underscore the initiative’s 

potential to assist Native American tribes seeking to 

repatriate the remains of former students who died and 

were buried at boarding schools. The initiative’s official 

period of concern is 1819 to 1969—but for Alaska 

its effective beginning date cannot be earlier than 

1867, the year the former Russian territory (“Russian 

America”) was sold to the US. 

Athna researchers (seated) Agnes Denny, Jessica Denny, 

Dimi Macheras, Melissa Shaginoff and Kiana Carlson with 

Athabascan heritage items from the NMAI collection, and 

with (standing) NMNH staff Dawn Biddison and NMAI 

staff Emma Smith, Kelly McHugh, Lavinia Lee and Michele 

Austin Dennehy. Cultural Resources Center, January 2023. 

Photo by Katherine Fogdon, NMAI
12 ASC Newsletter

In July 2021, Ken Pratt was designated the Bureau of 

Indian Affairs (BIA), Alaska Region, contact person for 

matters related to the initiative and immediately began 

researching and compiling information about former 

Alaska boarding schools. The main goal was to identify 

all boarding schools that had operated in Alaska, but 

various factors complicated that task, like the DOI’s 

initial failure to define the term “boarding school.” 

This left it unclear if “boarding homes,” orphanages, 

hospitals, or sanitariums—some of which housed 

Alaska Native children and received funding support 

from the Federal government—could appropriately 

be defined as boarding schools. In fact, quite a few 

boarding schools began 

as orphanages established 

in response to the impacts 

of epidemic diseases 

(e.g., measles/influenza 

[1899–1900], influenza 

[1918–1919]). Another 

impediment to identifying 

“boarding” schools is 

that many Alaska schools 

were run by churches, the 

associated records of which 

are housed in archives that 

can be difficult to access. 

Nonetheless, my research 

to date has revealed about 

55 boarding schools in 

Alaska between 1867 and 

1969. In contrast, DOI’s 

May 2022 “Federal Indian 

Boarding School Initiative 

Investigative Report” (p. 83) listed only 21 boarding 

schools in Alaska. Even though the DOI report focused 

on the entire US, not just Alaska, the large discrepancy 

between the two counts of Alaska boarding schools is 

significant. 

The question of how many cemeteries were associated 

with boarding schools in Alaska is also important. 

Many Alaska boarding school/orphanage sites have 

associated cemeteries, and some are known to include 

mass graves—nearly all of which resulted from 

infectious diseases that caused high mortalities at 

remote sites and left too few able-bodied people to bury 

the dead. In other words, mass burials were sometimes 

the only reasonable way to deal with the remains of the 

deceased. 

Cemeteries were not necessarily present at every 

Alaska boarding school but, generally, the longer a 

school operated the greater the chance that it had an 

associated cemetery. Even when evidence indicates a 

cemetery was present, however, its location relative 

to the school may not be specified; there also is no 

guarantee that a cemetery that once existed still exists 

today (e.g., some such cemeteries have been lost to 

erosion). Epidemics known to have caused deaths at or 

very near former boarding schools suggest those sites 

likely have associated cemeteries, but written records 

may be silent on that point. 

In most cases, verifying the presence (or continued 

existence) of a cemetery will require on-site work, 

which poses serious problems in Alaska. First, there is a 

high probability that all former Alaska boarding school 

sites are now in private ownership, requiring landowner 

permission to conduct any on-site work. Second, the 

majority of Alaska boarding 

schools were in remote 

locations inaccessible 

by road, so the costs of 

reaching the sites will be 

high. Finally, even in bestcase scenarios, the task of 

determining precise burial 

locations for individual 

students at boarding 

school cemeteries will 

be difficult—sometimes 

impossible—as well as 

very costly. It will require 

systematic archival research 

(mainly at facilities outside 

of Alaska), and probably 

supplemental groundpenetrating radar surveys. 

This begs the question 

of who will pay for all the necessary work? The DOI 

boarding school initiative is unfunded, and it also is not 

law. Consequently, implementation of the initiative is in 

doubt, and political changes could easily cause it to be 

abandoned. 

In Alaska, the DOI is not being relied upon to 

implement the initiative. The effort to take action on 

that front has been led by the Alaska Native Heritage 

Center: its staff has convened a major boarding school 

meeting, developed multiple related projects, and is 

immersed in invaluable research at church archives. 

But Alaska Native tribes, tribal consortia, corporations, 

and other organizations have also launched boarding 

school research and documentation projects. The BIA 

Alaska Region has funded many of these projects and 

hopes to continue supporting such efforts in the future. 

Akulurak was the site of a Catholic mission/orphanage 

and boarding school that operated from 1894 to 1951. 

It is located along Akulurak Pass near the south mouth 

of the Yukon River. The mission buildings were later 

dismantled. A cemetery was also present. Shallow 

July 2017. ANCSA 14(h)(1) Collection, Calista region 

digital photographs (Akulurak, P1010046), Bureau of 

Indian Affairs, Anchorage. Photo is by Ken Pratt 
 ASC Newsletter 13

permafrost underlies the site, so virtually all graves 

were surface burials. Permafrost freezing and thawing 

actions explain the tilting grave crosses and fenced 

grave enclosures seen in this image. Many of the 

estimated 70 graves now visible post-date the mission’s 

closure; numerous earlier graves are surely also present 

but have long since sunken beneath the ground, leaving 

no surface evidence. 

TOGETHER WE THRIVE: CULTURALLY 

RESPONSIVE SUSTAINING SCIENCE 

EDUCATION IN WASHINGTON, D.C. AND 

ALASKA 

By Margaret Benson and Aron 

Crowell

Measures of academic achievement 

in the sciences are low for African 

American and American Indian 

middle and secondary students 

across the country, and high school 

graduation rates for Black students 

in Washington DC (67%) and 

Alaska Native students in Alaska 

(68%) are about 20 points below 

the national average. Rural and 

urban students from these groups 

are systematically underserved by 

schools that often lack learning 

resources and teaching methods 

that can engage students in science 

by connecting to their own unique 

cultures and knowledge traditions. 

In response to this need, staff 

across several Smithsonian units 

have partnered on a research 

and applied education project, 

“Culturally Responsive Sustaining 

Science Education” (CRSSE). 

CRSSE is a two-year project 

supported by a $528,000 

Together We Thrive grant from 

the Smithsonian’s Office of the 

Undersecretary for Education 

that aims to produce culturally 

responsive science curricula and 

experiences for K-12 students in 

Alaska and Washington, DC. The 

research objective is to develop 

and evaluate a framework for 

collaboration and co-creation with 

teachers and other stakeholders that 

can serve as model for Smithsonian 

educational partnerships with communities.

Culturally responsive and culturally sustaining 

teaching practices center the knowledge of traditionally 

marginalized communities in classroom instruction 

and result in students being empowered as lifelong 

learners and critical thinkers (Will and Najarro 2022). 

Implementation of culturally responsive pedagogies 

has shown promise in classrooms around the country 

(NYCDE 2022), including projects originating at the 

Smithsonian. The approach also serves to address the 

"invisibility and erasure of Native Americans in all 

aspects of modern US society" (Cultural Survival 2018) 

and the "lack of education about Black people, their 

lives, societal contributions, and their histories in the 

American Narrative" (Armstrong 2022). 

Building on established 

relationships, outreach programs, 

and museum and digital spaces 

such as Learning Lab and Q?rius, 

the project team will collaborate 

with and learn from innovative 

community educators who are 

already “doing the work” in this 

vital area. Through the CRSSE 

project, we will identify what 

resources teachers need and 

what would be relevant to their 

students, connecting them to 

Smithsonian collections and 

resources that they can incorporate 

into their practice. We have 

observed that the natural sciences 

and humanities and the big 

questions posed in those fields, 

from global warming, evolution, 

and biodiversity to ways of 

knowing and understanding 

humanity’s relationship to local 

places and the planetary biome, 

are often overlooked in standard 

K-12 curricula. We hope that these 

themes can emerge as students are 

empowered to explore their worlds 

informed by cultural knowledge 

as well as scientific modes of 

learning and explanation. 

The Smithsonian team brings 

unique perspectives and 

experience to this work. The core 

project group includes staff from 

the education office at the National 

Museum of Natural History 

(Margaret Benson and Nicole 

Webster), the Arctic Studies 

Center in Anchorage, Alaska (Aron Crowell and Dawn 

The CRSE project will enhance experiences 

and resources at the Smithsonian project 

partner sites, like Q?rius, to offer more 

culturally responsive ways to engage 

students in examining and exploring 

natural history science

Students in Ketchikan, Alaska, try out large 

cedar whistles they made with Tsimshian 

instructor John Hudson (second from 

left in back). Hollowing out the interior 

chambers of the whistles taught principles 

of sound production. CRSSE highlights 

the Indigenous knowledge and science 

behind traditional designs. Photo by Dawn 

Biddison
14 ASC Newsletter

Biddison), the NMNH Department of Anthropology’s 

Recovering Voices Program (Gwyneira Isaac and 

Laura Sharp), the NMNH Repatriation Office 

(Dorothy Lippert), and the National Zoo and 

Conservation Biology Institute (Erika Novak). As 

Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch said, the “great 

strength of museums [brings] people of different 

backgrounds, experiences, and beliefs together... 

Museums create informal communities of learning, 

helping people recognize how much we share, despite 

our differences, and how much those differences can 

help us grow.” This concept of the Smithsonian’s 

community role will guide our work with a wide 

variety of education partners.

In Alaska, we have begun by undertaking a landscape 

survey of pilot CRSSE programs around the state, 

many newly launched with Alaska Native Education 

grants from the U.S. Department of Education. 

Through this process, we will learn from influential 

practitioners, identify partners, understand needs, 

and form working groups for collaboration. Some 

organizations such as Sealaska Heritage Institute 

are long-standing ASC education partners; in other 

instances, such as Upward Bound/Teaching Through 

Technology, Knik Tribe, Inc., the Yukon-Koyukuk 

School District, and Tyonek Tribal Conservation 

District, we are reaching out to make new connections. 

With the support of a professional development 

fellowship from The CIRI Foundation, Alaska Native 

Yale graduate student Nyché Andrew is working with 

ASC to conduct information gathering interviews with 

project leaders at these organizations. 

The early, necessary work of a landscape review 

and outreach is underway in Washington, D.C. as 

well, supported in part by a Dumbarton Oaks Fellow, 

Idabelle Paterson. We are connecting with other 

D.C.-based museums, educational organizations, 

universities, and individuals to learn more about 

the needs, opportunities, and barriers relating to the 

implementation of science instruction, culturally 

responsive teaching, and the intersection of the 

two. This work will inform the second phase of our 

grant, which will be to provide support for culturally 

responsive-sustaining teacher training and co-creation 

of science education resources. The onboarding of an 

outreach coordinator and an evaluator in the coming 

weeks will kick outreach and learning into high gear in 

the coming months. 

Armstrong, A.L. (2022, February 23). Why 

representation of Black and African Americans in 

Education Materials Matter. New America. 

Cultural Survival. (2018, June 27). Research reveals 

America’s’ attitudes about Native People and Native 

issues.

National School Board Association (NSBA). (2020, 

June 23). Black students in the condition of 

education 2020.

NYC Department of Education. (n.d.). Culturally 

responsive-sustaining education.

Will, M. & Najarro, I. (2022, April 18). What is 

Culturally Responsive Teaching? Education Week.

Anchorage School District middle school students meet 

Athabascan master snowshoe builder George Albert at the 

Arctic Studies Center. Students prepared for the visit by 

studying how the webbed shoes spread a person’s weight 

to keep them from sinking into the snow, an example of 

culturally responsive science education. 

Photo by Wayde Carroll

The CRSE project aims to increase students' engagement 

with conservation and natural history sciences by 

enhancing K-12 programs to be more culturally responsive, 

including digital programs, virtual field trips, and online 

resources
 ASC Newsletter 15

NEWS

FROM NORTHWEST TO SOUTHEAST 

(ALASKA): A NEW HOME AND JOB

By Amy Phillips-Chan

Late October rain darkened the skies as our five-yearold son perched on boxes of books as we drove to 

Nome Harbor. When the metal Conex offices of Alaska 

Marine Lines appeared at the top of the hill, I let out 

a sigh of relief that we were in time for the last barge 

of the season out of Nome. Saying goodbye carries a 

poignancy that speaks to departures. For us, it wasn’t 

the things we were leaving 

behind, it was the friends 

with whom we had raised our 

children, our Elder neighbors, 

the library, coffee shop, and 

post office that seemed more 

like extensions of our home 

than places of business. 

During my tenure as Director 

of the Carrie M. McLain 

Memorial Museum from 2015 

to 2022, I was honored and 

humbled to play a small part in 

continuing the legacy of caring 

for and sharing the rich culture 

and history of the Bering 

Strait region. The Smithsonian 

Arctic Studies Center (ASC) 

played a pivotal role in the 

sinuous path that took our 

family to Nome, a tight-knit 

and resourceful community of 

3,500 located on the traditional 

homeland of the Inupiat. I 

first learned about plans for 

a new museum in Nome in 

2014 while visiting ivory 

carvers for a collaborative 

publication in partnership with the ASC. This book was 

eventually published in 2021 as Our Stories Etched 

in Ivory / Qulip’yugut Iksiaqtuumaruat Tuugaami: 

The Smithsonian Collections of Engraved Drill Bows 

with Stories from the Arctic, ed. Amy Phillips-Chan, 

Contributions to Circumpolar Anthropology, Volume 

10, Arctic Studies Center, Washington, D.C.

A brief conversation in 2014 with Nome city 

administration turned into a job, a relocation, and a 

whirlwind couple of years as we raced to complete a 

collections inventory and move to a new facility in the 

Kegoayah Kozga Public Library and Katirvik Cultural 

Center, completed in 2016. Over 70 community 

members and organization partners joined us to bring 

historical treasures out of the storerooms and into an 

engaging space that communicates the vitality of the 

region. This exhibit journey and its many participants 

are retraced in the article “Bering Strait Narratives 

and Collaborative Processes of Exhibit Development 

in Nome, Alaska” by Amy Phillips-Chan in Alaska 

Journal of Anthropology, 2020, Volume 18(1): 23-

50. Historical photographs in the exhibit, as well 

as additional images from the Bering Strait region, 

are shared in NOME (2019) by Amy Phillips-Chan, 

Arcadia Publishing, Charleston, SC. 

2017 passed in a blur as the 

Museum pursued its second 

phase of exhibit development, 

while at home we welcomed 

the arrival of our son. A grand 

reopening followed in the 

fall with traditional dancing, 

singing, and a community 

feast. Eager to share our 

new space with partners and 

community members, we 

hosted the Museums Alaska–

Alaska Historical Society 

Conference in 2018 and 

the Alaska Anthropological 

Association Annual Meeting 

in 2019. The conferences 

brought almost 300 

community members to Nome 

for hands-on workshops, 

sessions, film screenings, 

and excursions out onto the 

tundra and sea. The Museum 

and AkAA were honored to 

partner with the ASC during 

the 2019 conference by 

offering a keynote lecture 

by Dr. Igor Krupnik and a series of events featuring 

international speakers for a centennial celebration 

of the Fifth Thule Expedition, whose papers were 

published in Alaska Journal of Anthropology, 2021, 

Volume 19(1-2).

Arrival of the COVID-19 virus in Alaska in March 

2020 prompted closure of the museum. Over the next 

several months, staff organized collections, worked on 

writing projects, and explored opportunities to remain 

engaged with the community. In September 2020, 

we launched an oral history initiative to document 

community pandemic experiences. A few months 

later, we began a Bering Strait artist initiative to 

Alaska State Libraries, Archives & Museums team 

members gather for a photograph in the atrium of the 

Andrew P. Kashevaroff Building in Juneau in 2022
16 ASC Newsletter

create works relating to the pandemic. Over the next 

two years, community members, artists, and poets 

created “Stronger Together” in which artworks were 

paired with an historic review of pandemics in the 

Bering Strait region, later to be published as Stronger 

Together: Bering Strait Communities Respond to 

the COVID-19 Pandemic, ed. Amy Phillips-Chan, 

University of Alaska Press, Fairbanks, AK (in press).

The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) 

supported organizations during the pandemic through 

CARES Act Grants for Museums and Libraries. The 

museum was fortunate to receive funding through 

this program to launch an interactive eMuseum to 

increase access to cultural resources. During the 

summer of 2022, the museum was wrapping up 

object photography and preparing work with culture 

and language specialists for the IMLS project when 

I learned of the retirement of the prior Director of 

the Alaska State Libraries, Archives, and Museums 

(ASLAM) in Juneau.

In November 2022, I joined the Alaska State Libraries, 

Archives, & Museums as Director working with an 

exceptional team on the traditional homeland of the 

Áak’w Kwáan. ASLAM is a division of the Alaska 

Department of Education and Early Development 

(DEED). Our division supports approximately 50 fulltime staff in Juneau and Sitka. Facilities include the 

Andrew P. Kashevraoff Building in Juneau completed 

in 2016 and home to the Alaska State Library, Alaska 

State Archives, and Alaska State Museum, the Sheldon 

Jackson Museum in Sitka whose original concrete 

structure was built in 1895, and the Stratton Library, 

also in Sitka, constructed in 1974. 

ASLAM promotes and coordinates library services in 

Alaska, preserves government records, and collects, 

cares for, and exhibits the diverse cultural and natural 

heritage of our state. We offer visitors an opportunity 

to browse publications related to Alaska history, 

research Alaskan newspapers on microfilm, or grab 

the latest issue of the Juneau Empire and settle into a 

comfortable chair in the Richard Foster Reading Room. 

Core services include reference and research assistance 

on Alaskan subjects for state agencies, schools, and the 

general public. 

We also offer grants and educational support to libraries 

across the state for operations, technology, and early 

childhood literacy. 

The Alaska State Archives first opened to the public 

in 1972 and today includes a public research room, 

collections storage area, and archival processing 

spaces. The State Archives preserves and provides 

access to government records that document Alaska 

history, offers digital imaging and microfilm services, 

and assists researchers looking for information on 

topics from territorial records and the office of the 

governor to commerce and fish and game. The Alaska 

State Museum was established in 1900 when an 

Act of Congress created the Historical Library and 

Museum for the District of Alaska. The museum 

and its collection squeezed into various spaces until 

1967 when the state constructed a dedicated building 

in honor of the centennial purchase of Alaska from 

Russia. Today, the Alaska State Museum includes 

interactive museum galleries, a state-of-the-art 

conservation lab, exhibit design and fabrication shop, 

and a collections storage area that offers community 

members hands-on access to almost 30,000 historical 

and cultural objects. Special exhibits are developed 

in collaboration with Alaskan artists and educational 

organizations, including the recent shows Midnight 

at the Fireworks Stand (2022) by Alison Bremner

Nax̲shag̲eit and Visceral: Verity, Legacy, Identity

(2023) featuring the work of artist and curator Sonya 

Kelliher-Combs.

The Sheldon Jackson Museum was founded in 1888 

to house an invaluable collection of Alaska Native 

heritage items that were gathered by the missionary 

and General Agent of Education for Alaska, Rev. Dr. 

Sheldon Jackson. The State of Alaska purchased the 

museum from Sheldon Jackson College in 1985. The 

museum cares for around 6,500 objects that are closely 

studied by local youth and Alaska Native communities. 

The Alaska Native Artist Residency program began 

in 1988 and offers artists an opportunity to study the 

collection and discuss their culture and work with 

visitors.

In my role as Director of ASLAM I am fortunate to 

work with team members across the division and help 

facilitate the educational programs and services that our 

organization offers. I am also honored to be continuing 

the important work of fostering relationships with 

communities and organizations to advance new 

understandings of the deep history and rich cultural 

heritage of Alaska. 

Sincere appreciation to Bill Fitzhugh for inviting 

me to share my experiences in Nome and the recent 

transition to Juneau. I discovered tracing the past years 

through titles of projects and publications offered a 

helpful guide to those treasured years with the people 

of the Bering Strait region. We are looking forward to 

upcoming projects featuring artists from the Bering 

Strait region. One of the truly special aspects of Alaska 

is that despite its huge geography we are truly an 

interconnected community thankful to call this place 

home.
 ASC Newsletter 17

DAWN BIDDISON RECEIVES SMITHSONIAN 

RESEARCH PRIZE

1 December 2022

Dear Ms. Biddison,

Each year, the 

Smithsonian Congress 

of Scholars works 

with me to present 

the Secretary’s 

Research Prizes, 

which recognize and 

promote excellence in 

scholarship across the 

Smithsonian. These 

pan-Institutional 

awards reflect the 

diversity of research 

disciplines at the Smithsonian.

I am pleased to inform you that you have been selected 

to receive one of these awards for your work, Voices 

from Cedar. The Congress of Scholars organized the 

nomination review committee under the direction of Dr. 

Josh T. Franco of the Archives of American Art and Dr. 

Rossman Irwin of the National Air and Space Museum. 

From those nominated, the review committee forwarded 

your project for consideration. I will announce the 

awards soon in a Smithsonian-wide announcement. We 

will celebrate this award and your accomplishments at 

a ceremony on the morning of Wednesday, December 

14 from 8:30 to 11:00 a.m. in the National Museum of 

Asian Art’s Meyer Auditorium. I am delighted to award 

you with this prize in recognition of your contributions 

to the mission of the Smithsonian Institution, and I 

congratulate you on your work.

Sincerely, Lonnie Bunch, Secretary, Smithsonian 

Institution 

[Editor’s note: Dawn is the Museum Specialist at 

the Alaska ASC Office. Since 2002, she has worked 

with Alaska Native Elders, scholars, culture-bearers, 

and artists on collaborative heritage projects, which 

began with museum exhibition and website work 

and continues with community-based documentation 

and revitalization residencies, workshops, and public 

programs. Examples of this work are available online 

at the Smithsonian Learning Lab website Smithsonian 

Arctic Studies Center in Alaska and on YouTube at 

Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center Alaska channel.] 

THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC IN UUMMANNAQ 

GREENLAND

By Rene Kristensen

During the COVID-19 pandemic from 2020 to 2022 

in Greenland was handled by travel restrictions, 

lockdowns, local quarantine measures, and vaccination 

programs. After the pandemic’s uncontrolled spread 

across Europe and Denmark in early 2020 the 

Government of Greenland quickly restricted all travel 

in and out of Greenland, and those restrictions lasted 

for two years for all non-vital travel. Only people with 

important tasks and vital functions such as doctors, 

nurses, special engineers, construction workers, 

and police were permitted to enter Greenland. The 

population was advised not to travel out of Greenland, 

and for many months it was not even possible to buy 

a ticket. To travel, you had to have taskforce approval 

before you could buy a ticket.

The number of flights to and from Greenland 

was limited, and they were limited to about half 

capacity. Strict quarantine rules and testing applied 

to all travelers entering Greenland. Travel within 

Greenland was regulated in accordance with local 

outbreaks, and in these cases the town or settlement 

was quarantined until the virus was under control. 

In Uummannaq during the first year we only had 

one case of COVID-19, which was introduced by a 

nurse. She was quarantined and no further spread 

occurred.

Greenland is particularly vulnerable to pandemics due 

to its infrastructure and geographical spread of the 

population in small settlements with limited resources 

for treatment and medical care. The Greenland Health 

Authority’s overall strategy was to shield Greenland 

against the virus for as long as possible and at the 

same time run vaccination programs to boost general 

immunity. I believe this strategy was a great success. 

Greenland did not suffer many deaths directly linked 

to the Covid-19. Most of the population had two or 

three vaccinations by the time the virus spread widely 

Dawn Biddison

John Hudson displays cedar rattles
18 ASC Newsletter

across Greenland in the fall of 2021 and winter of 

2022. The vaccination program was conducted with 

help from the Danish Navy, which during the summer 

months of 2021, sailed around Greenland with a 

team of doctors and nurses to reach all the small 

settlements.

In Uummannaq, vaccination was conducted from 

the Medical Center. We did not experience the 

spread of Covid-19 locally before Christmas 

2021 and during the first months of 2022. Almost 

everyone got sick, but because of the successful 

vaccination program most people only had mild or 

moderate symptoms. Only a few were hospitalized.

The lockdown of Greenland had a huge impact 

on tourism—almost no tourists came for two 

years, and most tourist operators had to close 

their businesses. Some developed activities for 

locals, and others took advantage of the break 

to upgrade and renovate. Restaurants and other 

businesses associated with tourism suffered as 

well. The fishing Industry, which is the main 

source of income in Greenland, faced a decreased 

demand due to closed restaurants in most of the 

world. Stocks of fish and shrimp piled up in 

freezer houses and the price of fish products went 

down. All businesses affected by the Covid-19 

were compensated by the Government. Besides 

the impact on tourism and the fishing, the 

situation mostly had an impact on those who often 

travel abroad and of course the ability for the 

population to go on vacation outside Greenland. 

Daily life locally in a town like Uummannaq was 

not much affected. We did not have many rules 

and restrictions. The supplies of food and other 

necessities were more or less unchanged.

The Health Authorities campaigned for good 

hygiene standards, maintaining social distance, 

and not getting together with too many people 

for indoor activities. Mandatory wearing of facial 

masks was only imposed a few times and for short 

periods. The only place where facial masks were 

mandatory was on domestic and international 

flights and in airports and hospitals.

Recovery from the two years of isolation has from 

my perspective been rapid and positive. During 

2022 travel returned to normal, tourism boomed in 

summer 2022, and the fishing industry recovered. 

There is no doubt that the pandemic had a huge 

economic impact. But compared to many other 

countries, my experience is that we were spared the 

long-term unpleasant restrictions in our daily lives 

suffered by many people all over the world, and we 

did not suffer many deaths.

WILLIAM HONEYCHURCH RECEIVES 

MONGOLIAN POLAR STAR AWARD

Excerpted from Yale News

In November, Yale archaeologist William 

Honeychurch received the Order of the Polar Star 

from Mongolia—the highest civilian honor the 

country’s government bestows on foreign citizens. In 

accepting the award, Honeychurch joined esteemed 

company: Barack Obama, John McCain, and Hillary 

Clinton are among the other Americans to receive 

the honor. Honeychurch first visited Mongolia as a 

Peace Corps volunteer in 1991, when the country 

was transitioning to democracy. He began forging 

relationships with Mongolian archaeologists, teaching 

them English as they taught him about their work. He 

returned after earning his doctorate and has worked in 

the country ever since, focusing his research on ancient 

nomadic political organization in East and Central 

Asia. Honeychurch spoke with Yale News about the 

challenges of performing archaeological fieldwork over 

vast spaces—hundreds of square kilometers—and his 

anthropological approach to archaeology. 

Congratulations on the honor. What does it mean to 

you? William Honeychurch: “I’m deeply grateful. I 

see it as recognition of my research in Mongolia and 

my efforts to create valuable information about what 

life was like in Mongolia’s ancient nomadic societies 

to raise the country’s profile. Mongolia is a thriving 

democracy that borders Russia and China, yet it 

receives very little attention globally. I’m very thankful 

to my partners and colleagues in Mongolia who have 

supported me all these years. As a scientist, I examine 

the country’s history and prehistory. I also strive to 

forge relationships between Yale and the National 

University of Mongolia. Every summer, I take Yale 

students to Mongolia to do fieldwork, introducing them 

directly to the country’s continuing pastoral nomadic 

tradition. And I bring Mongolian students to Yale 

William Honeychurch
 ASC Newsletter 19

to study. I think this award presents an opportunity 

to strengthen these ties and find new ways for Yale 

scholars to work with counterparts in Mongolia.” 

What types of research questions do you explore?

Honeychurch: “I study the Xiongnu, who formed the 

first major Mongolian state under the leadership of 

Shanyu Modun beginning in about the third century 

B.C. It was a pastoral nomadic state, which for 

anthropologists is a difficult concept to understand: How 

was it that mobile herders created a state? It’s an issue 

that archaeologists refer to as ‘emergent complexity,’ 

which concerns how societies become differentiated, 

unequal, and specialized. So, an interesting question 

is, how does that work with horse nomads? If mobility 

is built into your culture, that means your economy, 

politics, and urban models are different from sedentary 

models of those same things. I study the idea that a 

mobile culture will format its entire society differently 

than a more sedentary culture.” 

Yale archaeologists take an anthropological approach to 

their work. How does that differ from other approaches? 

Honeychurch: “In many places, archaeology is 

treated as a primarily historical discipline. When you 

study archaeology that way, you basically restrict 

yourself to supplementing the historical record of one 

location or culture. In approaching my work from an 

anthropological perspective, I’m not just interested in 

augmenting Mongolia’s historical record, though I find 

that record fascinating. I’m broadly interested in human 

beings. I’m studying pastoral nomadic state formation 

in Mongolia to inform our understanding of how states 

arose in different places by different processes such as in 

Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Peru. What are the differences 

between these various processes and trajectories for 

state formation? What do those differences say about 

humanity? When my Mongol students come to Yale and 

learn this fairly new approach, they return home and 

share it with colleagues and students there. It’s helping 

archaeologists in Mongolia to understand their country’s 

prehistory in a new way. That’s powerful.”

ARKHAIOS CULTURAL HERITAGE AND 

ARCHAEOLOGY FILM FESTIVAL

By Pegi Jodry

In October, during Archaeology Heritage Month, 

the Arkhaios Cultural Heritage and Archaeology 

Film Festival celebrated its 10th anniversary. Festival 

founder and director, Jean F. Guilleux, an avocational 

archaeologist, created this popular educational threeday event, which is one of only two film festivals 

devoted exclusively to archaeology and culture. In 

his native Europe, there are more than a dozen. The 

goal of Arkhaios is to freely showcase the discoveries 

of past cultures gained through ethnological and 

archaeological research to a diverse public audience via 

documentary films. 

Arkhaios is sponsored by the South Carolina Institute 

of Archaeology and Anthropology, the Departments of 

Anthropology at the University of South Carolina, the 

University of Pittsburgh, the Society of Pennsylvania 

Archaeology, the Explorer’s Club, and the Friends of 

Arkhaios. Events in 2022 included a Virtual Edition 

in addition to in-person screening at the University of 

Pittsburgh’s Frick Fine Arts Building and the Florence 

County Museum in South Carolina. Twenty-four films 

from fifteen countries presented aspects of eighteen 

cultures. 

Of these, fourteen films were selected for official juried 

competition. Smithsonian Research Associate, Pegi 

Jodry, served as the 2022 Jury President, working 

alongside archaeologists, visual anthropologists, and 

filmmakers: Karl Heider, Kimberley Cavanagh, 

Robert Clift, and Jim Spirek. 

Kromdraai, Children from the Cradle of Humankind

by Director Cedric Robion (France) won the Award 

for Best Archaeology film in which Jose Braga leads 

an interdisciplinary team that unearthed the remains 

of two children, one Human and the other the oldest 

Paranthropus ever found, while carefully piecing 

together the complex geomorphological record of these 

discoveries.

Award for the Best Underwater Film was given to 

Director Marie Thiry (France) for The Mystery of 

Cosquer Cave. Only accessible through an underwater 

entrance, Cosquer Cave is adorned with paleolithic 

paintings nearly 27,000 years old that are threatened 

by a rising Mediterranean Sea. A team of divers, 

Mongolian and American students excavate a 3,000-year-old 

Slab Burial culture tomb
20 ASC Newsletter

archaeologists, hydrologists, digitization specialists, 

and artists work together to recreate a magnificent 

replica of this cave, which can now be enjoyed by a 

non-diving public, thus creating a permanent record of 

ancient artwork that may be erased by sea water in the 

years ahead.

The Festival Grand Prize, as well as the Award for 

Best Cultural Heritage Film, was given to Oath of 

Cyriac by Director Olivier Bourgeois (Andorra). This 

docudrama chronicles the true story of a small group 

of archaeologists, museum curators, and administrators 

at the National Museum of Aleppo, who heroically 

struggled to preserve, rehouse, and thrice transport 

more than 50,000 antiquities during the recent Syrian 

conflict. The museum personnel, who literally placed 

their lives on the line to save the museum collections, 

tell their own moving stories in a series of interviews, 

re-enactments, and historic newsreel footage. The 

film ends on a hopeful note, as objects are returned to 

renovated museum exhibits in 2017. Recent earthquake 

devastation in Aleppo (February 2023) highlights the 

sobering power of this film and ongoing difficulties at 

the National Museum.

Upon completion of Jury President responsibilities, 

Pegi Jodry was invited to join the Arkhaios Board of 

Directors in 2023. Her Paleoindian research activities 

this year included an in-person keynote address 

delivered at the First Floridian Conference on Cultural 

Heritage, Natural Resources and Land Stewardship 

of Apalachee, Chesapeake and Galveston Bays at the 

Historic Monticello Opera House, March 4th-5th. This 

was a wonderful opportunity to highlight the protection 

of world-class late Pleistocene cultural resources 

along the Aucilla River threatened by commercial 

land development, meanwhile connecting face-to-face 

(following COVID-19 restrictions) with friends and 

colleagues, old and new.

MY TRAVELS FROM THE ARCTIC 

STUDIES CENTER TO THE ASIAN PACIFIC 

AMERICAN CENTER 

By Andrea Kim Neighbors

In 2003, I started my first museum internship at the 

Arctic Studies Center under the mentorship of William 

Fitzhugh. I had just returned to the United States after 

a semester abroad in Oulu, Finland, where I spent six 

months learning about contemporary issues in the 

circumpolar north and the history and cultures of Sámi 

and Roma peoples. The semester abroad was my first 

time in the north, and I quickly fell in love with the 

climate, cultures, and people that enrich the region. I 

was an eager cultural anthropology student and wanted 

to seek out additional learning opportunities outside 

of the classroom, which is how I learned about the 

Arctic Studies Center. As an intern, I was excited to 

learn more about the Center’s everyday work and 

research. Being there both demystified museum work 

while also introducing me to new understandings of 

how anthropology is practiced in a professional setting 

outside of academia. As a first-generation college student 

learning about the field while gaining new skills in 

operating in a professional environment, the internship 

was an invaluable experience that I reflect on regularly.

I had the great privilege of returning to ASC in the 

summer of 2004 to join an archaeological research 

trip to Mongolia with Bill and a team of American 

and Mongolian archaeologists and botanists. It was 

truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Being in 

Ulaanbaatar, Murun, and other beautiful sites around 

and between these cities and towns helped me see, 

feel, and experience Mongolia’s ancient and modern 

Andrea in Mongolia in 2004. 

Photo by J. Bayarsaikhan
 ASC Newsletter 21

connections to Central Asia, East Asia, and Russia. 

The applied experience of being on an archaeological 

dig for the first time and learning directly from leading 

archaeology researchers expanded my understanding 

of Mongolia’s connections to the circumpolar north. I 

remember, very clearly, the awe-inspiring experience of 

standing next to deer stones, with beautifully intricate 

carvings of deer swirling around the column to the top 

of the stone, which sometimes had representations of 

human faces on top. Being at these sites while meeting 

Mongolian herders, cooks, drivers, and families along 

the way, exchanging smiles and laughs without a 

shared language, was a humbling point of connection. I 

recall one personal memory that speaks to my roots—

one of our drivers named Zagdaa asked our translator, 

Adiya, why I was rude and not speaking Mongolian to 

them. Adiya told me Zagdaa thought I was Mongolian. 

I’ll never forget his husky laugh, his pranks, the time he 

stopped driving to pull over to a goat herd and have me 

hold a baby goat for a picture, and how tearful I was to 

say goodbye to him.

Mongolia was personally impactful, and the internship 

experience there pivoted my academic interests. I am 

a mixed-race Korean American woman. As a child, 

Mongolia was always in family discussions about our 

ancestral roots. As a fifth grader, I recall having to 

complete a flag showing our ancestry for homework. 

I had half of the flag indicating the American flag, 

while the other half was a mix of the South Korean and 

Mongolian flags. 

From ASC, I entered the University of Alaska 

Fairbanks as a graduate student in cultural 

anthropology. The internship at ASC was just the 

beginning of additional research I wanted to pursue 

in the north and Asia. My research questions took 

me to the Russian Far East, specifically Vladivostok 

and Khabarovsk, where I wanted to learn more about 

international adoption practices between Russian 

and the United States, moratoriums on adoptions, 

and how global politics were affecting concepts of 

childhood. This research stemmed from the internship 

in Mongolia—seeing houseless children in the streets 

of Ulaanbaatar, juxtaposed with children living in 

rural areas with families, which made me want to 

learn more about children’s experiences in post-Soviet 

regions in Asia.

The research in the Russian Far East was a 

challenging experience. Listening to social workers, 

orphaned children, and caretakers talk about the 

traumas and politics of adoption, and having children 

cared for in society, made me realize I am not the 

right person to be doing this work. It was not my 

lived experience. This research needed the right 

expertise and cultural connections to more justly 

and responsibly care for the topic. While I gained 

new skills and insights that have stayed with me, I 

needed to move on from this research. So, I ended 

my academic anthropology career and took time to 

process what I wanted to do, which was not easy but 

necessary. I wanted to return to museums in a public 

education capacity, which is how I returned to the 

Smithsonian but to a different unit, the Asian Pacific 

American Center (APAC).

I came to APAC from The Wing Luke Museum of 

the Asian Pacific American Experience in Seattle, 

Washington, and The Phillips Collection, in 

Washington, D.C. I served as a museum educator for 

eight years at these two museums, leading in-gallery 

learning experiences for K-12 students, facilitating 

teacher workshops, and practicing object-based 

learning daily. I learned what teachers need and want 

from museums and how schools and museums can be 

essential partners in building a learning community that 

involves community members, caregivers, and more. 

I am honored to bring these experiences and my rich 

experiences from ASC to APAC, where I’ve served 

as Head of Education for the last six years. At APAC, 

I am honored to work with K-12 teachers across the 

United States and the Pacific, and Asian American, 

Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) 

Zagdaa, one of our 2004 Mongolian drivers. 

Photo by J. J. Bayarsaikhan
22 ASC Newsletter

artists, community leaders, scholars, and more, to bring 

AANHPI to learners everywhere. People often ask 

me who we consider Asian American, and it’s a long, 

often complex answer. We consider Asian Americans as 

people from East Asian, South Asian, Southeast Asian, 

West Asian, and Central Asian diasporas. We do not 

have strong connections to Central Asian communities 

in the United States. I’ve learned that the Mongolian 

American community in the D.C. Metro Area has 

grown over the years. I’m hopeful that we may build a 

connection with them soon.

Returning to the Smithsonian has been a wonderful 

“full-circle” moment, one twenty years in the making. 

While my work now differs from how I started in 

this field of museum work, with many great and 

challenging lessons learned in between, I am incredibly 

proud that my career started at the Smithsonian and the 

Arctic Studies Center.

Editor’s note: Andrea is Head of Education at the Asian 

Pacific American Center, Smithsonian Institution.

MEET THE SMITHSONIAN SCIENTIST 

STUDYING THE MONGOLIAN DEER 

STONES

By Emma Saaty: In: SMITHSONIAN VOICES, March 

9th, 2023

The Director of the Smithsonian’s Arctic Studies 

Center, William Fitzhugh, has spent over 20 years 

conducting fieldwork in Mongolia and researching 

Bronze Age art and archaeology. 

Miles into the remote Mongolian steppe, there is 

nothing but grass as far as the eye can see. Off in the 

distance, a series of stone 

pillars rise above the bare 

landscape. Morning sunlight 

illuminates the faces of 

ancestors and images of deer 

carved in the stone thousands 

of years ago, ancient leaders 

left to watch over their land 

until the end of time.

Mongolian deer stones, named 

for the striking deer carvings 

that cover their narrow frames, 

were first described by Russian 

researchers in the late 1800s. 

Created by an ancient people 

during Mongolia’s Bronze 

Age between 1400–700 BC, 

most early archaeologists did 

not know what to make of the 

mysterious monuments. That is, until William Fitzhugh, 

the director of the Arctic Studies Center at the National 

Museum of Natural History, and his Mongolian partner, 

Jamsranjav Bayarsaikhan, began applying new 

archaeological methods to an old problem. For the past 

two decades, Fitzhugh and Bayarsaikhan have been 

diligently searching the Mongolian countryside for 

clues to help them understand this ancient culture and 

connect it to the traditions of living populations today. 

Their research on the stones has helped create a visual 

biography of the people who created them so long ago.

This year, Fitzhugh and Bayarsaikhan are releasing 

the results of their decades of work. Their books, Deer 

Stones of Northern Mongolia and Archaeology of 

Bronze Age Mongolia: A Deer Stone Diary, as well 

as a feature in Current World Archaeology magazine 

Archaeology 

of Bronze Age Mongolia 

 

A Deer Stone Diary by William W. Fitzhugh

William Fitzhugh inspecting a rock art tableau featuring the 

Mongolian deer seen on deer stones
 ASC Newsletter 23

chronicle their experiences among the deer stones. 

To learn more about Fitzhugh’s rich research career 

and the captivating stories from his time spent on the 

Mongolian steppe, join us for our newest installment of 

Meet a SI-entist.

You created the Smithsonian’s Arctic Studies Center in 

1988. What drove you to highlight Arctic cultures and 

why are they significant areas of study?

My main question as a curator of Arctic cultures has 

always been ‘how do we connect the collections that 

we have with the living people in the north today?’ 

When I first arrived at the Smithsonian, we had these 

beautiful collections from Alaska that had never been 

studied at length. Through the Arctic Studies Center, 

we have been able to take those collections out, 

put them on exhibit, send them to museums around 

the country, and get them back to Alaska. The most 

important accomplishment of my career was creating 

the Arctic Studies Center’s Alaska office and being able 

to reconnect Indigenous people with the Smithsonian 

and their ancestors’ collections. I feel very blessed, 

having arrived at the museum at a time when so many 

things were possible; we could do exhibits, publishing, 

travel, and exchanges. This has been a kind of “golden 

age” for the Smithsonian.

Ancient Mongolian cultures have remained mysterious 

for centuries. What about this region piqued your interest 

and led you to uncover some of these ancient secrets?

Discovering the origins of the northern peoples, who we 

used to call ‘Eskimos,’ has been central to my research 

since the beginning. I spent most of my early career 

studying the ancient Inuit cultures in Labrador and 

wondering about their connections to Asia. Unfortunately, 

there is a huge area in Northeast Siberia that's not well 

known, and hardly studied archaeologically. Sea levels 

have risen, destroying many of the sites, and most 

cultural records have been swamped or eroded away. So, 

we had a huge gap in knowledge. We knew that people 

had been living in the Mongolian steppe forever. By the 

time of the early Eskimos 3,000 years ago, Mongolia was 

already a nomadic pastoral society with horses. But we 

really didn’t know much else, so after failing to find early 

Eskimo cultures along the Arctic coast of Russia, I turned 

to Mongolia as the place where we might find clues to the 

foundation of Eskimo culture and art. One of the pieces 

of that puzzle seemed to be lurking within the images of 

deer with their wave-like antlers on deer stones.

How has your recent research transformed your 

understanding of what the deer stones represent and 

why they are significant in understanding ancient 

Mongolian Culture?

Deer imagery is widespread across Bronze Age Mongolia, 

and likely represented a major deity linking the earth 

and the sky, watching over the people. Our research is 

exciting because there are many indicators that suggest 

these deer stones were representations of real people who 

lived thousands of years ago instead of mythological 

ancestors or deities. Arranged in orderly lines, the stones 

display earrings, necklaces, and belts with hanging tools. 

The images of deer with large scrolling antlers and the 

heads and beaks of birds that covering the stones’ torsos 

probably mirror tattoos on the bodies of those they 

represented. This art gives us a good idea of the ideology 

and belief systems of these communities. The deer-bird 

image was likely a master spirit deity that protected the 

people against things that might hurt them. They were 

using tattoos in the same way someone might wear a 

Christian cross around his or her neck.

Every deer stone image is individualistic, and the 

stones are lined up in north-south rows that seem to 

depict chronological successions of clan leaders. If 

these interpretations are accurate, the deer stones can 

help us construct a ‘biographical history’ of specific 

linages that lived in Bronze Age Mongolia. Pooling the 

information from the nearly 1,500 deer stones known 

in Mongolia could tell us a great deal about this elusive 

society.

You have spent over 20 years conducting fieldwork in the 

Mongolian steppe. What is daily life like in the field?

Our surveys followed in the footsteps of Vitali Volkov, 

who published a book on deer stones in 1981. We 

would pack our gear and set off driving, usually starting 

in northern Mongolia and working our way south 

from site to site. In early July we would encounter 

the Mongolian national holiday, Naadam, famous for 

its horse races, and our students often took part in the 

wrestling matches or archery contests that went on in 

the villages. We enjoyed getting to know Mongolian 

people everywhere, including the students who 

joined our teams. Mongolians are great storytellers 

A deer stone from Uushigiin Uvor and a graphic by 

Bayarsaikhan of another stone
24 ASC Newsletter

and singers, and we discovered we were no match 

for their cultural abilities. We did what we could, but 

“Oh, Susanna” does not measure up to their repertoire. 

One day we had had two Mongolian youngsters 

come by while we were making a cast of a deer stone 

using blue separating latex. This wide-eyed little girl, 

around 8-years-old, asked ‘why are you painting our 

old stone men?’ She didn't like what she was seeing! 

We explained that the blue rubber would peel off and 

everything would be returned to normal. “You'll have 

your stone man back.” 

Congratulations on the books that you and Jamsranjav 

Bayarsaikhan have recently published! What do you 

hope that people will take away from your research?

I am thrilled that Bayaraa’s book analyzing deer 

stone art is out and mine has just been published! My 

book describes the deer stone sites and the ritual and 

mortuary systems that guided the ancient Mongolians. 

I also include passages from my diaries that place 

our deer stone research together with the lives of 

the Mongolian herders and families whom we met 

along the way. We have made a big contribution to 

the heritage of Mongolia and have given faces to its 

3,000-year-old leaders. We now have visual biographies 

of those ancient people. And as another benefit, we've 

trained a lot of kids to become archaeologists, to be 

curious and respectful of their heritage. It has been a 

great pleasure to help give Mongolians a past that they 

didn’t know much about and reconnect them with their 

ancestors through their old stone men.

TRAINING MONGOLIAN 

ARCHAEOLOGISTS

By Jamsranjav Bayarsaikhan

The ‘Mongolian Archaeology Project: Surveying the 

Steppes’ (MAPSS) introduces technological tools 

to Mongolian archaeologists and researchers. Over 

twenty years have passed since I first participated in an 

archaeological dig with Dr. William Fitzhugh of the 

Smithsonian Institution Museum of Natural History’s 

Arctic Research Center. My years working with the 

Smithsonian team afforded me great advances in 

archaeological methodology, and I continue to work 

on research projects locally as well as internationally. 

Since 2021, I have been at the Max Planck Institute of 

Geoanthropology in Germany coordinating MAPSS 

to record and document Mongolian sites using remote 

sensing and other data systems. The basis of cultural 

heritage preservation, protection, and management 

starts with registration of archaeological sites. 

About 33,000 archaeological monuments have been 

discovered and registered in the western and northern 

regions of Mongolia through remote sensing, and 

thousands of database records have been enriched by 

digitization.

In March 2023 the MAPSS project conducted a for 

Mongolian workshop for archaeologists and researchers 

on remote sensing and registration methods. Many 

tools and software necessary for archaeological survey, 

excavation, and registration were taught, including 

QGIS, Arches database platform, online satellite 

imagery, Google Earth, drone flight mapping, and 

image processing, dGPS, and total station use. As a 

result, Mongolian archaeologists will be able to deploy 

these tools to digitally document their research and 

perform analyses. These modern tools are not yet 

included in the archeological curriculum of Mongolian 

universities. Recently this type of information and 

knowledge became essential for archaeologists. In 

addition, the course demonstrated the need to train 

students preparing to work in archeology and cultural 

heritage. More than 90% of the workshop participants 

had never used these tools.

While implementing digital technologies within 

MAPSS, I discovered more applications for the 

students every day. The course was organized to share 

with other Mongolian researchers what I have learned 

during the past two years. A big ‘thank you’ to the 

Arcadia Foundation and the directors of the MPIG, 

especially MAPSS project P.I. Professor Nicole Boivin, 

co-P.I. Professor Michael Petragalia, and the MAPSS 

project team that taught the course: Dr. Mike Fisher, 

Dovydas Jurkenas, Mina Jambajantsan, and Dr. 

Nichole Sheldrick.

MAPSS training workshop at the Chinggis Khan National 

Museum. Photo by J. Bayarsaikhan
 ASC Newsletter 25

RESEARCH

2022 ERNEST S. BURCH MEMORIAL 

LECTURE: “THE VALKYRIES OF LINEN”: 

CLOTH PRODUCTION AND WOMEN’S 

POWER IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC

By Michèle Hayeur Smith

In Old Norse literature and poetry, a kenning is a 

compound expression that possesses a metaphorical 

meaning. The kenning “Valkyries of Linen” is used 

to refer to the term “woman” in the Old Norse poem 

Rekstefja (Stavnem 2012). This kenning is particularly 

relevant to the present paper and reveals something of 

the Vikings’ attitudes towards women and their roles 

in textile production. Women, viewed frequently as 

inferior to men and playing a subordinate role to them 

in Norse/Viking Age societies, often enjoyed far more 

power in certain areas of life.

In my 2022 Tiger Burch Lecture, I explored the roles 

of Viking Age (c. AD 750–1050) women through the 

analysis of archaeological textiles from both Iceland and 

Greenland to reveal their significant contributions to the 

survival and well-being of their communities, located as 

they were on the fringe of western Europe, confronting 

a harsh and changing climate while developing new 

regional identities and new economic and political 

structures. Through textile production, women supported 

Icelandic communities by making money and, in Norse 

Greenland, helped to mediate the hardships of the Little 

Ice Age. The physical process of textile production 

was an exclusively female activity, but it appears that it 

may also have been deeply connected with the world of 

magic, which provided women with a voice and a source 

of power in a world largely dominated by men.

Popular Views of Viking Women

Depictions of Viking women in both popular culture 

and academia are confusing and often contradictory. 

Viking women have been perceived as subservient, 

quiet, and traditional within a male-centered world, 

where they were engaged in a litany of domestic 

chores throughout their “stages of life” without “being 

allowed” to excel or fulfill themselves as individuals. 

Scholars have catered to age-old stereotypes of women 

as caregivers, based on sociobiological theories that 

situate women’s positions in society as natural mothers 

and guardians of the domestic realm “within-doors.” 

This approach has dominated interpretations of women 

in Viking studies from early scholarship until the last 

few years. Alongside these academic interpretations, 

however, the media has focused on sexualized visions 

of Viking women, as popularized in comics and 

paperback covers of the 1970s. However, following the

recent (2017) re-interpretation of an individual interred 

in burial BJ. 581, an elaborate warrior’s grave at the 

Swedish proto-urban site of Birka, as a woman based 

on aDNA analyses (Hedenstierna-Jonson et al., 2014), 

we have now added “shield maiden” imagery to the 

repertoire of popular culture representations.

The image of the strong (domestic) woman of the 

Viking Age has also prevailed in certain contexts. The 

concept of the “strong woman”—headstrong, powerful, 

running their own farms, and more emancipated than 

their European contemporaries—emerged from the 

medieval Icelandic Saga narratives about the settlers 

of Iceland. However, the medieval vision of Viking 

Age “strong women” has also been challenged 

by both Auður Magnúsdóttir (2008:41) and Helgi 

Þórlaksson (1981), who suggested that the authors of 

these narratives were powerful 13th century men, and 

that the Viking Age women they described as being 

“strong” more often than not presided over social 

disasters rather than successes. These “strong women” 

could, therefore, amount to nothing more than literary 

conventions intended to convince Christian women that 

such behavior came to no good end. 

The Mythological Constructs of Women and Textile 

Work

My own research across the North Atlantic on 

archaeological textiles and gender has opened my 

eyes to a deeper understanding of the roles of women 

in these societies. While the society was, in essence, 

patriarchal, women seem to have found ways to 

strategize and negotiate social and cultural relationships 

to acquire power that they would otherwise have lacked 

in legal or formal settings.

Figure 1. Representation of the Darraðarljóð, from Njáls 

Saga. Illustration by Greg Rebis
26 ASC Newsletter

In the Viking colonies of the North Atlantic and 

mainland Scandinavia, textile production was a 

distinctly female activity and appeared to be linked 

to specific female fertility deities. Through this 

association, textile work seems to have given women 

the upper hand and a mechanism they could use 

to negotiate power, as textile work symbolized the 

control of fate and power over life and death and was 

connected to a type of female magic called seiðr. Seiðr 

was the official form of magic practiced by women 

and taught to women originally (and also to Oðin, the 

head of the Norse pantheon) by the goddess Freyja. 

Freyja herself not only practiced and taught seiðr but 

was also the goddess of textile work. Flax was worked 

on Friday, Freyja’s day, and another of Freyja ́s names, 

Hörn, is thought to refer to the term horr or flax (Ellis 

Davidson 1990:116).

Seiðr had its own specialized practitioners known as 

völur, who were connected with Freyja, and their tools, 

among other things, reflect the deep connection between 

textiles and women’s magic. The primary symbol of 

the völur was a seiðr staff—a symbolic iron distaff that 

was far too heavy to use for spinning wool or flax but 

was an appropriate symbol of female power and the 

spinning of fate. Some scholars have argued that the 

etymology of the word seiðr itself—meaning cord, snare, 

or halter—is compatible with seiðr as an ecstatic form 

of sorcery because there is a notion of “sending forth” 

and “drawing back”: in the case of sorcery, the sorcerer’s 

mind is sent to the spirit world, often in the shape of a 

spun thread or rope and then pulled back with it (Heide 

2007). These semantic metaphors in material culture and 

language demonstrate that seiðr was a form of female 

witchcraft linked to spinning, the production of thread, 

and weaving, all of which were considered distinctly 

female domestic chores (Price 2002; Heide 2007). As 

a result men rarely engaged in seiðr, for fear it would 

lead to allegations of homosexuality, and it contained 

a lot of ergi, defined by Meulengracht Sørensen (1983) 

as a quality that made men perverse in sexual matters, 

cowardly and effeminate, and—of relevance here—

versed in witchcraft. 

In Norse mythology and in the descriptions of the 

völur (female magical practitioners), textiles connected 

female magic with life, death, and specifically the 

control of fate. One of the most obvious of these 

connections is immortalized through popular images 

of the Nornir, three supernatural women who spun the 

fates of men under the World Tree. The Nornir—Urðr, 

Verðandi, and Skuld—are generally interpreted as the 

present, past, and future, and are credited with creating 

the destinies of men before their birth (Norrman 2008). 

These may not have been the only Nornir, as Norse 

mythology describes additional good and bad Nornir 

(ibid.). According to Snorri Sturlusson’s 13th century 

Prose Edda—one of our two primary sources on Norse 

mythology—bad lives were attributable to the evil 

Nornir, whereas good Nornir shaped the lives of the 

lucky (ibid.). Wayland Barber (1994) suggested that 

the connections between thread, spinning, and fate, 

while not unique to the Norse world, stem from the 

action of women creating thread out of nowhere, just 

as babies are created from nowhere and with possible 

links between mother and a child and the giving of 

life through the umbilical cord (Wayland Barber 1995; 

Norrman 2008). The connection between the creation 

of life and of thread is clear in English – the term 

“lifespan” contains the word “spin,” initially meaning 

to draw out (Norrman 208), though no such equivalent 

was noted in Old Norse. 

From the official magic of seiðr, I believe that female 

magic trickled down to the domestic realm in a form of 

“little magic” and this fusion of concepts helped provide 

a formidable strategy that women could deploy when 

dealing with the patriarchal system around them. Further, 

female magic in all of its expressions and connections 

to textile production (see Hayeur Smith 2020) brought 

the potential danger of magic into bargaining and 

negotiations of power, even at the household level, and 

instilled a level of fear in male householders. 

Mythological sources and vignettes contained in the sagas 

suggest that the actual work of producing cloth consisted 

of somewhat spiritual, even magical, activities that were 

wrapped in mythological beliefs and feared by men. 

Almost every incident of magic performed by women in 

the sagas has a link to cloth, whether that involves cloth 

itself, the wool from which it was made, or the tools 

Figure 2. E172 Site plan with the excavation areas marked in 

red. Areas A-C are the largest red square NW of str. 4. Area 

D is the smaller square NW of Str. 4, and Area E is the small 

square SE of Str.4. Plan by C.K. Madsen
 ASC Newsletter 27

used to transform one into the other. Consequently, cloth 

and its production became symbolically gendered and 

associated with a women’s world.

The idea that fate or the giving of life may come from 

a thread, or be measured by it, also implies that a life 

could be manipulated through spinning. An example 

from Laxdaela Saga involves a woman who harms 

others through the act of spinning (and practicing 

sorcery). Bolli, Guðrun’s husband, returns after killing 

Kjartan (the man Guðrún truly loves, though he has 

married another woman), at which point Guðrún remarks 

that “morning tasks are often mixed: I have spun yarn 

for twelve ells of cloth and you have killed Kjartan” 

(Magnússon and Pálsson 1969:176; Ellis Davidson 

1990:101; Heide 2007). While she has not killed her 

lover directly, many have argued (Ellis Davidson 1990; 

Bek Pedersen 2007, 2009; Heide 2007) that Guðrún ́s 

spinning is similar to the spinning of the Nornir, and that 

it was a magical act intended to influence the outcome of 

a fight between these two men. 

Probably the most telling association connecting wool 

and textile production, female magic, and the control of 

life, death, and fate occurs in the poem “Darraðarljóð” 

in Njál’s Saga. There, the night before the bloody battle 

of Clontarf in Ireland a young man in Caithness named 

Dorruð observes twelve female riders descending from 

the skies, approaching a woman’s weaving hut, and 

disappearing inside. He peers through the window and 

sees Valkyries weaving cloth on a warp-weighted loom

made from the entrails of men fallen in battle. As they 

weave, they chant:

...”Blood rains / From the cloudy web / On the broad 

loom / Of Slaughter. / The web of man / Grey as armour 

/ Is being woven; / The Valkyries / Will cross it / With a 

crimson weft. / The warp is made / Of human entrails; / 

Human heads. 

The heddle rods / Are blood-wet spears; / The shafts 

are iron-bound, / And arrows are the shuttles. / With 

swords we will weave / This web of battle....” (“The 

Darraðarljóð,” Njal’s Saga, Magnusson, Palsson, p. 349).

This gruesome poem describes these Valkyries, 

supernatural warrior women, using their weapons and 

human body parts as components of the warp-weighted 

loom: the loom weights are human heads, the heddle 

rods are their spears, the shuttle their arrows, and their 

swords are the beaters (Fig. 1). Some scholars feel that 

the Valkyries worked in a capacity similar to that of their 

sisters the Nornir in determining fate, since the Valkyries 

appeared on battlefields to collect the dead and convey 

them to Valhalla (Bek Pedersen 2007; Guðjonsson 

1989). The poem is presented in the context of a dream 

foretelling the death of several men in an upcoming 

battle (Norrman 2008; Bek Pedersen 2009). Here, in 

keeping with the spinning imagery, are depictions of 

weaving, textile work, and the weaving implements 

themselves, linked to the body and body parts, to fate 

and the giving and taking of life. Each thread may 

symbolize the fate of a man about to die in battle, and 

interestingly, the heads suspended from loom weights are 

upside-down, like those of infants in the womb.

Female Agency in Iceland—the Making of Money

These mythological beliefs surrounding women’s work 

provide context for the day-to-day work of women 

sitting and working together, spinning and weaving for 

hours at a time, while talking, singing, and coordinating 

their individual efforts to create cloth, often inside a 

separate building located close to the central longhouse. 

Access to this semi-subterranean pit house, known as a 

dyngja, was like the work going on inside: taboo. Within 

this space and beyond, women were responsible for all 

textile production, from the preparation of the wool to 

its final product as textile. This activity was so genderspecific that men avoided it altogether even when it had 

become crucial to Iceland’s medieval economy.

From the end of the Viking Age to the end of the 

Medieval period (AD 1050–1600), cloth production 

became a form of currency in Iceland, which was used 

to pay taxes, tithes, bride price, as legal compensation, 

and as a product to be traded abroad (Hayeur Smith 

2014). Cloth was the basic unit of measure and 

0.00	
  

5.00	
  

10.00	
  

15.00	
  

20.00	
  

25.00	
  

30.00	
  

0.00	
   5.00	
   10.00	
   15.00	
   20.00	
   25.00	
  

Weft	
  threads	
  per	
  cm	
  

Warp	
  threads	
  per	
  cm	
  

Herjølfsnes	
  

Ø172,	
  Phase	
  1	
  

Ø172,	
  Phase	
  2	
  

Ø172,	
  Phase	
  3	
  

calAD	
  1300-­‐1365

calAD	
  1308-­‐1428

Figure 3. Textiles from three sequential occupation phases 

at the site Ø172, compared with the late Norse site of 

Herjolfsnes. Textiles with thread counts above the diagonal 

line are weft-dominant; those below it are warp-dominant; 

and those that fall directly on the line are “balanced.” 

Warp-dominant textiles characterize the earliest phase of 

occupation at Tatsipa Ataa (Ø172) but are replaced through 

Phases 2 and 3 at that site by weft-dominant textiles, which 

were nearly exclusively represented in the 14th-15th century 

burials at Herjolfsnes
28 ASC Newsletter

the foundation for a complex and organized barter 

economy and remained so for 600 years until a coinbased economy began to be introduced into Iceland by 

the Danish colonial authorities at the end of the 17th 

century. The cloth that became fundamental to the 

operation of the economic, political, and domestic life 

of the colony was made through female agency. Women 

literally wove money, while men were responsible for 

its distribution as well as recording its legal status and 

distinctions in the Law codes. Despite this joint effort, 

men never engaged in its production despite its value in 

the Icelandic economy. It could be interpreted that the 

age-old anxieties and taboos surrounding textile work 

prevailed from the Viking Age and while the stories 

were forgotten the attitudes remained.

Female Agency in Greenland, Climate Change, and 

Weft-Dominant Cloth

During the 14th and 15th centuries, the last half of 

the span during which there were Norse settlements 

in Greenland, female agency is also apparent in the 

creation of a new type of cloth, called Greenlandic 

vaðmál (Østergård 1989). Else Østergård's (2004) 

pioneering research on archaeological textiles identified 

subtle changes in weaving techniques during the 14th15th centuries, when weavers incorporated more weft 

threads than warps in their textiles. This contrasts with 

the ways in which most of the earlier Greenlandic 

textiles were made—with more warp threads than wefts 

as they had done in Iceland and as Icelanders were still 

doing in the 14th-15th centuries (Fig.2). The tradition of 

producing warp-dominant cloth came with Iceland’s 

settlers from Norway and was carried from Iceland to 

Greenland when it was settled. Østergård never targeted 

a specific date when this transition from warp-dominant 

to weft-dominant cloth took place but thought it was a 

characteristic that could be used to identify Greenlandic 

cloth in other archaeological contexts.

Between 2009–2010, midden excavations at the Norse 

farm site of Tatsipa Ataa (Ø172) in southwestern 

Greenland uncovered a significant number of 

archaeological textiles. The site, located on the eastern 

shore of the Igaliku Fjord, was excavated by Konrad 

Smiarowski from Hunter College in NY, with support 

from the North Atlantic Bicultural Organization and 

funding from the National Science Foundation. Textiles 

from Ø172 were a precious resource for expanding 

research on this Greenlandic cloth, since the site itself 

has a well-controlled chronological sequence spanning 

several centuries that allow specific behavioral traits in 

Norse weaving traditions to be tracked through time.

In Phase 1-2 (AD 1000–1200) textiles clearly mirrored 

the Icelandic vaðmál, yet by late Phase 2 things began 

to change, with an increasing amount of cloth produced 

using weft-dominant weaves. The only textiles from 

Phase 3 (1200-1300) have weft-dominant weaves, as 

was also the case at the later Norse site of Herjolfsnes, 

where weft-dominant cloth with extremely high weft 

thread counts in textiles was used almost exclusively to 

wrap burials from the late 14th and 15th centuries (Fig.3).

In order to establish an approximate date for this shift 

in weaving, two fragments of cloth from Area C of the 

site were sampled and submitted for AMS dating at 

Beta Analytic’s laboratories, in Miami, Florida. Their 

calibrated dates suggest that the shift in weaving 

took place somewhere between AD 1308 and 1362. 

With more AMS dates and additional research on the 

textiles themselves, I documented that weft-dominant 

cloth was being produced throughout Greenland’s 

Norse settlements and everywhere its production 

intensified toward the end of that colony’s existence 

(Fig 4).

In Greenland, these changes in cloth production 

are temporally correlated with the earliest onset of 

regional cooling at the start of the Little Ice Age. 

A rapid, though local, shift in climate around AD 

1340–1350 has been documented and implicated in the 

abandonment of the northernmost Greenlandic Norse 

settlements. Generally, our discussions of adaptation to 

climate change are relatively abstract, employing proxy 

measures rather than evidence of human suffering 

or agency. This type of behavior, so rarely visible in 

the archaeological record or manifested in material 

culture, focuses our attention on the decisions and 

decision-making processes that women had to make 

when changing the ways they produced cloth. When 

temperatures dropped, how would one make warmer 

garments? 

Figure 4. Climate deterioration in the North hemisphere and 

North Atlantic from multiple proxy records. Adapted from 

Mann et al. (2009)
 ASC Newsletter 29

In Greenland, furs could have been added into 

clothing, but this would have added a new level of 

complexity and labor. By adding more yarn into the 

weft systems, Greenlandic women produced products 

that were not vastly different from the original vaðmál 

in terms of weight, thickness, and appearance, and were 

not too thick to adversely affect sewing and any other 

work involved in garment construction but would have 

been much warmer and more waterproof. It is more 

than likely that this was the goal these women were 

after, and rather than adopting the more efficient skin 

garments of the Thule Inuit they encountered, they 

chose to stick to their own cultural norms possibly 

because dress is so intrinsically tied to the projection of 

cultural identity. It is often women who are the cultural 

brokers in this area, offering their best solution to the 

increase in cold weather, and actively participating in 

the survival of their communities.

Concluding Remarks

This paper suggests that Norse women, despite living 

in a patriarchal system where they were not considered 

equal to men, actually possessed a considerable degree 

of power and agency. The basis of most of this seems 

to be rooted in their connection to the supernatural, or 

to specific deities, like the Vanir, especially the goddess 

Freyja herself. These deities were instrumental in 

determining life, death and fate, and these connections 

apparently carried through beliefs and practices linked 

to textile production as well as other areas of life. 

Beliefs around textiles seem to have held men back 

from engaging in textile production in the Viking 

Age, and even into the Medieval period, when textile 

production in Iceland became linked with the economy 

of the island. It is possible to say that while the beliefs 

dissipated with the introduction of Christianity in 1000 

AD, the attitudes did not, and men refrained from 

textile production completely until the Danish instituted 

a trade monopoly in 1603.

In Norse Greenland female agency and involvement 

in subsistence strategies are noticeable. By changing 

their strategies in cloth production, they tried to keep 

their families warm at the onset of the Little Ice Age. 

Despite the fact that the fibers they needed for cloth 

production were not abundant, they tried to keep the 

things that were important to their sense of cultural 

identity, such as their dress practices. Archaeologically 

what we are witnessing are decision-making processes 

and aspects of female agency that are rare in the 

archaeological record. These examples allow us to 

realize that considering the other half of the population 

in the study of the past is important for understanding 

societies as a whole. These new findings makes it clear 

that there is more to be learned about this fascinating 

period and its people. 

References

Bek Pedersen, K. 2007, 2009. Are the Spinning Nornir 

Just a Yarn? 3:1–10; Weaving Swords and Rolling Heads, 

A Peculiar Space in Old Norse Tradition. 5:23–39.

Davidson, H. R. Ellis. 1989. Gods and Myths of 

Northern Europe. London: Penguin Books, 1990. 

Guðjónsson, E “Jarnvarðr Yllir” 20: 2.

Hayeur Smith, M. 2014. Thorir’s Bargain: Gender, 

Vaðmal, and the Law. Edited by A. Reynolds and K.P. 

Smith,World Archaeology 45(5):730–46.

Hayeur Smith, M. 2020. The Valkyries Loom, Cloth 

Production and Female Power in the North Atlantic. University Press Florida.

Hedenstierna-Jonson, C., and A. Kjellström. 2014. The 

Urban Woman, On the Role and Identity of Women in 

Birka. In Kvinner i Vikingtid, edited by N.L Colemand and 

N. Løkka, pp.183–204. Scandinavian Academic Press.

Heide, E. 2007. “Spinning Seiðr.” In Old Norse 

Religion in Long-Term Perspectives, Origins, Changes 

and Interactions. An International Conference in Lund, 

Sweden, June 3-7, 2004. A. Andren, K. Jennbert, C. 

Raudvere (eds.), pp.164–70. Nordic Academic Press.

Magnúsdóttir, Auður G. 2008. Women and Sexual 

Politics. Chapter Four in The Viking World, edited by 

Stefan Brink and Neil Price, pp.40-48. London and 

New York: Routledge.

Magnusson, M., and H. Pálsson, trans. 1960. Njal’s 

Saga. Penguin Classics.

Magnusson, M., and H. Pálsson, trans. 1969. Laxdaela 

Saga. Penguin Classics.

Meulengracht Sørensen, P. 1883. The Unmanly Man: 

Concepts of Sexual Defamation in Early Northern 

Society. The Viking Collection, v. 1. Odense: Odense 

University Press.

Norrman, L. E. 2008. Viking Women: The Narrative 

Voice in Woven Tapestries. Amherst, NY: Cambria Press.

Price, N. 2002. The Viking Way: Religion and War in Late 

Iron Age Scandinavia. 2nd ed. Aun 31. Uppsala: Dept. of 

Archaeology and Ancient History, Univ. Uppsala.

Stavnem, Rolf. 2012. Hallar Stein Rekstefja, in Diana 

Whaley (ed.). Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1: From 

Mythical Times to c. 1035. Skaldic Poetry of the 

Scandinavian Middle Ages 1. Turnhout: Brepols, p.893.

Østergård, E. 1989. The Textiles – a Preliminary 

Report. In Man Culture and Environment in Ancient 

Greenland Report on a Research Programme, edited 

by Jette Arneborg and H.C. Gulløv, pp.58–65. 

Copenhagen: Dansk Polar Center.

Østergård, E. 2004. Woven into the Earth: Textiles from 

Norse Greenland. Aarhus, Oxford: Aarhus University 

Press.

Þórláksson, H. 1981. Árdbeidskvinnens, Särlig 

Veverskens, Ökonomiske Stilling På Island I 
30 ASC Newsletter

Middelalderen ́. In Kvinnans ekonomiska ställning 

under nordisk medeltid: uppsatser framlagda vid ett, Gotherburg, B. Strand.

Wayland Barber, E. 1995. Women's Work, the First 

2000 Years. Women, Cloth and Society in Early Times. Penguin Rnadom House.

BURCH ENDOWMENT SUPPORT FOR ASC 

ACTIVITIES IN 2022

By Igor Krupnik

The Ernest S. (‘Tiger’) Burch Endowment was 

established with the NMNH Arctic Studies Center 

(ASC) in 2012 by the family of our late colleague 

and long-term research associate, Ernest S. (‘Tiger’) 

Burch, Jr., with the aim to support, promote, and 

interpret the study of Arctic Indigenous peoples and 

their cultures. The fund ensures that our work and the 

legacy of Tiger’s many decades of collaboration with 

the Smithsonian and ASC continues. As in previous 

years, the Burch Endowment remained the prime 

source of funding for ASC operations in 2022.

Due to the continuing restrictions on travel caused by the 

COVID-19 pandemic, there was less than usual research 

and conference travel by the ASC staff, as most activities 

in 2022 continued to be maintained electronically and 

via zoom meetings. Nonetheless, the Burch Endowment 

supported Dawn Biddison’s conference trips in Alaska 

and her participation at the annual conference of the 

Association of the Tribal Archives, Libraries, and 

Museums (ATALM) in Temecula, CA. The endowment 

also provided support to William W. Fitzhugh for 

summer field work in Labrador, Newfoundland, and 

southern Quebec, Canada in July-August 2022.

The Endowment supported our main public event, “Tiger 

Burch annual lecture” begun in 2015 to promote Arctic 

anthropological research to wider audiences and our 

colleagues worldwide. The 2022 annual Burch Lecture 

was delivered on December 6, 2022, in the NMNH 

Q?rius Theater by Dr. Michèle Hayeur Smith, ASC 

Research Associate. Her lecture titled “The Valkyries 

of Linen? Women’s Power and Cloth Production in the 

Viking North Atlantic” gathered an audience of almost 

80 people, plus many more on the streaming webcast. 

Hayeur Smith’s research is focused on the analysis 

of archeological textiles excavated at Norse and Inuit 

sites in Greenland, and it revealed the ‘hidden lives’ of 

Viking women and their contributions to the survival and 

well-being of their societies as they confronted climatic 

change, hardships, and increased isolation. A version of 

the lecture is published in this NS. 

The Endowment continued to provide funds for other 

ASC operations, such as the publication of the annual 

ASC Newsletter (No. 29, 2022), ASC membership in 

the Arctic Consortium of the United States (ARCUS), 

and research work for other ASC-based projects. 

That, in turn, allowed ASC staff to re-direct funds to 

other activities, such as publications, or for the future 

operations when travel and fieldwork restrictions 

are lifted. ASC is expecting a major expansion of its 

activities with the use of Endowment funds in 2023 

(see this issue). We plan to continue using Burch 

Endowment to advance our research and public 

programs, for conference travel and fieldwork, and for 

promoting Tiger Burch’s legacy to the international 

Arctic research community via publications, 

conferences, our annual Newsletter, and professional 

exchanges.

ASC PROPOSES AN ‘ARCTIC RESILIENCE’ 

PROJECT

By Igor Krupnik 

In October–November 2022, the ASC staff launched a 

series of ‘all-hands-on-deck’ meetings to consider future 

activities in 2023–2025. We were energized by the 

presence of visiting fellows, Elisa Palomino-Perez and 

Coleen Lemaitre, as well as our research associates, 

Bernadette Driscoll Engelstad, John Cloud, Brendan 

Griebel, Martin Nweeia, including new partners, 

Michelle Hayeur Smith and Kevin Smith, who joined 

in these talks in person and via zoom. Initially, the 

discussion was focused on a new exhibit. We all agreed 

that it should feature Arctic sustainability—material 

and ecological. The talks were stimulating, but next 

steps remained elusive. The momentum changed in 

November 2022 when the NMNH issued a call for 

two-year ‘core science’ proposals to support research 

by museum staff. If funded, such projects would be 

implemented in 2023–2024 (by early 2025), the very 

time frame we were considering.

In January 2023, the ASC submitted a proposal for 

a two-year project, Arctic Resilience: Strategies, 

Sustainability, Community Solutions. We argued for 

a coordinated study of historical and present-day 

strategies to increase ‘resilience and sustainability’ 

in communities and sociocultural systems across the 

Arctic and Subarctic regions that are facing climate 

change at an increasingly rapid pace, as well as impacts 

from industrial development, mining, globalization, and 

culture shift. We viewed this project as our contribution 

to the all-Smithsonian initiative, Life on a Sustainable 

Planet, as well as several U.S. interagency polar and 

climate/global change ventures, such as U.S. Arctic 

Observing Network (AON), Study of Environmental 

Arctic Change (SEARCH), and U.S. Global Change 

Research Program. 
 ASC Newsletter 31

The study we proposed had three major goals. First, it 

was to apply the “resilience–sustainability” analytical 

framework to explore selected cases of human/societal 

development across the Arctic, past and present. 

The paired terms, ‘resilience’ and ‘sustainability,’ 

feature prominently in today’s environmental and 

socio-political discourse, particularly as applied 

to global climate change; yet they have different 

meanings. There are also specific perspectives on 

both ‘resilience’ and ‘sustainability,’ as applied to 

Indigenous people, their values, and worldviews. 

Our second goal was to explore the special role of 

culture in maintaining and enhancing resilience and 

sustainability of Arctic communities. Earlier studies 

have explored paths to a sustained use of Arctic 

habitats primarily as ‘adaptations,’ via migrations, 

flexibility, and use of local resources. The more holistic 

contemporary vision stresses that resilience is also 

rooted in intergenerational knowledge, as well as in 

social and community values that ensure solidarity and 

the sharing of lessons learned. Our third goal was to 

advance partnerships with Arctic residents for future 

synthesis on how to enhance wellbeing, biodiversity, 

and sustainable futures. In bringing together data and 

partners from social and natural sciences, and from 

Indigenous ways of knowing, we follow the ASC 

trademark approach rooted in collaboration, crossdisciplinary thinking, vision of multiple agents of 

change, and solutions from community engagement.

We planned to organize the “Arctic Resilience” 

project in five regional studies—two in Alaska, two 

in Canada, one in Greenland, plus one in Education 

with an Alaskan focus. Each study was to engage a 

diverse team of partners, so that the overall number of 

collaborators from three Arctic nations (U.S., Canada, 

and Greenland) could be close to 30, including from 

Indigenous institutions and tribal agencies (Tlingit, 

Yupiit, Inupiat, Inuinnait, Greenlandic Inuit/ Kalaallit, 

etc.). The local studies we proposed follows (in 

geographical order, west to east):

Coupled human-natural systems at Yakutat, Alaska: 

A community-science partnership for climate change 

resilience—Aron Crowell, PI, with collaborators 

Judith Daxootsú Ramos (Tlingit, University of Alaska 

Southeast); Chris Fisher (Colorado State University and 

The Earth Archive); Mayumi Arimitsu (Seabird and 

Forage Fish Ecology Program, US Geological Survey); 

Andrew Gildersleeve (President, Yakutat Tlingit Tribe), 

in partnership with the Sealaska Heritage Institute, 

Yurok Tribe (Trinity-Klamath CA), U.S. Forest Service, 

National Park Service, USGS Alaska Science Center. 

This project would be a multi-year cross-disciplinary 

study of human-environmental interactions in the 

Yakutat fiord area in Southeast Alaska

Hunters’ adaptation to the changing seasonality of 

marine mammals and sea ice in the northern Bering 

Sea: Igor Krupnik, PI, in collaboration with Lisa 

Sheffield Guy (ARCUS/SIWO), scholars and local 

community observers under the ‘Sea Ice for Walrus 

Outlook’ (SIWO) monitoring project, ongoing since 

2010. It explores the inter-relation between climate/

sea ice/marine mammals and subsistence hunting, and 

solutions developed by local communities to foster 

social and economic resilience and to cope with the 

ongoing change.

Increasing Inuit community resilience via Digital 

Return of heritage collections in a time of rapid change: 

Brendan Griebel, PI, ASC, Research Associate, with 

collaborators Emily Angulalik, Darren Keith, Kim 

Crockatt (all from the Pitquhirnikkut Ilihautiniq/

Kitikmeot Heritage Society in Cambridge Bay, PI/

KHS), and Amos Hayes (Carleton University, Ottawa). 

The project relies on a new partnership between the 

Smithsonian and the Inuit community of Cambridge 

Bay in Nunavut, Canada. Specific targets for this study 

are ca. 1800 documents, objects, and media related 

to Inuinnait (Copper Inuit) communities at the two 

Smithsonian museums, NMNH and NMAI. 

Basque-Inuit encounter: Resilience, adaptation, and 

culture crisis in the 16-18th c. Gulf of St. Lawrence: 

William Fitzhugh, PI, with several Canadian 

collaborators (B. Loewen and C. Laliberté, Université 

de Montreal; F. Rivera, SSHRC; S. Arguelles, 

Université Laval; D. Yang, Simon Fraser University), 

local residents and knowledge experts (P. Schofield

and G. Nadeau, St. Paul River, N. Shattler, in St. 

Augustine), and colleagues at the Smithsonian (L.

Kistler, NMNH; C. Solazzo, MCI). It explores the 

relationship between Indigenous and European cultures 

and the historical use of primary natural resources 

(caribou, seals, whales) along the Quebec Lower North 

Shore (QLNS) in Eastern Canada. 

Resilience via animal exploitation and technological 

transfers in Greenland between the Ancestral Inuit 

and the Norse in 11th-15th centuries A.D.: Michèle 

Hayeur Smith, PI, and Kevin P. Smith (Co-PI) 

with local Greenlandic collaborators at the Nunatta 

Katersugaasivia Allagaateqarfialu/ Greenland 

Museum and Archives (Christian Koch Madsen, 

Mikkel Nielsen), Aviaaja Rosing Jacobsen, Inuk 

ethnographer, and the Kittat Centre and Museum, 

in Nuuk. This study is focused on the Norse-Inuit 

interactions and responses to change in West Greenland 

viewed through the lenses of clothing used by the two 

cultures. 

Increasing Resilience via Culturally Responsive 

STEM Education on Climate and Ecosystem Change 
32 ASC Newsletter

in Alaska: Aron Crowell, PI, Dawn Biddison, coPI, with collaborators M. Benson and N. Webster

(NMNH Education), G. Isaac (NMNH Anthropology), 

D. Lippert (NMNH Repatriation), E. Novak

(National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute). 

This is an outgrowth of an earlier effort funded by the 

“Together We Thrive” grant from the SI Office of the 

Undersecretary for Education to NMNH and NZCB 

and focuses on collaboration with Alaskan schools 

and educators in (co)developing culturally responsive, 

museum-based K-12 STEM curricula with the 

emphasis on place-based learning. 

In late April we were informed that our proposal was 

not granted, so we are exploring alternative strategies 

to support our work. Since many constituent efforts 

used external matching funds, like the proposed visit of 

Cambridge Bay Inuinnait Elders to NMNH and NMAI 

in May 2023, they would not be affected by the lack 

of NMNH funding. Other activities may be supported 

from other sources, including from our ‘Tiger Burch 

Endowment’ fund. 

ASC will continue preparation for its main event 

of 2023, a two-day symposium (conference) titled 

The Resilient Arctic, tentatively planned for early 

November 2023. Established in the fall of 1988, the 

ASC would turn 35 years of age. We will celebrate the 

anniversary with a major conference that will bring 

together our many associates and partners; diversify the 

pool of perspectives on the processes that frame Arctic 

transitions, past and present; and facilitate contribution 

by Arctic Native communities and knowledge holders. 

We envision the main conference ‘deliverable’ as a 

collection volume titled The Resilient Arctic, with 

22–24 chapters. Such a model echoes our recent Arctic 

Crashes project of 2014–2018 (see ASC Newsletters, 

nos. 26–28). Our team will put special effort into 

working with local partners and enhancing the value 

of research, higher education, museum studies, and 

resilience-building community programs in the North. 

Please stay tuned for more news about the Resilient 

Arctic conference and our next major book.

HAULOUT: A WALRUS DRAMA NOMINATED 

FOR AN OSCAR

By Igor Krupnik

The roaring ocean waves beat relentlessly against the 

rocky cliffs, while a frigid wind blows in strong gales. 

A lonely human figure is walking on a sandy beach. 

Then the man climbs the cliff and scans the horizon 

with a binocular. He says a few words in Russian on his 

tape-recorder. He then moves slowly to a delapidated 

cabin, the only sign of human presence in this far-away 

place besides the skeleton of an abandoned barge on 

shore. It is clearly an Arctic site—bare coastal tundra, 

patches of ice on shore, wind whooshing, and a lonely 

man with a rifle on his back.

These are opening scenes of a 25-minute documentary 

called Haulout produced by two Russian Sakha film 

makers, Evgenia and Maxim Arbugaev. They shot 

the film on the arctic coast of Siberia in fall 2020; 

in December 2022 it was nominated to the shortlist 

of the 95th Academy Awards (Oscar) in the ‘short 

documentary’ category. It was promoted by the New 

Yorker magazine and has been watched by thousands 

on YouTube. In January 2023, it advanced with just 

four others (of an original pool of 144) to the final 

nomination for the 95th Award that was announced on 

March 12, 2023. The lonely man featured in the film is 

Russian biologist, Maxim Chakilev, a walrus specialist 

who lives in the northern city of Anadyr in Chukotka.

Chakilev’s site is no ordinary place. As the film 

continues, thousands of walruses show up on this 

desolated beach, crawling up and surrounding the 

biologist’s lonely cabin (Fig.1). They form the world’s 

largest Pacific walrus haulout, one that functions for a 

few months each year, usually from late August or early 

September till early November. For the past 12-15 years 

Thousands of walruses surround Chakilev’s cabin at the 

Cape Serdtse-Kamen haulout site, with over 100,000 animals 

congregating at the peak of the season. Photo courtesy 

Maxim Chakilev, 2023

The Yupik community of Gambell on St. Lawrence Island, 

Alaska. Photo by Igor Krupnik, 2017
 ASC Newsletter 33

almost 100,000 walruses, and sometimes more, come 

ashore and spend time here – resting, feeding, fighting... 

and dying. The site is located at Cape Serdtse-Kamen’ 

(Heart-Stone, in Russian; Cape Netten, in the Chukchi 

language) on the shore of the Chukchi Sea, at 66°54' and 

171°38W', about 140 km west of Bering Strait. Though 

looking distant and isolated, the haulout is only 14 km 

away from the nearby Chukchi community of Enurmino 

(Chukchi Innurmin, population 320) that serves as 

Chakilev’s base camp and supply hub. It has been known 

since the Russians first visited this area in the 1700s and 

existed from ages earlier. In the 1900s, it was visited by 

Roald Amundsen, a Norwegian polar explorer, whose 

ship Maude wintered in front of this community (ASC 

NSL 25, pp. 34–36). Today, when Chakilev leaves the 

cabin at the end of his season, it is frequented by local 

hunters, reindeer herders, and passing travelers who help 

keep it in order. 

Dynamic and emotional, the 25-minute documentary is 

by no means quiet. It is filled with noises: the growling, 

puffing, moaning, and bellowing of thousands of 

walruses. It also smells, almost literally, as the stench 

from myriad animal bodies is intense (Fig.2. Believe 

me, one can smell a haulout from a long distance 

away.) Yet it features few spoken words. Chakilev is 

alone in his cabin and his voice is heard only in short 

messages he leaves on his small voice recorder. The 

only words from the film producers appear as captions 

in the documentary’s very last seconds, as Chakilev’s 

lonely figure trudges over the snow-covered beach 

as his season ends. “Maxim Chakilev is a marine 

biologist. Every autumn, for the past decade, he 

has studied the largest walrus haulout on the planet. 

At peak haul-out, he estimated more than 100,000 

walruses. The enormous scale of this gathering is a 

consequence of climate change. Walruses rely on sea 

ice to rest during feeding and migration. But warming 

seas force them to spend more time on land, where 

they are at risk of stampedes and trampling. In 2020, 

Maxim counted nearly 600 deaths, the most he had 

ever recorded.”

Laconicism is the producers’ artistic decision, also a 

power punch, as the viewers are left to fill in the blanks. 

Naturally, the questions arise. Why so many? Is it 

normal to see so many walruses at one place? Why are 

so many of them dying? Are the walruses sustainable in 

the long run, with so many dead in one year at one site, 

after the animals move elsewhere? These are queries 

that require special knowledge to answer. 

Walruses are gregarious animals, with strong 

seasonal migration patterns and age-sex grouping 

separation during much of the year. They depend on 

ice for traveling, resting, nursing, reproducing, and 

maintaining their complex social and spatial system. To 

be seasonally on land, on a beach or rocky haulouts, is 

a normal element of their annual life cycle, particularly 

during years with low (little) drifting ice in the summer 

and early fall. Yet a concentration of over 100,000 

animals at one place is anything but ‘normal.’ The 

haulout at Cape Serdtse-Kamen’ has been known to 

local Chukchi people since time immemorial, rather as 

a series of small seasonal haulouts along the cape, each 

accompanied by a nearby Native settlement or hunting 

camp. The main haulout at Cape Netten functioned on 

and off during the 20th century, with a few thousand, 

even a few hundred walruses on occasional count. 

Around 2008–2010, it almost exploded; in their 

published papers, Chakilev and his Russian colleagues 

estimate its size at the peak time at 100,000 and more. 

It never happened in people’s recent memory, just like 

the Arctic itself warming by 3°. The link is obvious, 

and the mechanism, the melting and retreating polar ice 

pack, is clear, as the documentary shows. 

Then why are so many dead bodies left behind when 

the animals finally leave the haulout? Both walrus 

biologists and Indigenous hunters know the answer: 

trampling of animals by their peers. Coming together 

in many thousands, walruses could be easily spooked 

by predators (polar bears, orcas, even stray dogs), any 

loud noise from a passing boat or plane, or by human 

presence. Once disturbed, they stampede to the safety 

of water, often leaving the land like a wave of moving 

bodies. It always leaves behind dozens of trampled 

corpses, as well as many more that were injured or 

maimed.

An additional factor of increased mortality is the mixing 

of various age-sex groups on today’s much larger 

haulouts. Historically, the Cape Serdtse-Kamen site 

was primarily a female haulout used by females with 

calves and young animals on their return migration from 

A massive ‘pack up’ of walruses, large and small, at the 

haulout is a cause of high losses by trampling. Photo 

courtesy Maxim Chakilev, 2023
34 ASC Newsletter

the Wrangel Island area in the western Chukchi Sea. 

According to Chakilev and his colleagues, females with 

calves still predominate at the site; but biologists now 

observe a marked presence of adult males, including 

those coming from the Cape Lay area in North Alaska. 

Adult males, with massive tusks and characteristic lumps 

on their skin are clearly visible in the mass of females 

and calves in the documentary. Even if smaller male

haulouts exist along the shores of Chukotka, it remains 

an open question whether the animals still maintain 

their former seasonal segregation in distinctive age-sex 

groupings. If the spatial and temporal boundaries that 

once separated these groupings are blurred or broken (?) 

now, the plight of haulouts like at Cape Serdtse-Kamen 

adds more evidence of a population stressed by rapid 

restructuring due to climate change.

Last but not least, can walruses sustain such heavy 

losses? The message in the film is that in 2020, almost 

600 dead animals were left on shore after the herd 

moved away. It clearly concerns Chakilev and his 

Russian colleagues, who anxiously monitor the number 

of dead animals at several coastal haulouts. It differs 

from place to place, and it is obviously growing, as 

more animals come ashore each year. The death rate is 

the lowest at the primarily male haulouts in the Gulf 

of Anadyr and closer to the Bering Strait and is the 

highest at ‘mixed’ haulouts on the Chukotka Arctic 

shore where calves and nursing and pregnant females 

are all lumped together with massive, often aggressive 

bulls twice their size. So, the danger to small animals 

and pregnant females is obvious (see above); naturally, 

these animals constitute the bulk of those trampled, 

maimed, or dead (or left to die, as shown in the film). 

At another coastal haul-out at Cape Shmidt at the 

southwestern edge of the Chukchi Sea, 575 walruses 

were found dead in 2017, of whom 44% were calves, 

and another 40% were young animals. At Cape 

Sertse-Kamen, Chakilev documents a larger number 

of pregnant females (and aborted fetuses) among the 

dead. It is a heavy rate of ‘attrition’ of the young and of 

reproductive females for a population under stress.

Yet, dead walruses on coastal haulouts make only one 

piece of the animals’ annual ‘puzzle.’ Walrus females 

deliver their newborns in April–May, on drifting ice 

floes during the northward migration. This is almost five 

months before they would come ashore at Cape SerdtseKamen on the return route. Yet the progressing ice 

melt is, similarly, felt in the spring, as the ice breaks up 

earlier, is thinner (than before), and it breaks in smaller 

floes to make platforms for walrus migration. Many floes 

melt into the water even before they reach the Bering 

Strait, which forces females with the newborn calves to 

swim hundreds of miles. The losses from this seasonal 

stress are still unknown and undocumented. Again, 

climate change creates an intricate set of domino effects 

across wide regions and complex ecosystems, of which 

we still know so little. We need more data, people, and 

dedicated effort to solve this riddle.

As the Haulout documentary makes a powerful pitch 

on the impact of global warming at a distant corner of 

the Arctic, one voice is clearly missing—that of local 

Chukchi hunters. Whereas biologists like Chakilev are 

monitoring walruses at haulout sites for a few months 

each year, local residents literally live with, and next to, 

walruses that provide food and other resources (hides, 

tusks and bones for carving, meat for dog-teams, etc.) 

that support local communities. Hunters from the nearby 

Chukchi towns of Enurmino and Neshkan actively 

pursue walruses on water, ice floes, and shore; they 

monitor their movements, health status, feeding and 

behavioral habits, as well as the animals’ response to 

climate change. This lack of Indigenous perspective on 

what happens at the Cape Serdtse-Kamen haulout is 

the key gap that the public and scientists like Chakilev 

cannot fill on their own. Adding such a ‘human touch’ by 

the people who know the walrus intimately and who call 

the Arctic ‘home’ is the next step for this magnificent 

film and for those concerned with the relentless pace of 

planetary change. We should be grateful to biologists 

like Chakilev and to people like Evgenia and Maxim 

Arbugaev, who help drive the message home to the 

world at large and to the Academy Award hallways. 

As this NL issue was going into layout, we learned that 

the 2023 Oscar in short documentary category was 

awarded to The Elephant Whisperers, a story of an 

elderly couple from south India, who devoted their lives 

to caring for an orphaned baby elephant named Raghu, 

forging a family bond with the young animal. So, while 

Haulout did not receive a prize, it certainly helped 

focus world’s attention on the plight of the Arctic and of 

one of its iconic marine mammal species in peril. This 

story was also recently featured on the NMNH Ocean 

Portal site in a blog written by Danielle Hall. 

STUDYING WESTERN ALASKA BOW AND 

ARROW TECHNOLOGY

By Coline Lemaitre

In November 2022 I started my fellowship research on 

the bows and arrows and related archery collections 

from western Alaskan societies at the SI Museum 

Support Center (MSC). I focus primarily on sinewbacked bows and associated arrows manufactured 

by Inuit societies as a very adaptive weapon system 

responding to diverse hunting and warfare activities.

I dedicated almost three months on the bow and arrow 

fragments, arrow points, and sinew reinforcement 
 ASC Newsletter 35

pieces that James Ford excavated between 1925 and 

1927 at the Birnirk site near Utqiagvik (Barrow). A 

total of 27 arrow fragments, 30 bow fragments, and 

some other related archery artifacts were observed, 

measured, drawn, and photographed from every angle. 

This was followed by analysis of complete bows and 

arrows (about 20 objects each) from ethnographic 

collections of Yup’ik and Iñupiaq cultures, mostly 

collected by 

Edward Nelson and 

Lucien Turner at 

the end of the 19th

century. Almost 

the same protocol 

was used on these 

ethnographic objects. 

Processing the data 

from drawings, 

photographs, and 

precise measurements 

will now be the 

biggest challenge 

for the following 

months. Indeed, 

little is known about 

traditional bow and 

arrow technology 

other than the 

descriptions of 

ethnographers in the 

late 19th and early 20th

century, and work by 

archery experts like 

Michael Frank (2019) on ethnographic Arctic 

bows and arrows and their making. No large technical 

analysis has ever been done on the Smithsonian 

collections.

The study has followed two research paths. First, I 

am creating a more specific vocabulary and expanded 

typologies related to Arctic bows and arrows and 

their components. Describing each component into 

typological groups helps determine whether there are 

geographical or cultural patterns and recurrences, and 

if some typological groups can be cross-referenced 

with other components’ groups. In addition, I am 

studying the mechanical behavior of each component 

and its technical role in the whole shooting system; 

a range of features, shapes, and sizes are observed 

on the ethnographic and Birnirk materials. Some 

bow and arrow features and shapes were accurately 

described by ethnographers like John Murdoch (by 

type of sinew-backing and bow profile) as belonging 

to several geographical or cultural groups; but some 

diversity exists within these groups as well, and some 

are more sporadically present or even absent. This 

diversity reflects individual or small group choices, 

failings, and experiments, social interactions and 

trade leading to eventual technological development 

and improvements. One approach to solving the 

mystery of such diversity is looking at mechanical and 

technical aspects of components using calculations 

and 3D simulations of performance. This could 

highlight the utility of a component in the mechanical 

system and explain 

its meaning. In this 

way, we can approach 

smaller scale social 

group diversity and help 

answer questions such as 

why some aspects of the 

bow or the arrow follow 

systematic patterns, while 

others are very diverse 

or sporadic, and why 

some archers made things 

differently from others in 

the same area or culture.

My study of the 

Birnirk fragments and 

ethnographic bows is 

part of a larger work on 

the Arctic sinew-backed 

bow and arrow systems. 

I have combined my 

personal knowledge of 

archery, mostly empirical, 

as an archer myself, with 

discussions with physicists, mathematicians, and 

bow-makers. My research at the Smithsonian will 

lead to comparisons with previous and future work on 

other archaeological sites in west and southwestern 

Alaska (Nukleet, Cape Espenberg, and Nunalleq), 

and on other ethnographic objects held in European 

Museums. 

In addition to this “laboratory” museum research, I 

have a strong community approach. A workshop on 

archery with the Cambridge Bay Inuit community 

(Kitikmeot Heritage Society) from northwestern 

Canada will be held in May 2023 in the Smithsonian’s 

collections. Information given by Inuinnait 

representatives will help future experiments and 

reconstructions that will begin next summer in 

Quinhagak (southwestern Alaska) where I will meet 

one of the last Yup’ik bow experts. This will provide 

a comprehensive update on the current know-how 

regarding archery in contemporaneous Alaskan 

communities, giving voices to Elders’ memories 

and local experts to recover an endangered cultural 

heritage.

Coline Lemaitre at work. 

Photo courtesy Coline 

Lemaitre

Yup’ik bow sinew-backed, #E33884, 

Nelson collection, ca.1880, from 

Pastolik
36 ASC Newsletter

SEARCHING FOR INUIT ON THE 

NORTHWEST COAST OF NEWFOUNDLAND

By William Fitzhugh, Serai Barreiro-Argüelles, Ben 

Fitzhugh, Brad Loewen, and Dongya Yang 

Recent archaeology on the Québec Lower North Shore 

(QLNS) has revealed an extensive complex of Inuit 

winter houses associated with Basque sites and material 

culture. The Basque association with Inuit presence 

in the 17th and 18th centuries remains unclear, as is the 

absence of Inuit summer sites on the QLNS. Another 

unusual feature of Inuit life here is the predominance 

of caribou in their winter house middens since the LNS 

has been a marginal caribou habitat. An in-progress 

ancient DNA study undertaken by the University of 

Montreal, the Smithsonian Institution, and Simon 

Fraser University has found that the DNA of some 

Inuit site caribou remains match the Newfoundland 

subspecies, and not the Labrador-Québec herd. 

Indeed, a local QLNS source seemed logical because 

caribou were available on this coast until the middle 

of the 20th century. Hunters in Rivière-Saint-Paul 

report regularly seeing caribou into the 1970s, but not 

subsequently. Today QLNS hunters hunt caribou in 

central and northern Labrador-Québec when a hunt is 

even permitted. These interrelated questions led us to 

ask whether Inuit, having acquired Basque chalupas, 

may have spent part of their summer in northwest 

Newfoundland and carried caribou carcasses home 

with them for winter consumption on the QLNS. These 

questions provided the stimulus for an archaeological 

survey during 16–29 July 2022 in northwestern 

Newfoundland from Port Saunders to St. Barbe. Our 

first goal was to collect shed antlers to enrich our 

DNA database of Newfoundland caribou. Our second 

purpose was to search for historic Inuit sites.

In addition to their relative abundance, Newfoundland 

caribou as an aggregate herd has been isolated from the 

Quebec-Labrador herd following the retreat of glacial 

ice and submergence of the Strait of Belle Isle (about 

8,000 years). All caribou in Newfoundland share more 

biological ancestry with other Newfoundland animals 

than with their Québec-Labrador cousins. So, although 

caribou may occasionally have crossed the Strait on the 

ice or swimming, there has not been enough genetic 

contact to blur the geographic boundary (Wilkerson 

et al. 2018). Based on this genetic distinction, we 

hypothesized two alternative scenarios to explain 

Newfoundland caribou at 17th century QLNS Inuit 

sites: 1) direct provisioning by Inuit hunting animals 

in northern Newfoundland, and 2) exchange of skins, 

hides, baleen and feathers from Labrador and Quebec 

for Newfoundland caribou and other products with 

Europeans or Indigenous people present along the west 

coast of Newfoundland.

Our fieldwork in 2022 was directed at the coastal 

region from Port Saunders to St. Barbe with two main 

objectives: 1) surface-collecting caribou samples, and 

2) investigating tent rings reported on Old Ferolle 

Island by Callum Thompson in 1993 and 1995. 

The first objective was to support our QLNS caribou 

ancient DNA research project, which aims to determine 

the genetic identity, geographic stock and sex of 

archaeological samples to better understand Inuit hunting 

strategies and seasonality. We organized a survey to find 

recent caribou tissue such as shed antlers, excrement and 

hair. Informal conversations with local Newfoundlanders 

who fished, trapped, and hunted were key to gaining 

insights into caribou behavior that residents have built 

over generations. We visited locations frequented by 

caribou during the summer season, which coincides with 

Indigenous and European occupation.

Our second objective was to record and assess tent 

ring features reported in 1993 and 1995 by Callum 

Thompson on Old Ferolle Island to ascertain whether 

these structures were occupied by Inuit as suggested 

by Callum Thomson, by other Indigenous groups, or 

by Europeans. Old Ferolle was chosen for its ease 

of access and its proximity to Port-au-Choix, Pigeon 

Cove, New Ferolle and Current Island where caribou 

are present during the summer. We had also planned 

to investigate the tent rings reported by John Kilmarx 

(1987) on St. John Island, but weather and logistics 

thwarted this plan. Kilmarx reported “few associated 

artifacts” at the two sites but felt these objects were 

“probably Dorset”. Similar reasons prevented us from 

investigating tent rings reported on Keppel Island 

(Fitzhugh 1982). Notably, Dale Kennedy and Latonia 

Hartery have not reported Inuit-style rings during 

their research in the Bird Cove-Plum Point region 

(Hartery 2004).

Bella Ferrin collecting Sample #8 at Current Island.

Photo by Saraí Barreiro-Argüelles
 ASC Newsletter 37

We carried out pedestrian surveys in Eddies Cove, Old 

Ferolle Nord (EgBf-4), Current Island, Pigeon Cove, 

and New Ferolle to obtain contemporary caribou DNA 

samples and look for signs of historic Inuit camps 

or hunting. All these sites are strategic areas known 

for their hunting resources and European presence. 

Transects spaced at 5 to 10 meters between surveyors 

along the coastal zone allowed us to record a range of 

historic and possible prehistoric structures. 

Caribou DNA Sampling

We collected a total of nine antlers and bone samples 

at Point Riche Peninsula, Port Saunders, Eddies Cove, 

Dog Peninsula, Bird Cove, Old Ferolle (Plum Point) 

and Current Island. All samples were surface-collected 

except for ones donated by local residents.

We encountered several unexpected archaeological 

features during our survey. At Current Island we 

recorded more than 85 stone features. French seasonal 

fishermen fished these waters in the early 1800s. On the 

east side of the island we found stone mounds that could 

be part of a cemetery. Along the south and west shores 

are numerous small stone cairn markers connected with 

fishing or seal hunting activity. The markers are conical, 

vary in height from 40 to 60 cm, and have a vertical 

cavity at the top for inserting a wooden pole, some of 

which were still in place. Most markers are found in 

pairs for creating alignments for positioning offshore 

fishing or lobster trap locations. Blinds for hunting birds 

and caches for storing seal or caribou also occur. Other 

less common structures include dog burial cairns as well 

as modern campfires and tent sites. 

On the northwest shore of Pigeon Cove Point we found 

six features, two of which are dog graves and one large 

rock pile that might be a human grave mound. Another

large mound was found associated with a boulder 

enclosure and caches just north of at Jim Muse Cove, 

north of the New Ferolle light, as well as other markers, 

blinds, and caches. All these structures are at the shore, 

usually on the lowest beach ridges or wave-cut benches.

Tent Rings at Old Ferolle

Work on Old Ferolle Island focused on the tent rings 

reported by Thomson. These tent rings are located on a 

natural marine-deposited surface of limestone slab rock 

bordered by three pavement lines, each about one meter 

wide that appear to have been pathways for transporting 

fish, possibly by wheel- or hand-barrow. We documented 

tent rings to identify their characteristics and possible 

cultural affiliation with European fishermen or to Inuit or 

other Indigenous groups. A drone obtained a plan view 

from which we were able to draw the rings.

Each tent ring can easily be identified as a surface 

structure placed on the natural flakes and are not 

embedded in the beach rocks. The rings typically 

measure four to five meters across and are roughly 

circular. However, their layout is often irregular 

because over the years some stones have been moved 

by their occupants or accidentally later on. There are 

possible hearth features inside and outside the rings, 

but these have no regular structure and most consist of 

a small cluster of rock slabs. The tent rings are spaced 

at distances of 10 to 15 meters, with no overlapping 

rings. It is thus possible that all the tents existed at the 

same time.

We excavated tent ring Features 25 and 27 looking 

for small artifacts or bones. In Feature 25 we found 

small stem fragments of a clay pipe, while on the 

surface of Feature 27 lay a piece of insole shoe leather 

with sewing perforations. At the conclusion of our 

Old Ferolle work, we spent a few hours clearing the 

The large boulder mound at Pigeon Cove. 

Photo by Saraí Barreiro-Argüelles

Hunting blind on the shore north of New Ferolle near the 

town dump. Photo by Ben Fitzhugh
38 ASC Newsletter

encroaching vegetation from the French bakery site 

(BgEf-4) at the north end of New Ferolle island.

Due to their irregular outline, the rings do not readily 

conform to traditional Inuit tent rings, which are larger 

and have a line of rocks marking a rear sleeping area; 

nor do they conform to French or English tent styles. 

On the other hand, they are most similar to Beothuck or 

Mi’kmaw camps. The cluster of nine rings within the 

confines of the flake drying surface at the fishing station 

on Old Ferolle suggests the French fishing operation was 

the probable attraction for the tent-ring occupants. 

Conclusion

None of the sites visited readily corresponds with 

traditional Inuit-style tent or artifacts, and even though 

we could not visit St. John Island to investigate its 

rings, Kilmarx reported associated Dorset artefacts. The 

tent rings at Old Ferolle suggest that further excavation 

may identify their builders, who seem likely to have 

been Indigenous people attracted to this large fishing 

station, rather than Europeans. The seasonality of 

the summer tent rings complements that of the Inuit 

winter houses found on the Québec Lower North 

Shore (QLNS), while the Newfoundland origin of 

some caribou consumed on the QLNS also suggests a 

cross-gulf dynamic for 17th-century Inuit. The results 

of our caribou sampling will help advance knowledge 

of Inuit hunting strategies and the locations where Inuit 

obtained the caribou found in their Lower North Shore 

middens. More investigation is needed into the tent ring 

features of northwest Newfoundland, to shed light on 

Indigenous relations with Basque or French seasonal 

fishing crews operating on this coast in the 17th and 18th

centuries. 

Acknowledgements

Our project was supported by the Colburn family at 

Lushes Bight and in Port Saunders by Bill and Ilene 

Lowe who graciously hosted us and taught us local 

history and caribou lore (sadly, both passed away 

later in the year—see transitions section below). 

Ben Fitzhugh shared field skills, mapping, and drone 

expertise. Smithsonian interns Bella R. Ferrin and 

Whitney Hadley-Salay provided invaluable survey 

assistance. The PAO provided permits, encouragement, 

and funding.

References

Hartery, Latonia. 2004. Bird Cove-Plum Point 

Archaeology Project-2004. Report by LJH Associates 

to Provincial Archaeology Office. St. John’s.

Jacques Whitford Environment. 1995. Archaeological 

Mapping Survey of Old Ferolle Island Beach Site 

(EgBf-50 Old Ferolle Island, St. Barbe District, 

Newfoundland. 10146. St. John’s Newfoundland: 

[JWE], St. Barbe Development Association, Plum 

Point, Newfoundland.

Kilmarx, John. 1987. Archaeological reconnaissance 

St John Island, Northwestern Newfoundland. Interim 

field report 1987. Archaeology in Newfoundland and 

Labrador, 1987, pp. 146-174. Provincial Archaeology 

Office. St. Johns, Newfoundland.

Thomson, Callum. 1993. Preliminary Archaeological 

Survey of Old Ferolle Island, St. Barbe District, 

Newfoundland. Thomson Heritage Consultants 

Dartmouth and St. Barbe Development Association, 

Plum Point.

Old Ferolle Island (EgBf-5) showing the fish-drying flake 

area, stone-paved pathways, and tent rings found on the flake 

surface Photo by Sarai Barreiro-Argüelles Plan of Feature 25. Sarai Barreiro-Argüelles
 ASC Newsletter 39

A BASQUE WHALING STATION IN ST. PAUL 

RIVER, QUEBEC

By William Fitzhugh, Sarai Barreiro-Argüelles, and 

Francisco Rivera Amano

Information on Basque whaling in Labrador and the 

Gulf of St. Lawrence, known to 

Basques as Gran Baya region, 

comes largely from Red Bay and 

a few other locations (Barkham 

1980,1987; Azkarate et al. 1992; 

Grenier et al. 2007; Loewen 

and Delmas 2012). This seems 

unusual considering the large 

number of Basque stations now 

known from Nova Scotia and 

New Brunswick, Newfoundland, 

southern Labrador, and the 

western St. Lawrence Gulf. 

Our excavations at Inuit 

sites on the Quebec Lower 

North Shore shows that while 

Basque materials are common 

in these Inuit settlements, the 

tiles, ceramics, metal, wood, 

and other European materials 

have never been linked to 

specific Basque sites. The large 

quantity of European materials, 

including fragile objects like 

wine glasses and tableware 

indicates that exchanges must 

have been conducted in person 

at Basque shore stations or 

from floating trade rather than 

by Inuit scavenging abandoned 

or seasonally vacated Basque 

stations. With very little literature 

available describing these 

contacts, we have to rely on 

archaeological evidence. 

To date most of this evidence has 

come from Inuit winter houses 

and middens from four sites: 

Hare Harbor (EdBt-3), Little Canso Island (EhBn-9), 

Belles Amours (EiBi-12), and Hart Chalet (EiBh47), ranging geographically from Harrington Harbor 

to Brador and Brador (Fitzhugh 2019a). A fifth site 

recently excavated on Grande Isle in St. Paul River 

(Fitzhugh et al. 2019b) provides an opportunity to 

investigate possible Inuit-Basque exchange with 

a small Basque whaling station located less than 

a kilometer away on Bonne Espérance Isle. The 

Grande Isle site has two components: a rectangular 

tent (qarmat) structure which was found half-eroded 

from a beach terrace a few meters from a partially 

constructed sod and earth winter structure. Both 

structures contained Inuit soapstone vessel fragments 

together with forged nails, roof tiles, and other 

European materials. The winter house had part of its 

floor paved with a wide sawn plank from a European 

ship. This settlement appears to 

have been occupied by an Inuit 

family who may have been the 

first Inuit to settle in the St. Paul 

region. And as far as we know, 

they were also the last to do so, 

as their house was burned and 

an Inuit male was found in the 

1970s buried with his harpoon 

and snow-knife in a make-shift 

grave a few hundred meters 

away.

While we were excavating 

the Grand Isle site in 2019, 

University of Montreal divers 

found tiles and ship ballast long 

the western shore of Bonne 

Espérance, and a land survey 

revealed two small trywork 

blubber-furnace mounds hidden 

beneath surface vegetation. 

These sites, BE-3 (EiBk-60) 

and BE-4 (EiBk-61), are on a 

narrow channel separating the 

southern extension of Grande Isle 

from Bonne Espérance and are 

within a kilometer of the whaling 

grounds in the Gulf. Both sites 

are sheltered from wind and 

surf adjacent to a protected 

ship harbor, and are less than a 

kilometer from the Grand Isle 

Inuit sites.

For two weeks in August 2022, 

we tested the northern furnace 

site (BE-4) and found it to be a 

small-scale butchering and blubber-rendering station 

containing large amounts of baleen, charcoal and 

cinder, and a small inventory of Basque ceramics and 

iron. Excavations were conducted in four areas: a 

stone wall at the south end of the site; a central mound 

composed of boulders and cinder; a ‘baleen pit’ full 

of charcoal and baleen; and a residential or general 

work area at the north end of the site. Time constraints 

limited our work to a few square meters in the tryworks 

and exploratory tests at the more open and level north 

end of the site.

Bonne Esperance-4 (EiBk-61) viewed to SW 

before excavation. Photo by W. Fitzhugh

BE-4 layout and excavation areas. 

Photo by F. Rivera Amano
40 ASC Newsletter

Other than James Tuck’s general descriptions of the 

Saddle Island sites, there are few accounts of the 

construction and layout of Basque whaling stations. 

Jean-Pierre Proulx provides the following: 

Each tryworks consisted of a granite and sandstone 

structure measuring around 1.0 m high by roughly 

2.5 m deep and comprising one or more fireboxes. An 

opening situated at the base of each firebox and always 

facing shoreward was used to introduce fuel for stoking 

the ovens. Up to six additional circular openings were 

located on top of the tryworks for installing the copper 

cauldrons used to boil down the whale blubber....[they] 

put the ruggedness of the terrain to good use. They 

began by building a wall opposite a vertical outcrop of 

bedrock and then set tree trunks on the wall to serve 

as posts. Next they installed rafters, placing one of 

their ends on the wooden posts and the other on top of 

the rock outcrop. According to one historian they laid 

baleen on the rafters to support the tiles used to roof the 

shelter (Proulx 2007:1-66,67).

Site Description

Bonne Espérance-4 lies on a ten-meter wide bench 

that extends along the shore ca. 150 meters from a sea 

cliff at the south end of the site to a small cove that 

terminates the level ground to the north. [fig 2] On 

its west side the 2.5 m high bench (ledge) drops into 

deep water, allowing boat access at any tide; the site 

is bounded to the east by a steep hillside. The location 

would not be ideal for a habitation, but it is suitable 

for bringing boats alongside, for butchering whales, 

landing blubber, loading casks of oil, and assembling 

barrels. A meter wide linear mound runs through 

the site’s south end, paralleling the rising hill for ten 

meters, ending in an oval, meter-high mound in the 

center of the site. The north side of the mound has 

a declivity where our 2019 test pit produced baleen, 

charcoal, seeds, and bone. The north end of the bench 

has a 4-6 m wide level open area that rises gradually 

into the steeper hillslope. The 2019 underwater survey 

revealed roof tiles and ballast rock on the bottom below 

the ledge, deep enough to be protected from winter seaice scour. No underwater work was conducted in 2022.

We imagined that BE-4 would follow the pattern of the 

Red Bay tryworks—a 2-meter wide linear pile of rocks, 

sand, and sod paralleling the shore, with openings 

on top for rendering pots and at the seaward base for 

fuel—wood and wasted blubber. The structure that 

emerged from a 1x4 m cut transverse trench revealed 

something different: a 50 cm thick, 70 cm high wall 

of 3-4 courses of laid-up rocks with no place for pot 

depressions. West of the wall, extending to the shore 

edge of the ledge, the soil consisted of tryworks sheet 

midden containing burned rock, charcoal, burned and

broken tile, blubber cinder, and no artifacts except 

burned tile. However, in the 2-meter wide space 

between the wall and the rising hillside was a 50 cm 

deep deposit of waterlogged peat overlying cut wood, 

a fragment of what seemed like a sealskin garment, 

tiles, domestic ceramics, nails, baleen, birchbark, and 

small flint fire-starter flakes. This deposit appeared like 

a domestic cultural midden rather than trywork refuse. 

At this point, the function of the wall and its relation 

to oil rendering and other activities remains unclear. 

However, it is interesting that building a wall on the 

seaward side of a tryworks was a common element of 

Basque trywork design as noted above.

The Mound and Baleen Pit

The stone wall ends in the central area in a 3x4 m oval 

mound construction of small boulders, gravel, and sand 

containing tiles, charcoal, and large lumps of cemented 

cinder. The inner part of the mound had large voids 

between the rocks and clumps of cinder. Adjacent and 

north of the mound was the small flat area we tested 

in 2019. We opened a 2x2 m unit expecting to find 

a small tent site or domestic work area, but instead 

encountered layer upon layer of charcoal and baleen 

separated by lenses of gravel and sand extending 60 

cm below the surface, with large pieces of baleen and 

partially burned, ax-cut wood. Stratigraphy indicated 

we had excavated part of a 2-meter wide pit bounded 

by the mound to the south and a jumble of large rocks 

to the south and west. Time did not allow us to reach 

the bottom or to explore its margins or structure. In 

addition to meter-long strips of baleen near the bottom, 

its uppermost layer produced a 20x20 cm wide bundle 

of baleen plates stacked on top of each other like a 

Baleen pit and oval mound to its south. 

Photo by W. Fitzhugh
 ASC Newsletter 41

deck of cards. The width of the plates indicates a large 

whale.

Testing north of the baleen pit produced a culture layer 

with a few nails and ceramics as well as charcoal and 

baleen resting on sloping bedrock. And in the likely 

area for general habitation at the north end of the site, 

two 50 cm tests revealed a 10-15 cm thick cultural 

layer beneath 30 cms of peat. This layer produced 

charcoal, baleen, ceramic cooking potsherds, flint 

chips, and wood—a convincing assemblage suggesting 

this area was used for domestic or trywork support 

activities.

Summary

Bonne Espérance-4, like its neighbor BE-3, appears 

to be a small-scale blubber processing station that 

required a relatively small amount of labor to construct 

its rendering oven and related facilities. The central 

mound may, if fully excavated, reveal a space for 

a single rendering pot, but the site does not have 

multi-pot furnaces known from Saddle Island in Red 

Bay. BE-4 seems to have been operated by a small 

chaloupe team that would have been supported by a 

ship anchored nearby in ‘Bonny’ Harbor. BE-3 seems 

to have been a parallel operation, and each may have 

been built and manned by separate chaloupe teams 

affiliated with a mother ship. A striking feature of the 

archaeological finds is the large amount of baleen—

presumably bowheads—found throughout the site. 

None of the baleen appears to have been burned, and its 

casual disposal suggests it was not of commercial value 

at the time. Its use as tryworks shed roofing might 

explain its ubiquity. Our excavations—while quite 

limited—did not produce many nails or ceramics, but 

the presence of marmite cooking pots and abundant 

flint fire-starting chips indicates domestic as well as 

industrial activity and recalls the type of assemblage 

found in the 16th century Basque hearths at Petit 

Mécatina near Harrington Harbor. The absence of 

clay pipes from BE-4 may also be a clue to a 16th c. 

rather than 17th c. date.

It is not surprising that our limited tests did not turn 

up evidence of Inuit contact, although the presence 

of a garment made of sealskin may be an intriguing 

clue. However, the proximity of the Grande Isle 

Inuit settlement offers a chance that the BE-3 and 

BE-4 whalers might have been present at the same 

time as the Inuit, and if so, each would have been 

curious about the other’s activities and materials. 

So far, evidence of contact is found only at the Inuit 

site in the form of tiles, iron spikes, and a large 

oak ship’s plank. We will be curious to see if Inuit 

soapstone vessel fragments turn up in future work 

at BE-3 or -4, and if more remains of an identifiable 

sealskin garment turn up. Even if not, these sites 

show promise for defining a new type of small-scale 

Basque whaling station conducted by small chaloupe 

crews. Further work will be necessary to determine if 

the sites date to the early phase of Basque Grand Bay 

whaling before the development of the industrial scale 

seen at Red Bay and other sites, or whether they are 

small-scale operations contemporary with the larger 

sites. Proteomic, DNA, and stable isotope studies of 

the baleen may provide clues to help clarify the age, 

nature, and history of the Bonne Espérance whalers 

and their Inuit neighbors. 

Acknowledgments. Our brief fieldwork was made 

possible by support from the University of Montreal, 

SSHR, and Smithsonian Institution. Local support 

was provided by the Whiteley Museum, the Bonne 

Espérance Municipality, and the Centre de Services 

Scolaire du Littoral, Québec. Garland Nadeau and 

Eileen and Piercy Schofield were invaluable hosts 

and information sources. Perry Colbourne provided 

transportation and boating assistance and kept us 

well-stocked with stories and bakeapples. 

References

Fitzhugh, W. 1919a. Paradise Gained, Lost, and 

Regained: Pulse Migration and the Inuit Archaeology 

of the Quebec Lower North Shore. Arctic 

Anthropology 56:52-76.

Grenier, R., M-A Bernier, and W. Stevens. 2007. 

The Underwater Archaeology of Red Bay: Basque 

Shipbuilding and Whaling in the 16th Century. Vol. 1. 

Parcs Canada.

Layered stack of baleen plates. 

Photo by W. Fitzhugh
42 ASC Newsletter

VIKINGS, VOLCANOES, AND RAGNARÖK: 

ARCHAEOLOGY OF SURTSHELLIR, 

ICELAND

By Kevin P. Smith

On the 19th of March, 2021, following three weeks and 

40,000 earthquakes, Fagradalsfjall, a long-dormant 

mountain 20 miles south of Iceland’s capital, Reykjavík, 

erupted into life. Following initial concerns that it 

would endanger the capital 

or disrupt international air 

travel through Keflavík 

airport, 11 miles away, it 

soon became clear that the 

eruption was effusive, likely 

to generate lava flows for 

years or decades rather than 

being a rapid and violently 

explosive event. Within 

weeks, tourists streamed 

in to see the volcano. 

Ultimately, the eruption 

was credited with saving 

Iceland’s COVID-battered, 

tourism-driven economy.

However, in the late 9th 

century AD, when Viking 

Age colonists discovered 

Iceland, they could not have 

known that they would 

be colonizing one of the 

world’s most volcanically 

active islands. For them, 

Iceland – a previously 

unknown and unoccupied 

land with forests, freshwater 

lakes and rivers, saltwater 

bays teaming with 

marine mammals, and 

meadows to feed their 

livestock – presented 

untold opportunities. They came, as genetic, isotopic, 

and material culture analyses confirm, primarily from 

continental Scandinavia and the British Isles, two of 

Europe’s least tectonically active regions. 

Shortly before Iceland’s Norse settlers arrived, two 

nearly simultaneous eruptions in southern Iceland 

blanketed much of the island in a distinctive bi-colored 

ash now dated to 877±1 AD. This so-called “Landnám 

tephra” lying just beneath the earliest cultural deposits at 

sites across Iceland, serves as a clear chronostratigraphic 

marker for the island’s Norse colonization. In western 

Iceland’s Borgarfjörður district where I have worked 

since 1987, the Landnám tephra lies directly beneath 

the turf-and-stone walls of the earliest structures at the 

sites of Gilsbakki, Reykholt, Hálsar and Halldórstoftir, 

showing that farms and iron-production sites had 

expanded more than 50 kilometers into the wooded 

interior before AD 900. Just a few years later, as 

settlers were establishing farms across the region, the 

unthinkable happened—a volcano erupted beneath the 

edge of the massive glacier, Langjökull, that rises as a 

white wall across the district’s eastern horizon. 

The eruption would have 

been preceded by thousands 

of earthquakes, increasing 

in intensity and frequency 

over weeks as lava moved 

closer to the surface. As 

the eruption began, water 

entering fissures from the 

melting glacier would have 

sent volcanic ash high 

into the air with thunder 

and lightning – otherwise 

unknown in the North 

Atlantic. At night the crater’s 

fiery glow would have 

painted the sky red. As 

the glacier melted back 

and the flow of its water 

ebbed, the eruption became 

effusive, sending rivers of 

lava out from at least two 

craters for nearly 30 years. 

Snaking 50 kilometers down 

into the lowlands, the lava 

boiled away two rivers and 

probably covered newly 

established farms whose 

names were still known in 

the 12th century but whose 

locations are unknown 

today.

Eventually, 185 square 

kilometers of once fertile upland meadows, grazing 

lands, and forests lay beneath a 25 to 40 meter deep 

wasteland of black, smoking lava, today called 

Hallmundarhraun. Immediately beneath the base of 

Hallmundarhraun‘s lava, a layer of burned forest 

vegetation resting on the Landnám tephra confirms 

that the eruption began no more than a decade or two 

after 877; it would have been the first major volcanic 

eruption that northern Europeans had experienced 

directly in their homelands since the Late Pleistocene 

Laacher See eruption 13,000 years before.

During the eruption, subterranean channels carried lava 

beneath Hallmundarhraun’s surface. When the lava flow 

Surtshellir Cave landscape. Photo by Kevin Smith, 2012

Boat-shaped stone wall structure containing ritual burnt 

offerings. Photo by Kevin Smith, 2012
 ASC Newsletter 43

changed direction or intensity, some of these emptied, 

forming massive caves beneath the surface. Today more 

than 20 have been located. Ten are known to contain 

archaeological sites. I have investigated two of them 

with my colleague Guðmundur Ólafsson, including the 

largest, Surtshellir.

Surtshellir’s name first appears 

in the 12th–13th century 

Icelandic Book of Settlements 

(Landnámabók), whose laconic 

passages record stories about the 

settlers of more than 400 farms 

established across Iceland between 

880 and 930 AD. In just a few 

sentences, Landnámabók tells 

the story of Þorvaldur “hollowthroat” Þorðarson, the son of a 

chieftain from northern Iceland, 

who claimed descent from the 

god Odin and traveled more than 

150 kilometers through Iceland’s 

interior to chant a magically 

efficacious poem into the mouth 

of the cave inhabited by the giant 

who dwelled within Surtshellir, 

“the cave of Surtr”. 

Our two primary sources about 

Viking Age Scandinavian religion, 

the Poetic Edda and the Prose 

Edda, were compiled from earlier 

oral and poetic sources in Iceland 

during the 12th–13th centuries. 

Both describe Surtr, whose name 

means “the blackener,” as the first 

being in existence, who ruled over 

Muspellsheim, a land of fire. Heat 

from Muspellsheim melted the 

edge of a massive glacier and from 

that interaction, everything—the 

gods, the nine worlds of the Norse 

cosmos, humans, and all forms of 

life—came into existence. However, 

the same sources state that Surtr 

would eventually lead the forces of chaos against the 

gods and defeat them in the battle of Ragnarök. Surtr, 

himself, would kill Freyr – god of agricultural bounty, 

fertility, order, and rulership – and then destroy the earth 

in fire, flame, and lava.

Archaeological remains inside Surtshellir were first 

described in 1753 by Icelandic naturalists, but they 

were undocumented until 2001, when Guðmundur 

Ólafsson, Agnes Stefánsdóttir (both then at the 

National Museum of Iceland), and I briefly surveyed 

the site following reports that tourists were removing 

bags of bones. Guðmundur and I returned at Surtshellir 

in 2012 with Magnús A. Sigurðsson (Minjastofnun/

Icelandic Cultural Heritage Agency), Kevin Martin

(then a graduate student at the University of Iceland), 

and Mehrdad Kiani (undergraduate, Brown 

University) to map the site with 

funding from NSF, and in 2013, 

with additional funding from NSF 

and support from Minjastofnun, 

Guðmundur, Magnús, Kevin 

Martin, ASC Research Associate 

Christopher Wolff, and I 

excavated the floor of a Viking 

Age structure 250 meters inside 

the cave.

Our work inside Surtshellir 

documented a vast complex of 

archaeological features beginning 

more than 100 meters inside the 

1.6 kilometer-long cave. There, a 

massive dry-stone wall, originally 

4-4.5 meters tall, had been built 

across the 13-meter width of the 

cave. Nearly 120 meters deeper 

into the cave, two galleries branch 

to the north and south 5-6 meters 

above the cave’s main tunnel. 

Thirty meters inside the southern 

gallery, called Vígishellir, and 

250 meters from Surtshellir’s 

entrance, is one of the bestpreserved Viking structures in the 

North Atlantic: a stone-built, boatshaped, roofless enclosure, 7.5 

meters long and 3.5 meters wide, 

with bowed walls 0.8 meters high. 

Two narrow doorways in its side 

walls allow entry from the main 

tunnel and outwards towards 

deeper passages. 

Micromorphological and 

paleobotanical analyses by Sarah 

Sherwood (Sewanee University of the South) and Lee 

Ann Newsom (Pennsylvania State University) of a 

thin, man-made layer of crushed basalt, ash, and bone 

spread across the floor of the boat-shaped structure 

and around its entrance showed that intense fires had 

burned inside it. On the left side of the entrance a heap 

of fragmented, unburned bones, 2.5 meters wide, 3.5 

meters long, and originally 0.8 meters high, had been 

piled against the structure’s outer wall. Two smaller 

piles of similarly unburned bones lay on the floor of 

the cave’s main tunnel, 30-40 meters north of the boatshaped enclosure, and four more piles were found 

N

0

50

100

meters

© Kevin P. Smith, 2019

Surtshellir

Hvítársíða

Main tunnel

Upper passages

Surface openings

Viking Age structure

Bone piles/scatters

Moss patch

Viking Age wall

Beta-359578 

996-1029, 978

Beta-359535 

961-1017, 975

Beta-338044 

924-965, 934

Beta-417367 

1015-1037, 1020

Beta-359531 

987-1019, 995

OxA-37505/37506 

 887-940, 906

Beta-359533

 924-978, 947

Beta-417367

 914-990, 955

Beta-380955

 947-990, 959

Beta-359532

 989-1022, 1000

OxA-37473

 1013-1035, 1019

AAR-7412 

 887-947, 918

AAR-7413

 924-966, 934

K-1435

 956-1029, 1012

Surtshellir tunnels and archaeological 

features rescaled with radiocarbon dates. 

By Kevin Smith, 2021
44 ASC Newsletter

inside Beinahellir, the side 

gallery across the main 

tunnel from Vígishellir. 

Twenty radiocarbon dates 

show that Surtshellir was 

visited repeatedly for nearly 

a century between 920 and 

1020 AD. Throughout that 

span of time, bones were 

added to all of the piles, 

eventually creating a line 

that extended 120 meters 

from the boat-shaped 

structure inside Vígishellir, 

across the main tunnel, and 

into the deepest reaches of 

Beinahellir. No evidence of 

Viking Age activity has been 

found deeper into the cave, 

nor beyond the walls of 

the structure in Vígishellir, 

suggesting that this line of 

piled bones and the structure 

in Vígishellir were intended 

to form a barrier separating 

this zone of intense activity 

from the depths of the cave, 

just as the physical stone 

wall closer to the entrance 

separated it from the world 

outside.

Analyses by Thomas McGovern at Hunter College 

of unburned bones from the pile in Vígishellir, and by 

Véronique Marengère and James Woollett at Laval 

University on burned bones from the floor of the boatshaped structure, document that all but a few represent 

sheep and/or goats, cows, horses, and pigs – the core 

suite of Viking Age domestic animals. No remains 

of wild animals, fish, or marine taxa were present, 

and even the few bird bones identified may be from 

chickens or other domestic fowl. Most of the bones 

had been broken into fragments with axes, hammers, 

and large knives before they were added to one of the 

cave’s seven piles. However, the thin floor deposit 

inside the boat-shaped enclosure were from parts of 

animals that had been burned there in the flesh at high 

temperatures. 

Unlike the normal mortality profiles of faunal remains 

from domestic sites, these were animals in the prime of 

their lives. Recent work at Laval University has even 

identified the bones of fetal sheep and cattle among 

those that were cremated, implying that pregnant ewes 

and cows, along with their unborn offspring, were 

slaughtered here at the start of spring rather than during 

the fall when animals are 

normally butchered for 

winter consumption. The 

seasonality of their death, 

the sequestration of their 

bones, and their treatment 

suggest that these were 

animals that were ritually 

sacrificed, curtailing 

both present and future 

prosperity. 

Hundreds of jasper spalls 

from starting fires lay 

scattered throughout the 

ashy floor deposits in the 

center of the boat-shaped 

structure. Their numbers 

imply that 70-100 fires 

were started here, probably 

at annual events. Yet, 

why not use the torches 

that people required for 

light and navigation? 

One possibility is that the 

flames that were required 

to burn these offerings 

could not be lit with fire 

carried in from outside 

but had to be started anew, 

in the dark. The colors of 

these fire-starter spalls may also be significant. While 

red, yellow, brown, green, white, and gray jasper and 

chalcedony were all used to strike sparks, obsidian, 

black like Surtr himself, was not – even though it 

was the preferred material for starting fires in the 

farms and was accessible near the cave. In contrast, 

x-ray fluorescence links the spalls to outcrops 50-80 

kilometers away or more, indicating that those who 

came to Surtshellir traveled, like Þorvaldur holbarki, 

some days to get there.

Who were these people? Surtshellir’s floor deposits 

produced one of the largest assemblages of imported 

glass beads known from Viking Age Iceland. These 

include not only wound glass beads made in southern 

Scandinavia but also drawn and blown glass made 

in workshops of either the Byzantine Empire or the 

Islamic Caliphate. Carefully selected to represent 

a narrow range of colors (green, yellow, blue, and 

beige), their acquisition would have required access to 

trade networks beyond most farmers’ reach. Further, 

by sieving the floor deposits through 1.5 mm mesh, 

we recovered 12 minuscule fragments of orpiment, 

a highly toxic, gold-colored arsenic sulfide mineral 

(As2S3) that does not occur naturally in Iceland. In 

Boat-shaped structure with orpiment (orange dots), beads 

(blue, green, and yellow dots), burned bone (light grey), and 

unburned bone (yellow zone). Basemap by Kevin Smith and 

Guðmundur Ólafsson 2001, updated with finds by Smith 2022
 ASC Newsletter 45

the Middle Ages orpiment was used to produce the 

brightest yellow pigments in illuminated manuscripts 

such as the Book of Kells, but is only known in Viking 

Age contexts from the funerary furniture of Denmark’s 

last pre-Christian king, Gorm the Old (d. 950–960 AD) 

at Jelling; as glittering golden details on the tiller of the 

Gokstad ship, the grave of a Norwegian chieftain from 

905 AD; and now from Surtshellir. The primary sources 

of orpiment were in the borderlands of present-day 

Turkey, Iran, and Iraq. Even more than the beads, its 

acquisition, use, and safe preparation would have been 

limited to the elite and the artisans they patronized.

Our work suggests that Surtshellir was a unique Viking 

Age sacrificial site created in response to the existential 

crisis that Iceland’s earliest settlers faced in their first 

experience with volcanism, an event that required 

dramatic action and that may have influenced their beliefs 

about the end of time, as we know them today from 

Icelandic sources. There, in the darkness of the cave, 

members of Iceland’s elite oversaw sacrificial rituals 

intended to control and bind Surtr in order to prevent 

further eruptions or forestall the start of Ragnarök by 

strengthening the gods who could oppose him. 

Sacrifices continued to be made in the cave for a 

generation after Iceland’s official conversion to 

Christianity in 1000 AD. At the time the site was 

abandoned, an object decorated with beads and 

orpiment was set inside the doorway leading to the 

deeper parts of the cave, and a set of four lead scale 

weights, one shaped as a cross, was placed on the 

location where offerings had been burned. It appears 

both acts were part of a closing ritual intended not only 

to seal the cave’s pre-Christian rituals, but perhaps also, 

in later Christian times, to prevent Surtr, reimagined 

as Satan, from emerging from his cave on the Day of 

Judgment.

Note: for more details, see Smith K.P., Ólafsson G., 

and Pálsdóttir A.H. (2021) Responses to catastrophic 

volcanism in Viking Age Iceland: Reconsidering 

Surtshellir Cave through Bayesian analysis of AMS and 

tephrochronological dates. Journal of Archaeological 

Science 126C: 105316

MERCATOR, THE MEDICI, AND THE PAST 

AND FUTURE OF THE ARCTIC

By John Cloud and Elisa Palomino

In 2020, while exploring the rich ethnographic history 

of Florence, Italy, we visited the map gallery of the Sala 

della Guardaroba where, between 1569 and 1609, the 

three Grand Dukes of the Medici family commissioned 

a set of painted maps of the known world, meaning, 

of course, the world as known by Europeans. Most 

of the maps addressed the lands of every continent 

except Antarctica, but four were completely unique: 

four linear oceanic rivers, which didn’t exist, flowing 

between Arctic subcontinents, which also didn’t exist, 

the rivers all converging at the North Pole, which was 

a mountain of magnetic iron, around which the oceanic 

rivers plunged into the bowels of the earth. The source 

for this geography was Gerardus Mercator, from his 

1569 world map, which introduced the famous Mercator 

Projection. What on earth was this all about?

Our subsequent investigations of these maps have 

disclosed revelations about the historical recent 

past and evident future for the Boreal and Arctic 

regions, and the peoples who live there. The current 

era of global warming, triggered by greenhouse 

gas emissions, put an end, at least temporarily, to 

the Little Ice Age, circa 1350 to 1850 CE, which 

followed the Medieval Warm Period, or Medieval 

Climatic Anomaly, circa 950 to 1250 CE. These two 

eras spanned almost a thousand years, with great 

consequences for the peoples and ecosystems of the 

north, and everywhere else. The recurrent theme was 

and is that success requires resilience and adaptation. 

We are developing this historical research because its 

lessons are foundational to our present situation, and 

because it is just a compelling story, linking the greatest 

scholars and artists of the western tradition to the many 

disparate peoples of the boreal and arctic regions, as they 

settled the final ecological frontiers of the planet to be 

occupied by humans. Mercator’s specific “invention” of 

the Arctic involved a string of specific historical events 

and actors which can bring the Little Ice Age to life.

Fragment of ground orpiment – grid squares are 1 mm. 

Photo by Kevin Smith, 2017

Set of lead scale weights. Photo by Ívar Brynjólfsson, 2014, 

Nat’l. Mus. Iceland
46 ASC Newsletter

Mercator and the Brethren of the Common Life

Gerardus Mercator (1512–1594) grew up in a very 

poor family in what, then and now, are called the Low 

Countries (now Belgium and the Netherlands). His 

homeland had been conquered by the Holy Roman 

Empire. The key to his life’s path was that his uncle 

was a monk, teaching at a school in the town of s’-

Hertogenbosch (meaning the duke’s forest). Mercator 

was allowed to enroll at the school, which was 

associated with a progressive Christian movement 

called the Brethren of the Common Life, which 

was influential, especially as an inspiration to the 

coming Protestant Reformation. Through the school, 

and the town, Mercator knew important people, like 

the humanist scholar Erasmus, and the artists and 

cartographers Albrecht Durer and Hieronymus 

Bosch. 

But he also learned of the Boreal and Arctic 

research of Jacob Cnoyen, who had lived in 

‘s-Hertogenbosch two centuries earlier, at the end of 

the Medieval Warm Period. Cnoyen compiled reports 

by various explorers and speculative geographers, 

including Nicolas of Lynn, circa 1360, who was an 

Oxford scholar, and friend of Geoffrey Chaucer, 

author of the Canterbury Tales. The character 

Nicolas, with his astrolabe, stars in Chaucer’s “The 

Miller’s Tale.” All these sources referenced northern 

settlements and routes greatly changed by the 

transition into the Little Ice Age.

Mercator’s Maps the Arctic

Mercator’s maps are major historical documents of 

the changing Boreal and Arctic lands and peoples as 

they were known or inferred in that era. At the time, 

Europeans considered sea ice, which contains no salt, 

and is called siku in all Inuit languages, had to have 

come from frozen water deposited on land. Hence the 

expanses of Arctic ice “required” extensive Arctic lands.

The original Mercator Projection world map shows at 

the very top the southern entrances to the four polar 

rivers—each was presented as flowing north from 

places of high human cultural salience, as had been 

recognized two centuries earlier by Cnoyen’s sources. 

Looking at the Mercator Projection map section, in 

the middle of the map is a large diagonal island, which 

was Mercator’s approximation of Greenland. To the 

north and west is the strait between Greenland and 

Nunavut, the fabled “Northwest Passage”, and various 

populations of Inuit peoples; further west, the indention 

in Canada is Hudson Bay, with Inuit and Algonquin 

and Athabascan language family peoples; further west 

is the Bering Sea/Strait, between North America and 

Siberia, lined with Aleut, Iñupiat, Yup’ik, Athabascan, 

Chukchi and other peoples; and finally further to the 

west—but showing on the eastern end of the map since 

the world map “wraps around” the Arctic, is a polar 

river flowing north from the convergence of the River 

Ob, the largest estuary of the Arctic Ocean, with Nenets 

and other peoples settled all around it. 

Mercator’s polar river geometry stands in a very 

ancient human tradition, recognizing four cardinal 

directions, in a cosmic symmetry. The four converging 

rivers was a concept Mercator was introduced to as a 

child, in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, in Hieronymus Bosch’s 

triptych, with the famous central panel now titled “The 

Garden of Earthly Delights.”

Mercator, the man, never ventured farther away than 

the annual Frankfurt Book Fair, but his cartography, 

and his sources, illuminated the Boreal/Arctic world. 

We all participate in the Common Life. We anticipate 

further research, leading to publications and perhaps a 

fascinating exhibit as part of the ASC initiative “Arctic 

Resilience.”

Part of the 1569 Mercator Basel world map showing the polar river entrances

A section of Bosch’s painting, “The Garden of Earthly 

Delights”
 ASC Newsletter 47

VOLUME 1 OF THE HANDBOOK OF NORTH 

AMERICAN INDIANS SERIES COMPLETED

By Igor Krupnik

A team from the NMNH Department of Anthropology, 

in collaboration with NMAI and the Smithsonian 

Institution Scholarly Press (SISP director Ginger 

Minkiewicz) completed the production of Vol.1 in the 

Smithsonian seminal Handbook of North American 

Indians series. The new 948-page volume, with 35 

chapters, over 350 illustrations, several appendices, and 

a massive bibliography of 260+ pages was first released 

as an e-book in October 2022 and, later, as a printed 

gray-cloth volume in early January 2023. 

A full volume, the first in the Handbook 

series, can be downloaded free of charge at 

the SISP site; by March 2023, over 1500 

copies had been downloaded.

The production of the new volume took 

almost 10 years and was led by a small 

team of current and retired Anthropology 

curators (Ives 

Goddard, Daniel 

Rogers, and 

William Merrill), 

members of the 

NMAI staff (Ann 

McMullen and 

Gabi Tayac), 

and colleagues 

from outside 

the Smithsonian 

(Sergei Kan, Joe 

Watkins, and the 

late Ira Jacknis), 

under the overall 

leadership of 

Igor Krupnik, 

who acted as 

volume’s general 

editor. Several 

members of the 

former Handbook 

office (Joanna Cohan Scherer, Cesare Marino, and 

Daniel Cole) were also instrumental to the success of 

the volume. Overall, the team included 70+ chapter 

contributors and 75 reviewers, both from within and 

outside the Smithsonian, including authors/reviewers 

from Canada, Mexico, Germany, UK, and other 

countries. The entire work was skillfully managed by 

the virtual (online) volume manager, Corey Heyward 

Sattes and the SISP director, Ginger Minkiewicz. 

It was a great effort of dedication, professional 

excellence, and loyalty to the legacy of the Handbook 

series begun in the 1970s, led by the late William C.

Sturtevant (1926–2007) and the former Handbook

office, which closed in 2007.

All members of the ASC team participated in the 

new production: Igor as a general editor and author/

co-author on several chapters; Aron Crowell, Bill 

Fitzhugh, and Stephen Loring, as volume chapter 

authors/co-authors and reviewers; and Dawn Biddison

was instrumental in securing permissions and highresolution images for some 300 of volume illustrations. 

Igor Chechushkov worked on the image enhancement, 

and some of our past and current affiliates (Ken 

Pratt, Max Friesen, Joan Gero, Noor Johnson, 

Susan Rowley) acted as chapter reviewers. It was a 

monumental enterprise that 

engaged about 200 people 

overall.

The volume contains one 

chapter that is specially 

dedicated to the Arctic, 

written by Peter Collings 

(he is working primarily 

among the Inuinnait, 

former ‘Copper Inuit’ in 

the Canadian High Arctic). 

Another chapter, Subarctic: 

Accommodation and 

Resistance since 1970, written by a joint 

Canadian-US-UK team of Colin Scott, 

William Simeone, Robert Wishart, and 

Janelle Baker, covers the interior portion 

of Alaska and most of Canada north of the 

US-Canadian border. Yet another regional 

chapter, Northwest Coast: Ethnology since 

the late 1980s (by Sergei Kan and Michael 

Harkin), expands its coverage to the 

Alaskan southern ‘panhandle.’ In addition, 

sections on Arctic people and communities, 

as well as photographs, examples, and 

references to the Arctic/northern conditions 

are prominently featured in several other 

chapters that discuss the impact of climate 

change on Native American communities 

(by Margaret Hiza Redsteer, Igor, and Julie K.

Maldonado); status of Indigenous languages (by 

Marianne Mithun) and new digital domains for 

Native languages (by Gary Holton); relations between 

Indigenous communities and museums (by Aron 

Crowell); the rise of social complexity in Native 

American societies (by Dan Rogers and William 

Fitzhugh); Indigenous people’s relations with 

Archaeology (by George Nicholas, Dorothy Lippert, 

and Stephen Loring); new ethical relations among 

anthropologists and North American Indigenous people 

(by Joe Watkins), and many more. 

Some members of the Handbook volume team 

at the celebration on March 8th (left to right): 

Ginger Minkiewicz, Moises Gonzales, Dan Cole, 

Joanna Scherer, Cesare Marino, Igor Krupnik 

(with volume), William Fitzhugh, William Merrill, 

Stephen Loring, Adrianna Link, Corey Sattes 

(Heyward), Candace Greene, Sergei Kan. Photo 

by Phillip R. Lee
48 ASC Newsletter

Because of its remarkable diversity in both content 

and breadth of authors/contributors, the volume offers 

one of the most comprehensive overviews within the 

Handbook series. It is also aimed to cover the entire of 

North America, culturally and geographically—from 

the High Arctic to Central Mexico, and from the Bering 

Strait to Greenland. We hope that the volume will be 

well received by a wide audience of readers, Handbook

lovers, but primarily by new cohorts of students and 

young researchers, including from Indigenous nations.

THE GLIDDON MUMMY CASE: 

INTERSECTIONS PAST AND PRESENT

By Lana Troy

[Editor’s note: Dr. Troy does not address ’Arctic’ 

matters, but she has been an ASC Research Associate 

through her Swedish connection with Noel Broadbent 

and has researched NMNH Egyptian collections for 

many years.] 

There are approximately 1600 catalog numbers in the 

collection of the Department of Anthropology that 

relate to Ancient, Greco-Roman or Late Antique Egypt 

or Sudan. Acquisition dates range from the mid-1830s 

(John Varden’s Washington Museum) to the 1990s, 

when private donations were comprised of purchases 

made in Egypt prior to 1970. This group covers a range 

of object categories, from large stone sculptures, and 

colorful coffins, to the smallest amulets. Some are well 

provenanced, acquired directly from excavations in the 

1800s. Others came from private collections with no 

record of when or how they were acquired. And still 

others were simply found in the archaeology collection 

and lack any background information. They represent 

about 140 different acquisitions, as well as about 35 

items transferred from the National Institute in the early 

1860s. Each object carries a multiplicity of stories, 

relating to its materiality and historical context, its path 

to the collection, as well as its subsequent research and 

exhibit impact. ‘The Gliddon Mummy Case’ provides 

an example of the many intersections between past and 

present. 

‘The Gliddon Mummy Case’ (A1415-0, also A8276-0)

Recorded as ‘The Gliddon Mummy Case’ in one ledger 

entry, A1415-0 is a fragment of a lid from a cartonnage 

coffin. It is dated to the 26th dynasty (664–525 BCE) 

and reportedly was found in the Saqqara necropolis 

west of Cairo. (Fig. 1). The fragment is from the lower 

part of the lid, covering the lower legs of the mummy. 

The decoration of the lid fragment includes both 

images and text. To the far left and right (the sides of 

the lid), stand female figures in tightly fitted sheath 

dresses in the style of the Old Kingdom (c. 2663–2195 

BCE). Each holds a staff in one hand and the ‘ankh’-

life sign in the other. Their names, written above them, 

Isis to the left and Nephthys to the right, identify the 

women as the sisters of the god Osiris, credited with 

reassembling his limbs, enabling his resurrection. The 

middle is occupied by seven columns of texts. 

The piece was acquired by the National Institute in 

1842, in a group of about 50 items, most likely as a 

purchase, from George Robins Gliddon (b.1809, 

England—d.1857, Panama). In the Third Bulletin of 

the Proceedings of the National Institute (p. 231) it is 

described as “One piece of a beautiful mummy case 

I found the Arabs about to burn at Saccàra. I was not 

in time to save the rest, beyond half the cover.” The 

fragment was cut into three pieces and distributed 

among the National Institute, the Naval Lyceum 

of Brooklyn, and a Mrs. Ward of New York. The 

Naval Lyceum piece was installed in its museum and 

described as ‘”a piece of a mummy case fashioned ...

out of layers of papyrus.” After the dissolution of the 

Lyseum in 1888, the museum inventory was passed 

to the U. S. Naval Academy Museum (USNAM) in 

Annapolis, where that fragment is on display today. 

The USNAM pieces joins with A1415-0 along the 

latter’s upper edge, extending the text columns. The 

uppermost section, presumably the piece given to Mrs. 

Ward, is still missing (Figs.2, 3). A complete coffin 

found in the Musée des beaux-arts in Grenoble, France 

(MG 1996), provides an opportunity to reconstruct 

the coffin from which the Gliddon lid was taken. 

Measuring 188 cm. in length, it displays the same 

brightly colored hieroglyphs on a white background 

found on the Gliddon fragments, as well as the same 

side images found on the USNAM piece.

Fig. 1. A1415-0 re-drawn from Pickering 1869
 ASC Newsletter 49

The Gliddon lid fragments are most closely linked to 

the Grenoble coffin by the hieroglyphs themselves, 

each formed as realistic pictures of the birds, baskets. 

human faces etc. that make up the writing system. The 

almost identical character of the signs from the Gliddon 

fragments and the Grenoble coffin suggests that the two 

coffins may have originated from the same workshop, 

and, perhaps, came from the same find, particularly 

as the Grenoble coffin arrived in France as a private 

acquisition in 1842, the same year that A1415-0 was 

acquired by the National Institute. The name of its 

owner, Psametik, also found for three kings of the 26th

dynasty, confirms the stylistic dating. 

George Robins Gliddon (1809–1857)

George R. Gliddon who brought the lid piece to the 

US in 1842 had spent his boyhood in Egypt where his 

father was the American consul, a position that young 

George later assumed. As a teenager, he facilitated 

travel arrangements for the earliest American tourists. 

Later on in the 1830s, he would arrange the export of 

antiquities for American travelers, such as Mendes 

Cohen (1796–1879), whose collection is now found in 

the Johns Hopkins Archaeological Museum. In 1840, 

the U.S. government closed all consular offices in the 

Ottoman Empire, and Gliddon was out of a job.

Once back in England, Gliddon produced a pamphlet 

which criticized the treatment of Egyptian monuments, 

and he is remembered for being among the first to 

express this concern. 

Looking for new ventures, he submitted plans for an 

overland route to India as well as considering ways to 

capture and transport a hippopotamus to the United 

States. Lacking success in these projects, Gliddon 

packed his bags loaded with Egyptian antiquities and 

mummies and sailed for New York in January 1842, 

primed to set himself up as the preeminent expert in all 

things ancient Egypt.

Gliddon made his living lecturing on his chosen subject 

around the U.S. for the next decade. In 1849 he upped 

his game with the creation of the ‘Panorama on the 

Nile’. This involved the display of a series of images, 

printed on a large roll of thin canvas and illuminated 

from behind, allowing his audience to experience a 

journey down and up the Nile, visiting all the major 

monuments. He incorporated lessons in hieroglyphics, 

the display of antiquities and the unwrapping of 

mummies, stretched out over several days, all with 

a mix of ‘oriental’ music in the background. The 

audiences were large and enthusiastic. 

All went well until the unwrapping of an advertised 

Egyptian princess, the “lily of the Nile,” revealed 

itself to be decidedly male, giving the newspapers an 

opportunity to poke fun at the high-minded lecturer. 

Recovering from this embarrassment, a ventriloquist, 

speaking for the mummy, was added to the 

entertainment, possibly inspired by Edgar Allen Poe’s 

“Some Words With A Mummy” from 1845, said to be 

influenced in part by some of Gliddon’s writings. The 

Panorama’s last stop was New Orleans in March 1852, 

after which efforts were made to sell the canvas roll 

piecemeal, while some of the mummies found a home 

in what became Tulane University. 

From New Orleans, Gliddon relocated to Mobile, 

Alabama where he met up with Dr. Josiah C. Nott, 

a slave-owner who dedicated his writings to the 

vindication of slavery. The two men shared a belief 

in polygenesis, the contention that humankind had 

several lineages, advanced by Gliddon’s close friend 

Samuel Morton. During Gliddon’s time in Mobile, he 

Fig. 2 USNAM 1892.001.152. Drawn from a photo provided 

by curator Grant Walker

Fig. 3. Coffin of Psametik (Musée des beaux-arts de 

Grenoble, Inv. no. 1996.
50 ASC Newsletter

collaborated with Nott, Morton and others on Types of 

Mankind (1854), arguing that the different ‘races’ were 

created by God for specific geographic regions. While 

not claiming superiority for one race over another, 

it proposed a biological differentiation related to the 

place of origin. This was followed by Indigenous Races 

of the Earth (1857). Edited by Nott and Gliddon, the 

contributors take the next step, presenting arguments 

for the hierarchy of the races. These publications were 

popular contributions to the pro-slavery cause and 

stayed in print long into the 20th century. 

In 1857, needing new challenges and, most likely, 

income, Gliddon accepted a position as Deputy Agent 

of the Honduras Inter-Oceanic Railroad Company. 

Joining a group of Philadelphia railroad men, he 

became involved in a plan to cut through the land 

mass joining the two Americas, a precursor to what 

became the Panama Canal. He arrived in Honduras in 

April of that year but some months on had contracted 

yellow fever while in Panama. Gliddon died there in 

November 1857, age 48, not of the fever but of an 

overuse of the cures of the day, laudanum and opium. 

Mummies On exhibit

As Gliddon was considering a move to Honduras, 

the brightly colored piece of a coffin lid that he had 

brought to the National Institute was resting in an 

exhibition case in the Old Patent Office (now the SI 

National Portrait Gallery and American Art Museum). 

It is described as a ‘King’s sarcophagus, covered with 

beautiful Egyptian figures’ in a privately printed guide. 

On May 11, 1858, some six months after Gliddon’s 

passing, John Varden, who had become caretaker 

of the collection, writes in his journal ‘cleaning and 

changing Gliddon’s Egyptian specimens.’

In 1861, as the National Institute merged with the 

newly created Smithsonian Institution, the Patent 

Office exhibit was packed up, and “45 wagon loads of 

collections, specimens of Natural History, casts, books, 

etc. property of the National Institute [were] transferred 

from the Patent Office” (from a notation for the catalog 

cards). A1415-0 was in this load and included in 

accession no. 135, covering the transfer. The first ledger 

registration of the Gliddon piece is from 1861 and 

reads ‘1415’ ‘part of cover of Egyptian sarcophagus’ 

(Vol. 001A, p. 057). Some time later, the piece is 

registered again as ‘8276’ ‘The Gliddon mummy case, 

Saccarah, Egypt collected 1842’ (Vol. 002A, p.192). It 

is this number that can be found, faintly written, on the 

back of the fragment. 

The ‘Gliddon Mummy Case’ fragment has been 

included in every exhibit of Egyptian artifacts in 

the 20th and, thus far, 21st century. It is described 

as sharing a display case with the obelisk model 

donated by Theodore Roosevelt in the 1922 exhibit. 

Examining it in 1939, John Cooney of the Brooklyn 

Museum declared ‘it is probably not earlier than 

the 26th Dynasty’. His successor, Robert Bianchi, 

some 40 years later, noted the resemblance to the 

Petosiris coffins from the 4th century BCE, suggesting 

that date. By then, Nesihor’s coffin lid fragment had 

been installed in the Western Civilization exhibit 

(c. 1976–2009), where I first saw it. Today, securely 

dated to the 26th dynasty (664–525 BCE), it can be 

seen as part of Eternal Egypt (2011–), placed next to 

a small, inscribed fragment of a statue base (A1421-

0), reuniting it with another object from Gliddon’s 

collection. 

Intersections

This survey of the ancient and modern history of the 

coffin lid fragment highlights the dynamic nature of 

the objects found on exhibit and in magazine drawers. 

They not only provide a glimpse of the past, but 

also confirm common themes that connect the past 

to the present. The Egyptians sought ways to deal 

with competing cultural identities, introducing in 

their monumental presentations, images and words 

produced by generations very long beyond memory. 

The story of George Gliddon highlights the perennial 

need to ‘market’ the ancient past, while underlining the 

attitudes of his time that continue to plague our present. 

Fig. 4. Hieroglyphs from A1415-0. The owl, read ‘in’ or ‘as’; 

the face read here as ‘Horus’ also ‘on’ or ‘over’; the swallow 

read ‘great’
 ASC Newsletter 51

Objects featured in exhibits ‘live’ through changing 

times and in their presentation can, in the best of 

circumstances, confirm the commonality of the human 

experience. 

References

Casanowicz, Immanuel M. 1922. The Collections of Old 

World Archaeology etc. Annual Report. The Smithsonian 

Institution, pp. 453-454. (NMNH A1415-0)

Hunter, Alfred, 1856. A popular catalogue of the 

Extraordinary Curiosities in the National Institute...

belonging to the Patent Office. Printed privately. 

(NMNH A1415-0)

Pickering, Charles. 1869. The Gliddon Mummycase in the Museum of the Smithsonian Institution. 

Smithsonian’s Contrib. to Knowl., No 208, passim with 

pl. (NMNH A1415-0)

Berube, Claude 2014. The Crucible of Naval 

Enlightenment. Naval History Magazine, Vol. 28, No. 

59. (USNAM 1892.001.152) 

Musée des beaux-arts de Grenoble, Inv. no. 1996. 

“Le Cercueil anthropoïde de Psamétik au musée de 

Grenoble.” Le blog de Jean-Yves Cordier

Gliddon, George R., 1841. An Appeal to the 

Antiquaries of Europe and the Destruction of the 

Monuments of Egypt. London.

Vivian, Cassandra. n.d. George Gliddon in America: 

The Awakening of Egyptomania. Available online.

Wolfe, S. J. 2016. Bringing Egypt to America: George 

Gliddon and the Panorama of the Nile. Journal of 

Ancient Egyptian Interconnections. Vol. 8, pp. 1–20. 

DISCOVERING MARITIME NATIVE 

AMERICA: A HALF CENTURY OF 

SMITHSONIAN RESEARCH

By Ted Timreck

This is a story about how science works. Over the last 

45 years I've had the grand opportunity to document 

some of the fieldwork and just as significantly, some 

of the evolving ideas of a group of Smithsonian 

scientists—researchers who maintain their deep 

individuality even as they work within a matrix of 

shared parameters. Looking into this process as a 

journalist through the medium of the moving image—

not as a professional archeologist—has offered a 

perspective that shows scientific, anthropological 

communication to be a highly disciplined and a 

relatively personal art form. The most successful 

beliefs about where humanity comes from (and this 

goes back to at least the Bible) depend on how good the 

communicated story is.

My story is a reminiscence about three archeologists 

who worked on the same floor of the Smithsonian’s 

National Museum of Natural History but managed, with 

strikingly independent efforts and a healthy amount of 

differing opinion, to formulate three major steps that 

have pointed the way to a better understanding of the lost 

history of Indigenous Eastern America.

William Fitzhugh and the Labrador Maritime 

Archaic

In the late 1960s Bill Fitzhugh began exploring the 

far reaches of the North Labrador Coast, discovering 

the northernmost traces of early Eastern Native 

Americans. First documented by scientists in the 

1880s, the mysterious, red ochre burials found along 

the coast of Maine gave rise to the myth of the Lost 

Red Paint People in northeastern North America. Long 

considered and dismissed as ‘fantastic archeology’ 

by the profession, it was a hundred years after their 

first discovery that researchers like James Tuck from 

Newfoundland’s Memorial University established the 

scientific existence of an advanced Native culture in 

the Canadian Maritimes. Tuck suspected these peoples 

were connected to the sea but gave them the ambiguous 

name ‘Maritime Archaic’, perhaps denoting both their 

possible ocean adaptation and their existence in the 

Canadian Maritimes as early as 3,500 years ago.

Fitzhugh and his team from the Smithsonian's Arctic 

Studies Center extended the search for this civilization 

north along the shores of Labrador, and by the 1980's 

he confirmed that beginning around 7,500 years 

ago, this sophisticated Native culture had settled 

in several locations extending almost to the Arctic 

Circle, achieving a major florescence around 4,000 

B.P. Fitzhugh’s team was the first to find the remains 

Fitzhugh aboard the Smithsonian’s research vessel Tunuyak 

in Nulliak Cove
52 ASC Newsletter

of Native house foundations near ceremonial burials. 

He and his crew proved that along with their red ochre 

burial practices and their construction of ceremonial 

stone landscapes, these people were adapted to ocean 

travel in large dugout boats and navigated over great 

distances along the Atlantic Coast. This was a vision of 

Archaic Eastern Native America that wasn't to be found 

in the anthropology textbooks of the time.

The implications of Dr. Fitzhugh's work on the Torngat 

Project were astounding. To introduce the vision of 

an ancient, ocean adapted, Eastern Native civilization 

that might best be compared to the well-known sea 

cultures of the Northwest Coast was a concept that 

did not fit with the established beliefs of professional 

colleagues. When I first got to know Bill, documenting 

the excavation work with his team at the Nulliak site in 

northern Labrador, we were once sitting at the edge of 

the steeply raised beach terrace and he told me that the 

real question was, “Where did these people come from.” 

As a journalist filmmaker, I had originally approached 

Bill in 1979 without any formal academic training 

in anthropology but with a self-taught interest in the 

suspect topic of American Antiquarianism, which 

always seemed to brush the world of ‘fantastic 

archeology’. My interest in antiquarian history never 

made me popular in the profession, but Bill's level of 

tolerance for my investigation into the origin question 

he posed has always been a key encouragement, and 

over 40 years we have been able to watch the slow 

scientific evolution of this radical concept in Native 

American history.

Years of research along the Labrador coast offered 

the proof. Perhaps Bill's childhood summers in Cape 

Cod and background in the U.S. Navy gave him the 

perspective to be able to suggest the first scientific 

glimmer of the deep ocean-adapted Eastern Native 

culture that once existed along the North Atlantic 

Coast. This was a first step toward recognizing how 

different and how important this new chapter might be. 

But in the 1980s the anthropological academy wasn't 

ready to accept the possibility of such a radical revision 

of Indigenous American history because there were no 

acceptable theories or proofs about how such a Native 

civilization could exist. 

Stephen Loring and the Ramah Chert Fluted Point

Stephen Loring worked with Bill on the Torngat 

Project, and together with their ASC team they 

discovered the Ramah Chert quarries in far northern 

Labrador. Ramah Chert is a beautiful, distinctive, and 

easily worked stone material that the early northeastern 

Indians along the Atlantic Coast used to make their 

tools. Archeologists were aware of this unusual toolstone from the time of its discovery in the earliest Red 

Paint burial finds in Maine, but they had no idea where 

it came from until Fitzhugh, Loring, and the ASC 

crew discovered in Ramah Bay, northern Labrador, the 

only place on earth where this distinctive stone can be 

obtained.

In the early 1970s, before Loring began working with 

the ASC in Labrador, he had been hired by the State of 

Vermont to document collections of Native projectile 

points that local farmers had found on their land. 

During this study he identified about 30 Paleoindian 

points with their characteristic fluted base. Thirty years 

after his Vermont survey, Loring was reintroduced 

to one of the fluted paleo points found along a high 

beach terrace of the ancient Champlain Sea in Western 

Vermont that looked like it was made of Ramah Chert. 

He spent the next couple of years having the material 

tested in the laboratory, and it was determined that the 

point was indeed Ramah Chert and had been made by 

Paleoindians 10,000–12,000 years ago. This was one of 

those magnificent, accidental discoveries in science that 

Loring has referred to as a “smoking gun”. The fluted 

point indicated that, although found in Vermont on the 

raised shoreline of an Ice Age sea, the point or the raw 

material had been transported from the Ramah Chert 

quarries in northern Labrador during Paleolithic times.

This was another major step toward uncovering the 

never-imagined history of Eastern Native America, 

showing that Indian people navigated the North 

Atlantic coast during the Ice Age. The find opened a 

new chapter of the Indigenous narrative—the PaleoMaritime. The implications of this accidental but major 

discovery added urgency to the realization of how 

much Native history was still unknown. 

Dennis Stanford and the Atlantic Shelf

Dennis Stanford directed the Paleoindian Program at 

the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History from the 

mid-1970s until his death in 2019. His laboratory was 

The Ramah chert fluted point from the shores of glacial 

Champlain Sea
 ASC Newsletter 53

next door to the Arctic Studies Center. I met Stanford 

soon after his arrival at the Smithsonian, and we 

became friends when we were working together on an 

anthropological television series produced in Boston. 

Through the last half of the 20th century, Stanford, along 

with the Smithsonian's huge collection of Paleoindian 

artifacts he curated, may have been the most powerful 

forces gatekeeping the accepted history of the American 

Paleolithic. Dennis was part of the wave of researchers 

who defined our vision of the ‘Clovis First’ Paleoindian. 

These scientists built the Paleo story of the Beringian 

land migration and shaped the anthropological image 

of the Paleo hunter-gatherers almost like they saw 

themselves, as the modern inheritors of the Western 

environment and its rugged life-style. Over many 

years and many conversations, I watched a remarkable 

transformation take place in Stanford’s thinking.

Throughout much of his life Dennis pursued the 

‘Siberian migration-Clovis first’ hypothesis. He did 

research in the American West, Alaska, Siberia, and 

China. After years of investigation, he came to the 

conclusion that the stories of Native American roots in 

the Western Hemisphere were more complicated than 

the accepted theories. Around the turn of the millenium, 

as the idea of boat migration along the Pacific Coast 

of North America was gaining traction, Stanford was 

researching environmental information about the Ice 

Age Atlantic Ocean and discovering the true depth 

of early Clovis and pre-Clovis occupation along the 

Mid-Atlantic shore. Remarkably, for a man who the 

Academy believed was a staunch supporter of the 

accepted Clovis hypotheses, Stanford began pointing 

to a different chapter in the lost, Native history of the 

Atlantic Coast, working in the truest scientific tradition 

of evidence-based deduction and common sense. 

Then in 2008 he was introduced by his associate, 

Darrin Lowery, to a stone biface that had been sitting 

unnoticed in a small, Maryland museum. The blade was 

dredged up along with a complete mastodon skull from 

the floor of the Atlantic about 40 miles off the coast of 

Virginia in the 1970s.

The mastodon tusk dated to more than 20,000 

years ago, and ever since, the Cinmar blade has 

been extraordinarily controversial in American 

archeology. No matter how the science shakes itself 

out, the discovery by Stanford and his team points 

to the important fact that the future and deeper 

understanding of Eastern Native history will come 

from this type of discovery along the now-submerged 

Atlantic shelf. Stanford's work—a lifetime of testing 

the accepted theory and then moving beyond to ask 

deeper questions, will probably serve to solidify future 

researchers' attempts to understand how the Atlantic 

Ocean affected the ancient history of North America.

Was it a coincidence that these three amazing 

discoveries (although perhaps not well-heralded by the 

profession but each worthy of its own Eureka) were 

accomplished from the same floor of the National 

Museum of Natural History? Over the last half century, 

these three discoveries, made by decidedly independent 

researchers, combined with the dedicated efforts of 

their Smithsonian teams and technical associates, 

have opened a new frontier in American anthropology. 

Each discovery had an unusual aura of independence 

from the others and was accomplished in a different 

time frame without specific collaboration between the 

principals. 

Perhaps it was just in the air, but Fitzhugh’s 

confirmation of an Archaic Native sea culture with far 

ranging navigational abilities set the stage for a new 

understanding of Indigenous history along the North 

Atlantic Coast. Loring’s Ramah Chert fluted point 

discovery and his persistence in tracing its route from 

Labrador to the Great Lakes and south along the coast 

to the Carolinas showed the extent of Indigenous trade 

and pushed the origins of this cultural florescence back 

into the Ice Age. Stanford’s change of emphasis from 

Western Paleo to the Atlantic and the amazing offshore 

discovery of the Cinmar blade has pointed the direction 

to where future research and excavation may be most 

conclusive. This half century of both persistent research 

and serendipitous discovery shows the evolution of 

the modern scientific method and highlights the need 

for a better awareness of the personalities and histories 

that shape the process of discovery and the academic 

acceptance that gradually follows.

[Editor’s note: Ted Timreck has been documenting 

Smithsonian archaeological work since the mid1970s. His work can be seen in NOVA productions 

like The Mystery of the Lost Red Paint People, and 

the forthcoming Ancient Sea Peoples of the North 

Atlantic.] 

The Cinmar biface dredged up near the edge of the 

continental shelf
54 ASC Newsletter

THE FORTEAU BAY-5 GROSWATER SITE, 

SOUTHERN LABRADOR

By Sophia Field

Labrador serves as a bridging zone between the arctic 

and subarctic regions. Both marine and terrestrial 

resources are accessible, creating a contact zone in 

which different cultures could interact and benefit 

from multiple environments. During cold climatic 

periods the Labrador Current brings Arctic marine 

conditions as far south as Newfoundland and the Gulf 

of St. Lawrence. This occurred during the sub-boreal 

period, when Groswater Paleoeskimo culture became 

the first Inuit culture to reach these Subarctic regions. 

Research in Labrador and Newfoundland has revealed 

Groswater to be a transitional phase between PreDorset and Early-Dorset Paleoeskimo/Inuit cultures 

(Fitzhugh 1972, 1976). 

Groswater is a descendant of the Arctic Small Tool 

Tradition and was present on the coast of Labrador, 

the Quebec Lower North Shore, and Newfoundland 

between 2800 and 1800 BP (Renouf 2011). Groswater 

is characterized by a diverse collection of microliths 

having a variety of functional and typological 

tool types. Bifacial tools like side-notched points, 

sideblades, endscrapers, and burin-like tools are 

present along with soapstone lamps and a multitude of 

microblades. Other tool industries common in Dorset, 

such as slate, are not well represented; bone tools are 

rarely preserved due to high soil acidity.

While faunal remains are rarely preserved at 

Groswater sites in Labrador, their presence in 

Newfoundland’s limestone soil indicates that their 

economy varied by season, with sealing (particularly 

of harp seals) and caribou hunting occurring in the 

winter and spring, and egg collecting, bird hunting, 

fishing, and berry collecting in summer (Fitzhugh 

1972). This is similar to Dorset culture as well as the 

historic Labrador Inuit, except for the latter’s whale 

hunting ability. Previously described sites, such as 

East Pompey Island and Ticoralak, suggest domestic 

settlement patterns in which both inner and outer 

coastal zones were used for a variety of summer 

activities, including hunting, production of stone and 

bone tools, and skin working. The large Postville 

site offers insight into the social organization of 

Groswater culture as its excavation revealed a total 

of nine structures. These structures indicated that the 

group’s largest social unit consisted of several closely 

related family groups during the winter season (Loring 

and Cox 1986). Other prominent sites, notably the 

Phillips Garden site in Port au Choix, Newfoundland, 

supported seasonal winter-spring occupations, multifamily social organization, and demonstrated a gradual 

amalgamation of Groswater Dorset and early Dorset 

around 1800 BP (Renouf 2011).

Previous Archaeological Research

Forteau Bay is located on the Labrador shore of 

the Strait of Belle Isle. Forteau Bay 5 (EiBf-1) was 

originally collected in 1949 by Elmer Harp before 

Growater was recognized as a distinct culture. Harp 

(1951) described it as significantly eroded in an area 

of “poorly-stabilized dunes” with “deep systems 

of blowouts”. Harp also mentioned it as a future 

publication in his Boreal Archaic paper in 1963, but 

he never got around to it, and toward the end of his 

life gave the collection to Fitzhugh, recognizing its 

similarity to Groswater sites in Hamilton Inlet.

Summary of Artifacts

The artifacts from Forteau Bay 5 include sidenotched endblades, burin-like tools, microblade cores, 

bifaces, ovate sideblades, endscrapers, and utilized 

flakes. Microblades (.4) and utilized flakes (.31) are 

most common. Many of the microblades, as well 

as sideblades, are fragmented, suggesting that they 

were discarded due to use or breakage. The site lacks 

artifacts common in later Dorset culture, such as tipfluted triangular end-blades, double side-notched 

points, soapstone pots, and ground slate tools, as well 

as any evidence of dwelling structures. The “boxbased” points as well as the smaller microlithics, 

including characteristic ground and spalled burin-like 

tools, notched microblades, flared endscrapers, and 

ovate sideblades are consistent across Groswater Dorset 

lithic assemblages. 

Table 1. Average Measurements of Forteau Bay 5 

afrtifacts

Average 

length 

(mm)

Average 

width 

(mm)

Average 

weight (g)

Point 30.5 14.55 1.95

Biface 28.55 27.2 6.4

Sideblade 22.18 15.6 0.92

Endscraper 25.8 20.4 5.25

Burin-like 

tool

28.1 15.07 1.93

Microblade 20.93 9.94 0.94

Utilized 

flake

21.47 14.13 1.24
 ASC Newsletter 55

Materials

Gray, tan, mottled, and green chert comprise 56 of 

the 67 artifacts (.84). Five artifacts (.07) are made of 

Ramah chert and six (.09) are of quartz crystal. Quartz 

crystal is commonly found in Labrador and is used 

for microblade production along with chert cores. 

Ramah chert is a distinctive, semi-translucent gray 

stone originating from quarries in Northern Labrador 

and is widely traded in Northeastern North America. 

Ramah chert was not a main facet of Groswater Dorset 

lithics but later became the dominant material in Early, 

Middle, and Late Dorset technology.

Comparisons

Collections from East Pompey Island and Postville are 

the largest Groswater Dorset sites known in Labrador. 

The Postville site is from the late Groswater Dorset 

period and contains higher amounts of Ramah chert 

than other Groswater Dorset sites, making up 35% 

of the 1,966 artifacts while other chert types make 

up 56% of the artifacts (Loring and Cox 1986). The 

Phillips Garden site of Port au Choix, Newfoundland, 

is significant for Groswater Dorset presence in 

Newfoundland and offers a wealth of information, 

defining the “Phillip’s Garden West Phase”, which, 

as a later stage of Groswater, has several typological 

differences in artifacts compared to Forteau Bay. These 

differences include the use of colorful Cow Head 

cherts, parallel flaking, surface grinding and polishing, 

and fine edge serration (Renouf 2011). 

Table 2 compares Groswater sites from East Pompey 

Island, Ticoralak, and Red Rock Point. Microblades 

and utilized flakes are most represented; chert, 

Ramah chert, and quartz crystal ratios are consistent 

across the sites.

[Sophia Field conducted this research while serving as 

an ASC intern from University of California–Davis in 

the spring of 2023.]

References

Fitzhugh, William (1972). Environmental 

Archaeology and Cultural Systems in Hamilton 

Inlet, Labrador. Smithsonian Contributions to 

Anthropology 16.

(1976). Paleoeskimo Occupations of the Labrador 

Coast. Memoirs of the Society for American 

Archaeology 31:103-118.

Loring, Stephen, and Steven Cox (1986). The 

Postville Pentecostal Groswater Site, Kaipokok Bay, 

Labrador. Palaeo-Eskimo Cultures in Newfoundland, 

Labrador, and Ungava. Reports in Archaeology 1:65-

94. 

Harp, Elmer (1951). An Archaeological Survey in 

the Strait of Belle Isle Area. American Antiquity 16 

(3):203-220. 

Renouf, M.A.P. (2011). The Cultural Landscapes of 

Port au Choix. New York: Springer.

Point Biface Side 

blade

End 

scraper

Burinlike toolMicrobladeUtilized 

Flake

Other Total 

Tools

Debitage

E. Pompey .02 (10) .03 (14) .01 (3) .01 (2) .01 (5) .52 (220) .35 (149) .05 (22) 425 5520

Ticoralak 2 -- .14 (3) -- -- .04 (1) .68 (14) -- .14 (3) 21 51

Tic; 2E -- .14 (1) -- -- -- .72 (5) -- .14 (1) 7 6

Ticoralak 3 .04 (3) .15 (11) -- .01 (1) -- .45 (35) .27 (21) .08 (6) 77 1261

Ticoralak 4 -- -- -- .25 (1) -- .75 (3) -- -- 4 30

Ticoralak 5 .03 (3) .04 (4) .04 (4) -- .04 (4) .63 (69) .17 (19) .05 (5) 108 856

R.Rock 

Pt2

-- .19 (5) -- -- .11 (3) .47 (12) .18 (5) .05 (1) 26 --

Forteau 5 .1 (7) .03 (2) .07 (5) .03 (2) .04 (3) .4 (27) .31 (21) -- 67 --

Table 2. Comparison of Groswater Phase Sites in percentages (Fitzhugh 1972)1

1

Several sites, such as Ticoralak 2, 2E, 4, and Red Rock Point 2, have very few artifacts, reducing their use for 

comparative purposes.
56 ASC Newsletter

EXCAVATIONS AT ADUUN ORDON IN THE 

MONGOLIAN GOBI

By Christina Carolus, Asa Cameron, Bukhchuluun 

Dashzeveg, and William Honeychurch

An unrecognizable scene greeted the Shiriin Chuluu 

Archaeological team upon our return to the Shiriin 

Chuluu area of Dornogovi Province, southeastern 

Mongolia, in 2022. In average years, the dramatic, 

arid nature of the Gobi-steppe strikes the visitor as 

akin to Charles Bonestell’s famous Study for a Lunar 

Landscape (1957) with its xerophytic environment 

that has likely been in place since the Late Holocene 

(c. 4000 BP). Shiriin Chuluu is defined by the visually 

striking stacked granite formations to which the area 

may in part owe its local name,“chuluu” translating 

as “stone”. Visible at great distance amidst a sea 

of rolling steppe, these formations have served 

as a transhumant waypoint and locus of mortuary 

activity for millennia of Gobi inhabitants. Yet as we 

approached Shiriin Chuluu, the expected terrain of 

granite peaks and barren expanse presented something 

outrageously different: a verdant, rain-fed flood of 

life. 

This year represented a season of both renewal and 

change– the return of international collaboration 

after several years of global pandemic restrictions 

and new research directions. This season marked the 

beginning of excavations at Aduun Ordon, a wellpreserved cave site with long term occupation (Figs. 

1, 2). Mortuary contexts dating from the Late Bronze 

Age (c.1500–1000 BC), Early Iron Age (c.1000–400 

BC), and Xiongnu Period (c.250 BC–150 AD) have 

been studied in the Shiriin Chuluu area since 2018, 

while habitation sites from these periods were absent 

from the archaeological record. Our primary goal was 

to locate and investigate habitation sites that would be 

coeval with, or post-date, the arrival of pastoralism. 

Investigation of Aduun Ordon is intended to address 

the lacuna in knowledge of practices associated with 

daily living, including subsistence, lithic and craft 

production, and other domestic activities. 

One of two cave sites exhibiting painted red ochre 

art, Aduun Ordon is a shallow cave measuring 

approximately 20 square meters that provides 

protection from wind, sun, and rain. Its interior space 

has been used by herd animals as a shelter, and local 

residents cannot not recall a time of human use. It 

opens on the southern side of a granite outcrop and 

is framed by natural “lintels” covered in many places 

by red ochre paint smears and images. The drawings 

and occasional pecked images depict abstract faunal, 

human, and geometric figures (Fig. 3) and show 

affinities with broader artistic traditions in GobiAltai and southern Siberia. Depicted fauna include 

both domesticate species (e.g. horses) and wild 

species such as ibex (Capra sibirica). To the authors’ 

knowledge, Aduun Ordon is one of only a few recorded 

southeastern Gobi sites with painted cave art. Most 

other examples are in north-central Mongolia and 

western Altai. 

We opened 10 square meters, excavating in eight 

arbitrary levels, to a depth of approximately 90 cms. 

The first level was a compact 15 cm layer of desiccated 

livestock dung, below which we dug in 10 cm levels 

using a total station and LiDAR photogrammetry. We 

recovered a wide range of artifacts, some of which 

are rare except in burials. Finds included personal 

items such as faunal tooth pendants and a dozen Late 

Bronze Age and Early Iron Age beads made from 

various materials (one was a bronze bead, possibly 

the earliest recorded in Mongolia), remains of ceramic 

tripod vessels, butchered and burnt faunal remains 

Fig. 1. Horses using the site as protection from heat and 

summer sun

Fig. 2. View of the site facing north
 ASC Newsletter 57

(primarily livestock), textiles, leather products, seeds, 

paper fragments, birch bark, sheep/goat scapula with 

written script, and an array of metal remains of brass, 

iron, bronze, and copper. Numerous hearths were found 

throughout the sequence. 

In upper levels we identified a religious shrine 

containing Buddhist and shamanic paraphernalia. 

The shrine area was near the back wall and included 

several objects depicting Buddhist figures in clay 

and gilded wood. The shrine was surrounded by 

manuscript fragments with Mongol and Tibetan texts, 

silk and wool textile fragments, a Mongol period iron 

arrow, small porcelain offering bowls, red lacquered 

wood fragments, and iron nails. It also included small 

stone-encircled ritual offerings of horse teeth, pine nut 

shells (Pinus sibirica), wheat (Triticum aestivum), and 

hundreds of miniature clay votive “stupa” offerings 

arranged in circles or lines. These materials are 

currently being analyzed by an expert in Buddhist 

material culture at the National University of Mongolia.

In levels 5 through 8, Buddhist materials gave way 

to earlier material cultural traditions, beginning with 

a limited amount of Kitan wares. Below this were 

hundreds of sherds with carbonized food residues 

used as cooking vessels (Fig. 4). Most exhibit design 

features from Late Bronze Age through Xiongnu 

times. We confirmed these estimated dates with AMS 

radiocarbon dates on food-crusts from five sherds 

recovered in levels 7 and 8, indicating the lower levels 

were occupied from 1393–774 BC. 

Thousands of butchered and burnt faunal remains 

found throughout the sequence are currently under 

analysis. They span a range of herd species known 

to the area: cattle (Bos sp.), horses (Equus caballus), 

sheep (Ovis aries), and goats (Capra hircus) and fall 

within various age classes. Selected identified finds 

have been submitted for AMS radiocarbon dating as 

well as stable and radiogenic isotope analysis.

We also documented hundreds of lithic artifacts 

from the lower levels, including a variety of bifacial 

point types, as well as microblades, microblade 

cores, thumbnail scrapers, and a burin. Lithic 

technological change in Mongolia from the Neolithic 

through Xiongnu is an active research topic among 

archaeologists. Finds at Aduun Ordon may shed light 

on this trajectory, particularly on changes in lithic 

production from Late Bronze Age through Xiongnu, 

where secure stratified data are sparse.

As we prepare for excavations in 2023, we anticipate 

evidence of earlier occupation in the Bronze Age (c. 

3000–1000 BCE) and possibly the Neolithic (c.7000–

3000 BCE) or Late Pleistocene. The type of long-term 

occupation is rarely found in Mongolia and almost 

completely absent for the Gobi-steppe region. Results 

from Aduun Ordon should provide much needed data 

concerning the arrival of mobile pastoralism. We are 

optimistic about the site’s potential to clarify long 

term diachronic changes in daily practice and social 

organization leading to the Xiongnu Period and the 

emergence of the first nomadic empire in Eastern 

Eurasia.

Fig. 3. A selection of painted and pecked images recorded at 

the site

Fig. 4. Ceramic artifacts mentioned in text. Items 1-5 

yielded AMS radiocarbon food residue dates from the Late 

Bronze Age (c.1400 cal BC) to Early Iron Age (c. 800 cal 

BCE). Item 6 is a tripod leg estimated to date to the Late 

Bronze Age
58 ASC Newsletter

COLLECTIONS

THE FOSCO MARAINI IKUPASUY 

COLLECTION

By Aubrey MacKenzie and Christopher B. Lowman

Many museums in the U.S. house collections of 

objects created and used by the Ainu, the Indigenous 

people of Northern Japan. Through a combination of 

long anthropological interest, tourism, and Japanese 

policy, some of the oldest and most ornate Ainu 

objects are today located outside Japan in places like 

the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of 

Natural History, the American Museum of Natural 

History in New York City, and the Brooklyn Museum. 

Other collections remain in private hands. One private 

collection, consisting of 32 Ainu objects, surfaced 

late in 2022 at an auction in Paris. Tracing its history 

provides a window into the creation of Ainu collections 

and suggests future work that can be done to tie them to 

their communities of origin.

Ainu homelands encompass Hokkaido, Sakhalin, 

the Kuril islands, and the Tohoku region of Honshu, 

although today most Ainu live only on Hokkaido. 

For centuries, the Ainu maintained extensive trade 

networks with Japan, Russia, China, and other 

Indigenous peoples around the Sea of Okhotsk. Trade 

items like metal and lacquerware became deeply 

embedded within Ainu everyday practices. Conflicts 

and later forced assimilation efforts by the Japanese 

government led to restrictions on Ainu trade, religion, 

and language. Despite this, many Ainu people have 

continued to adapt and preserve their culture. 

After the 1868 Meiji Restoration, Western travelers 

and anthropologists observed changes in Ainu 

everyday life occurring because of Japanese policies 

and the rapid spread of imposed forms of agriculture 

and industry. Unfortunately, these outside observers 

conflated change with the assumption that Ainu people 

themselves would inevitably vanish. This belief 

fueled extensive collecting by travelers and museumsponsored expeditions (Fitzhugh 1999). Due to this 

salvage ethnography approach, collectors often focused 

on Ainu-made objects, ignoring items obtained through 

trade despite their importance for the Ainu themselves 

(Lowman 2018).

Collectors especially desired items used in Ainu 

religious practices. Traditionally, Ainu believe in 

many spiritual beings (kamuy), whom they worship 

and describe in poems, sagas, and stories (yukar). 

Kamuy differ by region and among individuals but 

can be both living and nonliving things such as 

animals, plants, mountains, rivers, and tools (Yamasaki 

2018). Communication with kamuy involves material 

intermediaries like ikupasuy, sacred flat sticks carved 

with meaningful and decorative designs. Ikupasuy

would be dipped into a cup (tuki) containing rice 

wine and then used to scatter droplets of liquid as 

offerings to kamuy. Due to their ritual importance and 

unique carvings, they were prized personal items. 

Ainu activist Shigeru Kayano described ikupasuy as 

“a living thing with a soul” (Kayano 1978:241-44). 

Most ikupasuy are about the length and width of a 

ruler. No two are identical, but many share similar 

patterns and motifs, especially in the central design 

(noshki), and often included stylized designs of the 

orca whale kamuy (Repun-kamuy). Some carvings 

related to the individual, such as repeated marks called 

itokpa on one or both ends or personal insignia on the 

underside called shiroshi. Other marks were functional: 

a small notch at the tip of the ikupasuy, called a 

parunpe, allows the stick to communicate prayers. The 

“anatomy” of an ikupasuy can be seen below.

Until the late 19th century, Ainu rarely parted with 

ikupasuy. The travel writer Isabella Bird recorded in 

1881 that it was “not [Ainu] custom” to part with them. 

Over time, Ainu increasingly sold their ikupasuy to 

Japanese and Western collectors, in some cases driven 

by increasingly difficult economic circumstances. 

Shigeru Kayano remembered how, during the 1930s, 

collectors came to his village specifically seeking Ainu 

utensils (Kayano 1994). Perhaps no foreigner collected 

more ikupasuy in the 20th century than the Italian 

ethnologist, writer, and photographer Fosco Maraini.

Maraini arrived in Hokkaido in 1938, supported by 

a Japanese grant for international students which he 

used to study Ainu culture. He visited Ainu villages 

(kotan) to collect material, staying for days or weeks. 

He collaborated with missionary and author John 

Batchelor, who often served as a guide to visitors 

from Europe and the United States, even facilitating 

transactions between the visitors and the Ainu (Poster 

1999). In just a few years, Maraini acquired an 

extensive collection.
 ASC Newsletter 59

After the outbreak of World War II, the Japanese 

government interned Maraini and his family alongside 

other Italians in Japan. Maraini’s Ainu materials at the 

time numbered 500 objects (Maraini 1999a:420). To 

safeguard his collection, Maraini turned to his friend 

Jean-Pierre Hauchecorne, who offered to store 

them in the cellar of the French Institute of Culture in 

Kyoto. Hauchecorne shipped the Ainu collection back 

to Italy following Maraini’s release and subsequent 

return home (Maraini 2001:161-196). Maraini later 

donated this collection to the Museum of Ethnology 

and Anthropology in Florence. However, the inventory 

at the museum shows only 468 Ainu objects attributed 

to Maraini. That leaves about 32 Ainu objects 

unaccounted for.

Jean-Pierre Hauchecorne died in 1995, and his wife 

passed away in 2013. Their children inherited the 

estate, and in late 2022 they sold the art collection 

from Japan proper once a year to lacquer them” (Kayano 

2006, 42). Others retain natural wooden surfaces. The 

patterns range from abstract to naturalistic motifs such as 

animals. One prayer stick shows six three dimensional 

birds across the noshki. Another has been broken at 

the midpoint and expertly repaired using wooden pegs 

and indigo-colored thread. A handful have shiroshi

marks which are similar to shiroshi that appear on other 

ikupasuy collected by Maraini. Their decorated highrelief carvings and quality lacquer work match museum 

collections dating to the 19th century.

There is only one near match from the collection of 30 

ikupasuy to the 120 pictured in Maraini’s 1942 book, 

Gli Iku-bashui degli Ainu; however, only about 1/4 

of his ikupasuy collection is pictured in the book. It 

may be that Maraini collected most of his collection 

after photography for his book concluded, or that he 

only included a subset of his collection in the book. I 

The 30 Ikupasuy, photo by Christian Baraja, 

PIASA Auction House

Ikupasuy Details. Photo by Christian Baraja, PIASA Auction House

at auction in Paris. Included in the auction were 30 

ikupasuy, one elm-bark (attush) robe, and one knife 

(makiri)—perhaps the 32 missing pieces!

At about 4:00 A.M. PST from my home about 5,000 

miles away, I (Aubrey) was able to purchase the 30 

ikupasuy. At the time, I had no idea that they could have 

once belonged to Maraini; I just knew that they were 30 

of the best looking ikupasuy I had seen in the ~3 years I 

had been independently researching the Ainu. 

The collection of ikupasuy from the Hauchecorne estate 

are beautifully carved with intricate, complex designs. 

Some have decorative paint and a lacquered surface. 

This may have been added by Japanese artisans after 

the Ainu carved them (Maraini 1999). Shigeru Kayano

described how “Ainu asked medicine peddlers coming 

(Aubrey) remain convinced that they were collected 

by Maraini due to the fact they came from his friend’s 

estate. I am working with a colleague in Italy, Dr. 

Sabrina Battipaglia, to confirm.

Although some ikupasuy remain fixed in their display 

cases by thread ties, a handful have shiroshi marks 

recognizable as orca motifs of Repun-kamuy. These 

} bracket-shapes, S-curves, and lines with hooks all 

appear among the styles illustrated in the iconographic 

work of Bronisław Piłsudski (1912) and Maraini 

(1942). Others have X-patterns associated with the bear 

spirit, Kim-un-kamuy. Several have two or more marks. 

According to Shigeru Kayano, “When the owner 

changed, a new ‘family-crest’ could be added in front 

of or behind the original one” (Kayano 2006:42). These 
60 ASC Newsletter

multiple shiroshi suggest age: they may have changed 

hands several times, potentially across generations.

The 30 ikupasuy, attush robe, and makiri from the 

Hauchecorne estate sale are “missing pieces” to multiple 

puzzles. First, given their recent provenance, they likely 

represent missing objects once in the collection of 

Fosco Maraini. Further documents or museum records 

could confirm that information. Second, by virtue of 

their preservation and markings, these ikupasuy may be 

over a century old or older, evidence of both trade and 

the passing of important objects among Ainu people. 

Today, many ikupasuy still in Japan are relatively recent, 

while these have the potential to reveal older techniques 

and craftsmanship in designs, methods of repair, and 

symbolic significance. Finally, when collections like 

these appear, they offer hope for future research and 

collaboration. Marks and artistic styles could help trace 

these objects back to their communities of origin. In 

Hokkaido and elsewhere, Ainu today continue to carve 

new ikupasuy and use them in important ceremonies 

and events. As research continues, the significance 

of the ikupasuy will likely continue to change as new 

connections are made.

References

Fitzhugh, William W. 1999. Ainu Ethnicity: A History. 

In Ainu: Spirit of a Northern People, edited by William 

W. Fitzhugh and Chisato O. Dubreuil, pp. 9-27. Seattle, 

WA: University of. Washington Press.

Kayano, Shigeru. 1978. Ainu no mingu (Ainu folk 

crafts). Tokyo: Suzusawa Shoten.

1994. Our Land Was a Forest: An Ainu Memoir. 

Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

2006. Ainu Handicraft Artisan’s Conservation. Daruma 

50 13(2):40-51.

Lowman, Christopher B. 2018. Marking Identity and 

Ownership: Ainu Objects in American Museums. 

Museum Anthropology 41(1):46-60.

Maraini, Fosco. 1942. Gli iku-bashui degli Ainu 

(Ikupasuy of the Ainu). Tokyo: Instituto Italiano di 

Cultura.

1999a. Case, amori, universi [Houses, loves, 

universes]. Milan, Italy: Arnoldo Mondadori Editore.

1999b. Ikupasuy: It’s not a Mustache Lifter! In Ainu: 

Spirit of a Northern People, edited by William W. 

Fitzhugh and Chisato O. Dubreuil, pp. 327-334. Seattle, 

WA: University of Washington Press.

2001. Gli ultimi pagani (The last pagans). Milan, Italy: 

Rizzoli.

1999. Case amori universi (Homes, Loves, Universes).

Milan, Italy: Mondadori.

Poster, Amy. 1999. Batchelor, Starr, and Culin: The 

Brooklyn Museum of Art Collection. In Ainu: Spirit 

of a Northern People, edited by William W. Fitzhugh 

and Chisato O. Dubreuil, pp. 155-161. Seattle, WA: 

University of. Washington Press.

Piłsudski, Bronisław. 1912. Les signes de propriete 

des Aino. [The ownership signs of the Ainu]. 

Revue d’Ethnographie et de Sociologie [Review of 

ethnography and of sociology], 3(3):100–118.

Yamasaki, Koji. 2018. Ainu Culture: Traditions and 

the Present.” In An Introduction to Ainu Studies edited 

by Center for Ainu and Indigenous Studies Hokkaido 

University, 9-26. Sapporo, Japan: Center for Ainu and 

Indigenous Studies, Hokkaido University.

AN ASC/NMNH—UPENN MUSEUM 

COLLABORATION

By Elisa Palomino and John Cloud

An interesting research collaboration was initiated 

by Elisa Palomino as part of her continuing research 

on both historic uses of fish skins for clothing and 

accessories by pan-boreal peoples of the North. The 

project also studies contemporary uses and applications 

of fish leather and other natural raw materials as 

important alternatives in a world drowning in plastics. 

Materials 'made from nature' and derived from plants and 

animals return quickly to nature, so museum historical 

collections are important repositories of past artifacts, 

tools, and even techniques that might be preserved.

In December 2022, Elisa and John Cloud went to 

Philadelphia at the invitation of William Wierzbowski, 

the Keeper of Collections of the Americas, at the 

Penn Museum. His domain includes an extraordinary 

collection of fish skin artifacts, with interesting 

provenance. In the late 19th century, Philadelphia 

was at an apex of scientific research and industrial 

development. The city government had a Department 

of Commerce, and one of its activities was to send 

out people searching for samples of raw materials and 

the 'products of native industry' all over the planet, 

to bring them back to Philadelphia. These included 

now extremely rare sets of clothing and artifacts made 

of fish skins, leathers, sinews, bird skins, etc. The 

Philadelphia Commercial Museum collection included 

artifacts originally sent by the Khabarovsk Regional 

Museum for display at the 1900 Exposition Universelle 

in Paris, in the era of great world’s fairs. After the close 

of the Paris Exposition, William Wilson, Director of 

the Commercial Museum, had this collection shipped 
 ASC Newsletter 61

to Philadelphia. Eventually in 1994, the city decided to 

disband the Commercial Museum collections, which 

were given to the Penn Museum. 

Hence, a major collection came to the Penn Museum 

with minimal provenance, but there were, specifically, 

important sets of materials from various peoples living 

in the vast watershed of the Amur River in Siberia. 

The other museum collection we admired included 

fish skin artifacts from George Byron Gordon's 1905 

ethnological expedition to Alaska, which took him 

down the Yukon River to the Tanana reaching the 

source of the Kuskokwim River, described in his book 

In the Alaskan Wilderness. In addition to the abovementioned collections, we were also able to compare 

the Ainu artifacts collected for the Penn Museum by 

Hiram M. Hiller, a physician and amateur ethnologist 

during a trip to the island of Hokkaido in Japan in 

1901.The Philadelphia materials were so interesting 

that in January 2023, William Fitzhugh and Igor 

Krupnik came to Philadelphia with Elisa and John to 

meet William Wierzbowski and see the collections.

In late January, William Wierzbowski travelled to 

Washington to visit the Smithsonian NMNH collections 

of fish skins collected by, among others, Edward 

William Nelson, who travelled through Alaska as 

a meteorological observer for the U.S. Army Signal 

Corps. In addition to his meteorological duties, he 

also collected objects for the NMNH. At the Museum 

Support Center in Suitland we were guided by 

Stephen Loring, Igor Krupnik, Candace Greene, 

and Bernadette Engelstad. Both visits stimulated 

conversations about possibilities for collaboration 

between the two museums. Both have rich historical 

collections, and contemporary initiatives for cultural 

recovery and revival in collaboration with modern 

boreal and arctic peoples. And, Washington, D.C. and 

Philadelphia are close, only a short Amtrak ride apart.

A MIX OF JOY AND SOLEMNITY: THE 

COLLAGES OF JANET KIGUSIUQ

By Richard D. Mohr

This article is adapted from Kolaj #37 (Montreal).

All images courtesy of Feheley Fine Art, Toronto. All 

collages are 22”x30”and were made between 1996 and 

2000.

In 1996 at the age of seventy, the Inuit artist Janet 

Kigusiuq (Baker Lake, Nunavut, 1926–2005), maker of 

drawings, embroidered textiles, and some stone carvings, 

began to create the only significant body of collages 

made in the Arctic. She composed them by affixing, with 

acrylic medium, vividly colored, translucent tissue-paper 

patches, often hand-torn, to half sheets of the highquality printers paper BKF Rives. Among her collages 

are to be found some of the exquisitely rare completely 

abstract art works from the North.

Kigusiuq took materials, methods, genres, styles, and 

expectations that a federally funded art instructor from 

the South imported to Baker Lake and adapted these 

to the traditional Inuit aesthetic, which has flattened 

shapes floating without perspective against a void.

Kigusiuq’s collages dislodged Inuit art’s former 

almost exclusive reliance, when it came to subject 

and substance, on narrative-based representation 

and expanded its compass to include a subject-less 

beauty in need of nothing but itself. Her collages are 

not educational. They impart neither information nor 

instruction. They are not social interventions. They do 

not solidify identity, promote the general welfare, or 

hold tight the old ways.

In the latter half of the 1990s, a master printmaker 

from the South arrives in Baker Lake and introduces 

a slew of paper-based art techniques to the artists’ 

community there―relief woodcuts, chine collé, 

etching, collagraphs, paper mâché, and collage. 

Krupnik, Fitzhugh, Palomino, and Bill Wierzbowski inspect 

fish skin garments at the UPenn Museum
62 ASC Newsletter

With hands failing from arthritis and turning nearly 

sideways, Kigusiuq is attracted to collage, which 

was first introduced to her as a classroom exercise: 

use torn paper to create a still-life based on a bowl 

of pomegranates, bananas, and oranges placed in the 

front of the class. The effect that the novel subject, 

technique, and expected style had on Kigusiuq’s art 

was startling.

Prior to her introduction to collage, Kigusiuq’s artwork 

consisted mostly of drawings, some of which were 

turned by artisan colleagues into stonecut-and-stencil 

prints at the hamlet’s craft shop. This body of work 

was characterized by busy, blocky forms with heavy 

outlining, especially for hair and clothing, all placed 

against a blank expanse. Usually, the drawings’ subjects 

are robustly populated group activities―building, 

celebrating, traveling, hunting. Often, she filled her 

thick black outlines and blocky forms with intense hues, 

produced by pressing colored pencils hard to the paper, a 

task that arthritis made all but impossible for her. 

After the collage exercise, people vanish from her 

works, and formal elements replace narrative ones. 

Thick outlining also vanishes. Indeed, all lining goes, 

replaced by usually blurry edged, overlapping luminous 

color fields. Finally, at the art instructor’s insistence, 

backgrounds are now to become a vital presence in 

the picture rather than left the unarticulated voids of 

traditional Inuit drawing and of Kigusiuq’s own early 

work. The collages were to have overall coverage of 

their backings. Kigusiuq’s response was to fuse figure 

and ground.

The art instructor’s numerous interventions 

notwithstanding, Kigusiuq’s works continued in the 

traditional Inuit aesthetic. They read as flat, without 

perspective, and have all their design elements falling in 

the same plane, one which coincides with the surface of 

the work. But now with, in addition, overall coverage, 

overlapping translucent tissue-paper patches, and vivid, 

all but pulsating color fields, they press hard towards 

abstraction, while conveying a mix of joy and solemnity. 

Kigusiuq’s collages fall into four groups. Some, in 

response to the overall coverage requirement, exhibit a 

classical ‘fear of the void’ and address this horror vacui 

by filling out the ‘canvas’ with scissors-cut repeating 

design elements. Of these, some have vestiges of 

representational content (say, phalanxes of dressed 

fish hanging from cordage to dry; others are wholly 

abstract (a grid of ovoids). The second broad class of 

Kigusiuq’s collages use large swaths and blotches of 

hand-torn tissue-paper, presented without repetition 

of any shape. In these collages, Kigusiuq takes full 

flight. Again, some have vestiges of representational 

content―hints of landscape―while the remainder are 

total abstractions.

In all of the collages, color operates independently of 

representation. Lakes can be black or bright green or 

brown or red. The flesh of Artic char can be its natural 

orange coral color or an unnatural bright, saturated 

blue. Generally, between four and seven colors are 

used, consisting most often of hues found in the Arctic, 

the wide range of which usually catches Southerners 

by surprise when they visit. In the collages that hint of 

representation, the unnatural use of colors associated 

with nature deflect their content away from depiction, 

verisimilitude, and materiality.

The fully abstract collages evoke luminous vapors, 

lyrical riffs, nimbuses without visages, and pass beyond 

the reaches of analysis.

Kigusiuq’s collages were made sporadically over a 

period of four years and were her final body of work. 

[Author’s note: Richard D. Mohr is Professor Emeritus 

of Philosophy at the University of Illinois-Urbana and 

author of Pottery, Politics, Art (2003) and The Splendid 

Disarray of Beauty (2023).]
 ASC Newsletter 63

PHOTO-DOCUMENTATION AND 

DIGITAL MEDIA IN MUSEUM 

COLLECTION, ARCHAEOLOGICAL, AND 

ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH

By Alex Jansen

My recent work with the Arctic Studies Center focused 

on photo-documentation and digital imaging in the study 

of coastal archaeological site collections. I worked with 

Dr. William Fitzhugh on research, analysis, cataloguing, 

and inventorying 8,000 Dorset artifacts from the AD 

500 Koliktalik site on the central Labrador coast and 

several other collections being sent back to Canada 

for permanent curation. We assembled photographic 

plates representing the types of artifacts found in the 

collection such as projectile points, end-scrapers, burinlike tools, and others. We utilized imaging to examine 

chipped-stone and ground-stone artifacts made from 

quartz, Ramah chert, chert, slate, nephrite, soapstone, 

and schist as well as organic materials and perishables 

like bone tools and rope. The use of these research tools 

allowed us to create a record of the collection for future 

researchers, to extend museum collections to the public 

through publication, and to highlight the technological 

processes used during artifact production. Photography 

can demonstrate technological processes that are difficult 

or impossible to describe in words, helping to increase 

understanding of native technologies for both researchers 

and the public. We also assembled artifact plates for 

several other smaller collections, which showed the 

broad-range of technologies employed at these locations. 

In addition to artifact photography, I helped document 

the ASC’s annual Burch Lecture event. 

I continue to serve as director for my research cluster, 

Urban Underwater Ecosystems, which is comprised 

of an international team of scientists, artists, and 

other researchers through TBA21-Academy. This 

group examines the urban underwater ecosystems of 

Venice and other coastal areas to gather information 

on these under-studied environments. We consider 

the archaeology, art history, and architecture of these 

cities to see how historical sciences can provide us 

with information on how to manage urban watersheds 

in the future, especially when dealing with climate 

change, sea level rise, and other issues. I published 

my new case study, “Coastal Archaeology in the 

Chesapeake Bay, USA—A Case Study for Ocean Care” 

with TBA21-Academy to serve as a teaching tool 

for larger ocean issues. This project involves photodocumentation, underwater photography and video, 

hydrophone recordings, and other media and shows 

the power of these tools to extend coastal and marine 

science to the global community. 

I also continued my research on the use of sensory 

experiences to enhance our understanding of natural 

and cultural world following my exhibitions with 

Platform1Gallery in London, England, and Progress 

Gallery in Pomona, California, last year. This work 

engages people with sound, smell, touch, sight, and 

taste through researching and documenting native and 

ancient scents, drinks, and other cultural traditions. 

These projects draw on my archaeology background 

and experience with Iceland, the North, and Arctic, and 

other cultures as well as coastal and marine ecology, to 

help bring the cultural world to the public through the 

development of sensory experiences and exhibition.

AN UNEXPECTED TREASURE

By Stephen Loring

There is a belief in parts of America that everything 

that has been lost or misplaced or is simply nolonger around ends up at the Smithsonian. A notion 

facilitated by the closing scene of Raiders of the Lost 

Ark when the ancient treasure that Indiana Jones had 

Labrador soapstone lamp fragments. Photo by Alex Jansen A surprise in the mail from Chevak!
64 ASC Newsletter

recovered from the sands of time is neatly crated and 

sent to a vast cavernous government storage facility. A 

storage facility that looks uncommonly like the oversized storage spaces in Pod 4 at the Natural History 

Museum’s Support Center. Thankfully opening strange 

boxes from distant localities usually does not bring 

about the catastrophic consequences encountered by 

Indiana Jones nor for that matter, a millennia or two 

earlier, by Pandora.

In March the Arctic Studies Center received an 

unsolicited package mailed from the Cup’ik village of 

Chevak in the Yukon Delta that contained a wonderful 

surprise. Richard Slats, the 2nd Chief of Chevak Native 

Village, who had previously visited us in the fall, had 

decided to send us a magnificent seal gut raincoat that 

had been made by the Kashunamiut School District 

students participating in their Cultural Heritage 

Program (around 1978-1983) under the watchful eye 

of experienced elders (Slats, in his letter refers to them 

as “champions”), Helen Friday and Theresa Ayuluk

(sadly now deceased). In an accompanying letter Mr. 

Slats wrote: “The Seal Gut Raincoat was made by the 

Kashunamiut Project that was active in the late 70’s, 

early-to-mid 80’s. The project was to have our learned 

people teach our young traditional methods that 

were passed on from their forefathers throughout the 

generations...the raincoat is made from seal intestines 

(bearded seals). Guts cleaned out; blown up, hung to 

dry and cut evenly for this purpose. Seal gut raincoats 

are common throughout the coastal villages along and 

about the Bering Sea....” He adds, “Let it be known 

that the hands-on teaching through word of mouth 

and actual doing is what makes us who we are; these 

teachings are generational and have been handed down 

throughout the centuries. This is a living example of 

Cultural Heritage being passed on through generations 

and it is our hope that you will carry this on through 

the work that you do.”

Apparently, the raincoat had been boxed and stored 

for many years in the tribal office. It arrived safely, 

neatly folded up. When dried out and not in use, 

gutskin garments get stiff but are easily relaxed with 

a little moisture and can then be gently unfolded. The 

raincoat arrived in simply immaculate condition, it was 

hard to believe that it was close to fifty years old—a 

testament to the extraordinary care and preparation 

and the craftsmanship that went into making it. On 

behalf of the Smithsonian, we are honored and grateful 

to be the recipient of such a magnificent gift. It has 

been, and remains, a central tenet of the Arctic Studies 

Center practice to acquire objects from contemporary 

northern Native communities that can serve to augment 

the important heritage collections made during the 

ethnographic collecting heyday of the late 19th-century. 

This is a welcomed addition to the Smithsonian 

collections that speaks eloquently to the continuity of 

Cup’ik traditions, skills and knowledge, and a gift that 

we are honored and very pleased to be asked to care for.

SOLVING ANOTHER MUSEUM PUZZLE: 

THE NMNH PONIATOWSKI-ARSENIEV 

COLLECTION 

By Igor Krupnik 

Research on this project began in January-February 

2020, when I received in the mail a hefty catalog 

volume called Nanaitsy (The Nanay) from Dr. Galina 

Titoreva, curator at the Grodekov Regional Museum 

in Khabarovsk, Russia (see ASC NSL 27). Soon after, 

another Russian curator, Vera Kavetskaya from the 

Arseniev Historical Museum in Vladivostok, inquired 

about our ethnological objects from the Amur River 

region in the Russian Far East. We have two mediumsize ethnological collections from this area listed by 

their donors’ names as ‘accession 63969 (Poniatowski)’ 

and ‘accession 63972 (Arseniev),’ comprising some 

110 collection numbers altogether. Then the COVID-19 

Lomen Brothers photo from Nome, early 1900s
 ASC Newsletter 65

pandemic put everything on hold for almost three 

years, until in January 2023 we hosted William 

(Bill) Wierzbowski, a colleague from the University 

of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and 

Anthropology. As we prepared for Bill’s visit (Fig.1), I 

decided to give these two collections a close look... 

The history of these collections from the Amur River 

area at the NMNH Department of Anthropology 

involved three renowned anthropologists of the past 

century—a Pole, Stanislaw Poniatowski (1886–1945), 

a Russian, Vladimir K. Arseniev (1872–1930), and a 

Smithsonian curator, Aleš Hrdlička (1869–1944), of 

Czech origin. It brought into its orbit several prominent 

scholars of the late 19th and the early 20th century, like 

Franz Boas, Waldemar Jochelson, Lev Shternberg, 

and Bronislaw Pilsudski. Their related writings and 

records in English, Russian, and Polish are scattered 

across three continents: at the SI in Washington, D.C., 

the Grodekov Museum in Khabarovsk, Russia, and at the 

University of Wroclaw, in Wroclaw, Poland. The lives 

of the three main characters were affected by two World 

Wars, the Russian Revolution of 1917, and the Russian 

Civil War of 1918–1921, producing a narrative of 

collaboration amidst world crises and political turmoil.

Though all key characters were seminal scholarly 

figures in their respective countries, only Hrdlička’s 

name enjoys a worldwide recognition. Stanislaw 

Poniatowski was a Polish anthropologist born in eastern 

Poland, then part of the Russian Empire, who studied 

physical anthropology and archaeology in Zurich. Upon 

returning to Poland, he managed the collections at the 

Ethnographic Museum of Industry in Warsaw and was 

a lecturer in ethnology and the head of the Department 

of Ethnology at the Institute of Anthropological and 

Ethnological Sciences in Warsaw until World War II and 

the German occupation of Poland in 1939. 

Like Poniatowski, Vladimir K. Arseniev would not be 

widely known outside his native country, Russia, if not 

for the movie Dersu Uzala (U.S. title: Dersu Uzala: 

The Hunter), a 1975 Soviet-Japanese film directed by 

the famous Japanese film producer, Akira Kurosawa. 

While hugely popular, the movie projected a skewed 

image of Arseniev, one of its key characters. He 

was a military officer in the Imperial Russian army; 

beginning in 1906, he conducted surveys of the thenpoorly known areas across the Russian Pacific region, 

primarily along the Amur River. He had no training in 

Anthropology but was sympathetic to local Indigenous 

peoples and interested in their cultures. He was a 

prodigious author of over 60 works on the geography, 

wildlife, and ethnography of the Russian Far East, and 

an avid collector. He served as an honorary director of 

the Grodekov Museum in Khabarovsk in 1910–1919 

and in 1924–1925. 

Dr. Poniatowski Goes to Siberia

The activities that brought these men together took 

place thanks to a major public ‘exposition’ in 1915 in 

San Diego, California celebrating completion of the 

Panama Canal. The fair, named the ‘Panama-California 

Exposition,’ was designed to promote San Diego as 

the first American port of call along the Pacific coast 

north of the canal. When funding for the exposition was 

secured in 1912, its organizers reached out to Hrdlička, 

then physical anthropology curator at the USNM, and 

asked him to build a display on the history of human 

evolution for the future pavilion on the ‘Science of 

Man.’ Hrdlička designed an ambitious program to 

gather data and objects for the exhibit. Besides visiting 

Europe, Russia, and Inner Mongolia in summer 1912, 

he commissioned several people to collect materials 

for the San Diego displays. Among these men, was a 

young Polish anthropologist, Dr. Poniatowski from 

Warsaw, who agreed to travel to the Amur River 

region in Siberia to collect physical measurements, 

photos, skeletal remains, and ethnographic objects for 

Hrdlička’s display on ‘Ancient Man in Asia.’

The correspondence between Poniatowski and Hrdlička 

during the years 1912–1915 is partially preserved at 

Fig. 1. Stephen Loring (left) and the author examine 

Poniatowski and Arseniev’s objects in NMNH collection storage 

facility, January 27, 2023. Photo by Elisa Palomino-Perez
66 ASC Newsletter

the NMNH National Anthropological Archives and 

in the Wroclaw University Library in Poland. At that 

time, Hrdlička was promoting his theory about the 

peopling of North America by ancient ‘early Asian’ 

groups via the area adjacent to the Bering Strait, 

while also contesting the hypothesis about a ‘reverse’ 

migration of people from North America to Northeast 

Asia advanced by Franz Boas and his partners of 

the Jesup North Pacific Expedition of 1897–1902. 

Hrdlička’s perspective was probably 

toned by his well-known personal 

antipathy towards Boas and a 

desire to support his theory that the 

ancient populations that crossed into 

America from Asia were similar 

to the American Indians. To prove 

his position, Hrdlička directed 

Poniatowski to primarily look for the 

“individuals showing a type allied 

to that of the American Indians,” 

when doing physical measurements, 

photography, and facial casts 

Poniatowski finally set out on his 

journey to the Russian Far East 

in May 1914. He first visited St. 

Petersburg, where he interacted 

with Leo (Lev) Shternberg (1865–

1928), Russia’s prime authority on 

Indigenous peoples of the Sakhalin 

and Amur River region, who gave 

him a recommendation letter to 

Arseniev, director of the Grodekov 

Museum in Khabarovsk. On June 

2, Poniatowski reached Khabarovsk 

on the Amur River. He quickly 

met with the two men who became 

instrumental to his fieldwork: 

Arseniev, the museum director, and 

a young Russian anthropologist 

Ivan A. Lopatin (1888–1970), an expert on the Nanay 

(Goldi) people in the areas of Poniatowski’s prime 

interest. On June 15, 1914, Poniatowski and his crew 

left Khabarovsk by a motorboat and traveled to the 

Nanay community of Sikachi-Alyan on the Amur 

River (today’s population 273), some 70 km from 

Khabarovsk. From there, the crew continued down the 

Amur with short stopovers at local villages and fishing 

camps. Unfortunately, Pniatowski’s ambitious plans 

for a five-month 650-mile survey were interrupted by 

events beyond his control.

In late July 1914, World War I broke out in Europe. 

Military actions in northern Poland prompted 

Poniatowski to hastily return to Khabarovsk and to 

catch a train to his native Warsaw. His expedition was 

over. During his short stay in Khabarovsk, Poniatowski 

divided his field materials, taking his notes, glass plates, 

negatives, physical measurement forms, and some 

ethnographic specimens with him to Warsaw and leaving 

the bulk of his ethnographic collections, plaster masks, 

and measurement tools given by Hrdlička in Arseniev’s 

care at the Grodekov Museum. The two agreed that 

Poniatowski would return to Khabarovsk in summer 

1915, perhaps for joint fieldwork with Arseniev.

Upon returning to Warsaw, 

Poniatowski, reported to Hrdlička 

that his work was cut short and that 

he was able to make only 134 body 

measurements, 130 photos, one 

cast, and collect 113 ethnographical 

specimens. None of his materials 

arrived in Washington in time for 

the San Diego exposition. In 1915, 

Hrdlička informed Poniatowski that 

all materials he had collected should 

be shipped to the U.S. National 

Museum and that no more funding 

was available for future work. 

Evidently, Hrdlička was considering 

his investment in Poniatowski’s 

fieldwork a failure, whereas 

Poniatowski still planned to travel to 

Khabarovsk to continue his research. 

Little did Poniatowski know that a 

few months later Warsaw would be 

occupied by the German army and 

that all hopes for new work in Russia 

had to be abandoned. Poland became 

an independent nation in 1918. Dr. 

Poniatowski served as a cavalry man 

in the new Polish army in the war 

against Soviet Russia in 1919–1920 

and continued his ethnographic career 

in independent Poland. His life ended 

tragically during the second German occupation of 

Poland in WWII. He was arrested by the German secret 

police (Gestapo) in 1942 for covertly teaching ethnology 

classes to Polish students in his apartment (such training 

was forbidden by the Germans). Poniatowski spent his 

last years in German concentration camps and evidently 

passed away in January 1945. His American mentor, 

Aleš Hrdlička died in Washington more than a year 

earlier; Arseniev’s life ended in September 1930. 

Accessions 63969 and 63972 Travel to Washington

In 1917, Arseniev received a letter from a Russian 

colleague with a request from Hrdlička to ship 

Poniatowski’s objects in Khabarovsk to the American 

Consulate in Vladivostok. The year, 1917, known 

Fig.2 Bear-like figure (donte/duente, 

‘burhan’), with the caption and 

explanatory drawing hand-written 

by Poniatowski, 1914, E303703, 

Smithsonian NMNH-Anthropology 

collection
 ASC Newsletter 67

for two regime changes (revolutions) in Russia and 

the ensuing Civil War, was not ideal for collection 

exchange. In Khabarovsk, Arseniev was active in local 

political life, and it was not until spring 1918 when 

he attended to the Poniatowski collection. We know 

the rest of the story from accession records at the 

Smithsonian Institution Archives (SIA).

In May 1918, the American Consul in Vladivostok, 

J.K. Caldwell informed the Smithsonian U.S. National 

Museum (USNM) that the Consulate had shipped “one 

box containing a collection of ethnographical articles 

and one box containing a collection of wooden idols... 

sent to this Consulate by the director of Grodekoff’s 

Museum in Habarovsk, Siberia.” Seven months later, 

Caldwell sent another letter with more details on the 

donor, whom he called “Mr. W.K. Arseneff (Areseniev—

IK) of the Museum in Habarovsk.” Since Arseniev’s 

name was cited, the accession no. 63972 was registered 

under ‘donor W.K. Arseneff, Grodekoff’s Museum, 

Habarovsk, Siberia’ and officially processed on August 

15, 1919. On September 3, 1919, the long-delayed 

‘letter of acknowledgement’ went to Arseniev signed 

by William deC. Ravenel, assistant to the Secretary of 

the Smithsonian. Besides thanking Arseniev, the letter 

lamented the lack of information on the shipped objects 

and encouraged Arseniev to “furnish a more extensive 

collection from East Siberian or other available tribes” 

(SIA 63972). There was no response from Arseniev.

The accession file for no. 63972 includes a typewritten 

list of objects, “Collection of Mr. W.K. Arseneff, 

Habarovsk, Siberia.” Produced in English, it lists the 

objects with practically no provenience data (time, 

location, ethnic group, etc.), beyond a mere technical 

description of the object appearance, material, and 

size (in inches). The list was obviously prepared by 

the USNM registrar; its original source is unknown. 

Today’s NMNH online catalog (EMU) allows search 

for both ‘Arseniev’ and ‘Arseneff’ and generates 49 

catalog numbers. 

The Poniatowski collection (SIA 69369) was officially 

processed at the USNM on the same day, August 15, 

1919, with the donor’s full name and address listed as 

“Dr. Stanislaw Poniatowski, Pracownia Antropologiczna, 

Kaliksta [Str.] 8, Warsaw, Poland.” The accession was 

initiated by Dr. Aleš Hrdlička, and it was described as 

“collection of ethnographic material, principally charms 

and fetishes from the Gold Tribes, Eastern Siberia.” 

It contains no papers related to the collection travel 

to the USNM, but a short note from deC. Ravenel to 

Poniatowski acknowledging the collection accession 

at the USNM, and a similar 4-page typewritten list of 

objects. We know that Poniatowski received this letter, 

since it is preserved in his personal papers in Wroclaw. 

There was no response from Poniatowski.

The most remarkable difference between object lists for 

the two USNM accessions was in the provenience data 

for Poniatowski’s objects. The latter have the name 

‘Golds’ as ethnic definition of the group (known as 

Nanay/Nanai since the 1930s). Most objects have the 

place of collecting listed as ‘Sakachialan. E. Siberia’ 

(today’s spelling: Sikachi-Alyan). Several items have 

Indigenous names in some rough transliteration (i.e., 

‘donte lakani,’ ‘seevusi,’ ’kadaraku,’ etc.), evidently 

recorded by Poniatowski from his Nanay (Goldi) 

informants. Such information was evidently provided 

by Poniatowski himself, including the label ‘burhan’ 

for many wooden figurines (‘charms’) (Fig.2). ‘Burhan’ 

(burkhan) is a Mongolian (Buryat?) word used for a 

sculpture, a statue or any 3D image of Buddha and 

other Buddhist deities that was once common in Siberia 

and the trans-Baikal region. Hardly anyone at the 

Smithsonian could have known this word and used it in 

the accession papers.

The Collections

Both collections are medium in size: accession 63969 

(Poniatowski) originally consisted of 54 catalog 

numbers and accession 63972 (Arseniev/Arseneff) of 

49 numbers. Since several catalog numbers include 

many items, from 2 to 10, the actual number of objects 

in two collections is around 160. Even if provenience 

information is lacking for no.63972, we may tentatively 

assume that all objects were acquired among the Nanay 

or the nearby people based on their overall similarity 

(type, material, age, color, size, etc.). 

The most notable feature of both collections is the 

lack of objects typical for museum acquisitions from 

the Amur River area and, generally, from Siberia and 

the Arctic from the late 1800s and early 1900s. There 

are no items of clothing and/or footwear, no boats 

(even models) or sleds, no models of dwellings, and 

no shaman drums. Other ‘missing’ object categories 

include clothing and containers made of fish-skin (a 

popular type from this area); dolls, made of cloth/wood 

or of paper; sewing tools and kits, including women’s 

bags; and tobacco pipes. There are few household items 

typical of ethnographic museum collections: a single 

basket among 160+ objects, one cylindrical birchbark 

box, and one ornamented wooden box (Fig. 3), but no 

spoons, bowls, mats, or rugs. There are hardly any large 

objects but plenty of small items. 

Instead, the two collections abound in carved wooden 

figurines of various ritual meanings. In Poniatowski’s 

collection list these were identified as ‘charms,’ ‘charm 

figurines,’ or ‘effigies,’ often with their Nanay names 

attached in Poniatowski’s transliteration. Many were 

called burhans (see above); the general Nanay term 

used today is sεvεn, with a detailed nomenclature for 
68 ASC Newsletter

various types that represented shaman helping spirits 

and/or personal charms. The two collections include 

at least 30 figurines that could be solidly identified 

as human-like: with large conical heads or headgear 

(kalgama in Poniatowski’s transliteration), triangular 

headgear (odzha), flat rhomboid head or headgear, 

flat oval head (maangia), bent legs, and more. Several 

human-like figurines are tied together as bundles. The 

figurines are not painted and differ in size from rather 

heavy pieces 20” long to small and even miniature 

objects. Most are crudely carved; some are just pegs of 

wood with barely inscribed faces or eyes. 

Animal-like figures number over 50 individual and 

paired items in the two collections. They represent 

different animal species, with bear (donte) and tiger 

being the most common. Poniatowski’s collection 

includes images of horses (moren), ducks (gasa), turtle 

(kaila), frogs (hora), even hedgehog (funntilka) and 

mice. The Poniatowski collection includes a small 

number of items associated with shamanic ritual and 

healing: a shaman’s headgear and seven healing ‘yokes’ 

made of bent saplings forming a hoop. 

Overall, the Poniatowski collection is more diverse 

in composition, thanks to the presence of hunting 

implements (a few bows, arrows, bow-traps), shaman 

items, larger range of animal species represented as 

carved wooden figurines, and more household items. 

The Arseniev collection has an even larger share 

of small and medium-size figurines of human- and 

animal-like shaman helpers (sεvεn); many items 

look almost like pairs or duplicates of objects in 

Poniatowski’s accession. Nonetheless, it contains some 

notable additions, like a set for processing fish skin for 

clothing made of wooden beater and a beating board/

block; a decorated paper scroll, and a triangular paper 

‘hood’ lavishly ornamented in ink or paint, as well a 

tiny wooden rattle (dölya), a small human image of 

fish-skin, and several peculiar wooden figurines. 

Nevertheless, when examined (and stored) together, 

the two NMNH collections look remarkably similar 

in type, age, material, and even size. Both feature a 

disproportionately large share of ceremonial items, up 

to 60–80%, particularly when compared to other large 

ethnographic collections from the same area, like at 

the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) 

in New York (336 specimens from the Nanay/Goldi

people collected by Berthold Laufer in 1899–1900); at 

the UPenn Museum (389 objects); and at the Grodekov 

Museum in Khabarovsk (reportedly of 2200+ objects, 

of which 1576 pieces are included in the 2019 catalog). 

Evidently, Poniatowski’s original field collection 

also included scores of Indigenous drawings, paper 

cutouts, stencils, ornamentation pieces, and small 

ethnographic objects that eventually ended up at the 

Polish Ethnological Society (see below). Yet the two 

collections continued to live in the NMNH records as 

two separate entities, under two different donors’ names 

to the present day.

Life at the U.S. National Museum/NMNH

Since both collections arrived at the USNM long after 

the closure of the Panama-California Exposition, they 

attracted little attention. It was clearly not the materials 

that Hrdlička was looking for, as neither the Nanay 

anthropometric forms nor photographs, plaster masks, 

nor any skeletal materials entered the Smithsonian 

from the Amur River expedition. The two collections 

were never displayed or used for publication. They 

were examined in the 1980s as a source of objects for 

the Crossroads of Continents exhibit (1988–1992), 

but preference was given to better-known pieces from 

the AMNH in New York (W. Fitzhugh, personal 

communication). One object, a string of four small 

wooden figurines (E303738, “Nanai gang of spirits”) 

was displayed in the subsequent smaller Crossroads 

Alaska exhibit that toured Alaska and four museums in 

the Russian Far East, including Grodekov Museum in 

Khabarovsk in 1995–1997. Since 2010, two numbers 

from no. 63972 (Arseniev)—five small carved wooden 

figurines (E309972 – Fig. 4) and a mid-size figurine 

of a shaman spirit (E309967) have been displayed 

at the Living Our Cultures, Sharing Our Heritage 

exhibit at the Anchorage Museum in Anchorage, in a 

combined ‘Eastern Siberian’ case. The two collections 

were reviewed in 1999 by Dr. Tatyana P. Roon, a 

visiting Russian ethnologist from the Sakhalin Museum 

area, who provided little details. Poniatowski’s 

collection was the focus of a student paper (by 

Katherine Watson in 2012) based mostly on Hrdlička 

correspondence in the USNM accession files.

Conclusion

The three main characters of this story parted ways 

soon after the Poniatowski and Arseniev collections 

were delivered to the U.S. National Museum in 

1918. To my knowledge, Hrdlička never returned to 

his plan to support his vision via measurements and 

photographs of the living Native Siberian people. He 

did visit Russia (then the Soviet Union) in 1939 but his 

interests were then primarily in the early peopling of 

Alaska and the Aleutian Islands. 

Unlike Hrdlička, Poniatowski was keen to continue 

processing his records from the Amur River expedition 

throughout his life. These records miraculously survived 

his arrest in 1942, because he kept it amongst his 

most precious papers in a suitcase that was rescued 

by his students. In included, among other things, his 

original diary in Polish from 1914 and a clean (edited) 
 ASC Newsletter 69

version that was published in full in 1966. His photo 

collection from 1914 made of 124 glass plates and 

films (negatives?) also survived the war. These were 

digitized in 2016, so that almost 100 of Poniatowski’s 

photographs from 1914 are now accessible online in 

edited volumes by Polish colleagues, Stefania SkowronMarkowska and Marta Nowakowska, and in blog 

postings. The online database built by the University 

of Wroclaw Library in 2016 offers the first chance to 

assess the Poniatowski’s 

collection from 1914, in 

the possession of the Polish 

Ethnographic Society 

(Polskie Towarzystwo 

Ludoznawcze), including 

paper drawings by the 

Nanay people, stencils, 

cut-outs and birch 

bark pieces, clothing 

patterns and ornaments, 

Poniatowski’s drawings, 

and a few anthropological 

measurement forms. 

As I was pouring 

through the sources 

in three languages, it 

was obvious that the 

information summarized 

here does not provide 

a definitive clue to the 

relation between the two 

accessions. Did Arseniev 

simply ship to the USNM 

(under his name?) a 

portion of Poniatowski 

original objects, to which 

Poniatowski did not 

have time to attach the 

provenience data from his field notes? This may be 

the most plausible interpretation; it also means that 

accessions 63969 and 63972 are simply parts of one 

and the same collection that continue to live under two 

different donors’ names. (Dr. Galina Titoreva, curator 

at the Grodekov Museum in Khabarovsk, agrees with 

this vision). Or was Arseniev trying to compensate the 

USNM with close or similar objects, for a segment of 

Poniatowski’s materials that, for whatever reason, he 

decided to keep in Khabarovsk? Or was Arseniev’s aim 

indeed to explore the connections with the USNM by 

using Poniatowski’s objects left in his care, to which 

he added some personal specimens of similar type and 

value? We may never know the final answer.

Since the objects in both accessions are very similar, it 

makes sense to consider them a connected (combined?) 

Poniatowski-Arseniev collection of 110+ catalog 

numbers, rather than two independent collections. 

This is very close to the number of “113 ethnographic 

specimens” that Poniatowski mentioned in his letter to 

Hrdlička in November 1914. It is also obvious that it 

constitutes just a portion of what Poniatowski acquired 

during his expedition of 1914 and that the elements 

of this legacy are now preserved at NMNH, at the 

University of Wroclaw, and probably at the Grodekov 

Museum in Khabarovsk. 

These dispersed pieces 

can now be ‘reunited’ 

electronically, if not 

physically, as a combined 

website/online exhibit 

or platform in three 

languages, English, Polish, 

and Russian.

The sad postscript to 

this story is that the 

descendants of Indigenous 

people who produced 

the objects and drawings 

collected by Poniatowski 

(and Arseniev?) and 

who were featured 

with personal names in 

Poniatowski’s photographs 

and measurement forms 

never had a chance to see 

it, except for one object 

displayed in 1996–97 at 

the Crossroads AlaskaSiberia traveling exhibit. 

Members of the Nanay and 

other Indigenous nations of 

the Russian Far East region 

have yet to be ‘electronically reunited’ with their legacy 

objects in the NMNH collection drawers and ancestors’ 

photographs and drawings posted on a Polish website. 

Any such effort in ‘online’ knowledge co-production 

must await until connections between the Smithsonian/

NMNH and the Russian curators can resume following 

the end of hostilities in Ukraine. When this happens, 

Stanislaw Poniatowski’s legacy is certain to find a 

‘second life.’ 

I am grateful to my colleagues Felicia Pickering, 

William Fitzhugh, Stephen Loring, Aron Crowell

(NMNH Anthropology), and Deborah Shapiro (SI 

Archives), William Wierzbowski (UPenn Museum), 

Galina Titoreva (Khabarovsk Grodekov Museum), also 

to Elisa Palomino-Perez and Dawn Biddison who took 

the photographs used as illustrations. 

Fig. 3. Objects from Nos. 63969 and 63972 in NMNHAnthropology collection storage. Photo by Igor Krupnik

Fig. 4. Nanay objects from “Arseniev collection” (E309972) 

on display at the Living Our Cultures exhibit, Anchorage 

Museum. Photo by Dawn Biddison, February 27, 2023
70 ASC Newsletter

BUILDING AN OROQEN CANOE

By Feng Qu and Xiaoyun Guan

Guo Bao-lin, a Chinese Oroqen master canoe builder 

who is documented in the Smithsonian monograph 

The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of Northern Eurasia

(Luukkanen and Fitzhugh 2020), built the world’s 

largest birch-bark canoe in July 2022. Guo, born in 

1945, is a villager of Shibazhan Oroqen Autonomous 

Town in Tahe County, Heilongjiang Province. He 

inherited canoe building skills from his father since 

he was fifteen years old. In 2012, he earned the title 

as Representative Inheritor of National Intangible 

Cultural Heritage from the Chinese State Department 

of Culture. 

Supported by the local township government and 

assisted by his family and three disciples (Ma Zijing, 

Wei Xuejun and Aliqun), Guo took 21 days (July 1st 

to 21st 2022) to build a birch-bark canoe 10 meters 

long and 1.5 meters wide. When it was reported to 

Geness Shanghai by the local government, the canoe 

set a Guinness World Record as the largest birch-bark 

canoe in the world. 

Birch-bark canoes were traditionally used for hunting 

and fishing by the Oroqen people because of their 

silence and ease of portaging. The new canoe has been 

collected and is exhibited by the local museum in 

Shibazhan. 

CENTRAL YUP’IK MASKS IN THE VATICAN 

MUSEUMS: INDIGENOUS AMERICAN 

HERITAGE

By Ellen Pearlstein, Chuna McIntyre, and Stefania 

Pandozy

[Editor’s note: This article on Yup’ik masks in the Anima 

Mundi Vatican Museum was published online on 13 

April 2023 by Ellen Pearlstein, Chuna McIntyre, and 

Stephania Pandozy, who suggested it be noted in the ASC 

Newsletter. We present here the abstract and one picture 

to alert readers to this delightful “Yup’ik surprise”—a 

new collection of masks with commentary by conservators 

Pearlstein and Pandozy, and Yup’ik artist McIntyre.]

An exploration of conservation and curatorial practices 

surrounding Indigenous American heritage in European 

museums began with an American Academy in Rome 

Prize fellowship which served to reconnect three of the 

co-authors. The stunning discovery of seven Yup’ik 

masks from western Alaska at the Vatican Museums led 

two of the co-authors to connect with Chuna McIntyre, 

a Yup’ik artist and performer. In an effort to pilot a 

collaborative process where conservators and curators 

might have their technical and cultural understanding 

of these masks enhanced, a three-hour virtual meeting 

was arranged after the masks were documented and 

the images and information shared. The successes and 

challenges are presented here from various viewpoints.

Ellen Pearlstein & Chuna McIntyre. Traditional and 

Conservation Interpretations of Pre- and Post-Collection 

Working Methods for Alaskan Yup’ik Masks. Studies in 

Conservation, 2023

Left: Guo building the canoe with his assistants. Right: Guo 

and his family paddling his new canoe. 

Photo by Xiaoyun Guan 

Yup'ik mask 101596. Anima Mundi, Photo Vatican Museums, 

Images and Rights Department © Governorate of the Vatican 

City State—Directorate of the Vatican Museums
 ASC Newsletter 71

THE SŬPUNGER KAYAK COLLECTED BY 

CHARLES FRANCIS HALL, MADE FROM 

WOOD SALVAGED FROM HMS EREBUS

By Russell S. Taichman

In 1845, an expedition under the command of Sir John 

Franklin departed from England with 129 men in 

two Royal Navy Ships (HMS Erebus and Terror) in 

a search for the Northwest Passage. The crews were 

never heard from again. Multiple British and American 

search and rescue missions were launched during 

the next two decades to find out what had happened. 

Charles Francis Hall, an American newspaper 

printer, became enthralled with the fate of the Franklin 

Expedition, and for a decade led expeditions in 1860-

1862 and 1866–1869 to the Arctic with the intent 

to repatriate Franklin Expedition survivors. If that 

were not possible, then the mission was to recover 

expedition records located presumably on or near King 

William Island (KWI.). 

During the 1866–1869 expedition, Hall and his 

companions met, camped, and traveled with the Inuit 

(or “Innuit” as Hall wrote) in search of clues and 

relics associated with the Franklin Expedition. Many 

of these people had first or secondhand knowledge 

relating to the Franklin crews and/or had visited the 

primary sites where members of the expedition had 

perished and took whatever materials they found 

useful. 

During each of his expeditions, Hall conducted 

extensive interviews with Inuit who told him details 

of the Kob-lu-nas (white men) from the Franklin 

Expedition. Hall recorded the testimony in his 

traveling notebooks and private journals, and in letters 

sent to his sponsors, now housed at the Archives 

Center of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of 

American History.

In 1866 Hall met a Pelly Bay native named 

Sŭpunger (often Hall spelled the name Su-punger, Su-pŭng-er, Sŭ-pŭng-er, Supunger). Sŭpunger 

and his uncle journeyed to the West coast of KWI 

and visited many sites where Franklin expedition 

materials could be collected. Most notably, Sŭ-punger reported seeing a stone structure or vault that 

Hall and his traveling companion and interpreter, 

Too-koo-li-too, thought might contain documents 

associated with the Franklin expedition or the grave 

of a high-ranking officer. Sŭpunger promised to 

accompany Hall to the site and collected supplies in 

preparation for that journey. However, the venture 

never occurred, although Hall did meet Sŭpunger on 

several other occasions. 

While seeking clues to the location of the vault, I 

visited the NMAH Archives Center during the period of 

2016–2018 and came across the following fascinating 

passage. On July 27, 1866, Hall wrote (Fig. 1): 

This PM Sŭ-pung-er + his small family 

(Pelly Bay Natives) arrived back, the former 

bearing on his shoulders the frame of his Ki-a 

{Kayak} wh. {which} was made of one of Sir 

John Franklin’s Expedition Boats. As soon 

as he arrived, he was about to take this Ki-a 

all apart + rebuild it when I get E-bier-bing 

to assist me in talking with Sŭ-pung-er about 

this Ki-a. The agreement was a long time ago 

made between Su-punger + myself that he 

would let me have this ki-a frame if I would 

on the arrival of a ship here supply him with 

wood material to make another wh. Of course 

I shall do. The result of the talk was that Supung-er should not take this Ki-a + rebuild it 

for in doing so it would be necessary to add 

other sticks such as he could get of me + the 

Innuits to make this Ki-a anew. This of course 

under the circumstances was objectionable for 

I wanted this relic of a part of one of Sir John 

Franklin’s boats just as it came from King 

William’s Land {Island}without getting other 

wood material mixed with it. The Ki-a is now 

in my hands + I intend to send it home this fall 

to the States.

I had to see this Kayak! Not only for its importance 

as a relic of the Franklin Expedition, but for its 

significance linking Charles Hall to Sŭ-pung-er. On 

March 20 and 21, 2023, I arranged to visit the relics 

at the NMAH and the Museum Support Center which 

Hall had collected including Sŭpunger’s kayak. With 

the assistance of Jennifer L. Jones and Dr. Stephen 

Loring serving as able guides, I ventured through the 

Franklin Relics and ethnographic materials; a thrill that 

Fig. 1. Hall’s notes from July 27, 1866
72 ASC Newsletter

few Franklin fans have had! There in front of me was 

Hall’s work. Numerous Franklin Expedition relics and 

ethnographic materials as wells as objects Hall himself 

used himself on his ventures. Most excitingly, there 

was the kayak! 

At first, it was not what I had expected. I had thought 

it would have been a fully assembled frame of a 

kayak. Yet the frame of the kayak itself was housed 

in several boxes (Fig. 2), and two major portions 

of it were still wrapped in the rope that Hall had 

evidently used to transport the craft in, once it was 

disassembled. Many of the ribs, spars and side pieces 

were still evident and there is no doubt that most of 

the craft had been preserved. Including the delicate 

and ingenious fragments of wood that were spliced 

together to make larger spans of materials and held 

together with animal tendons. No remnant of a skin 

covering was found.

Most of the kayak pieces were labeled “10373” 

in black ink. Attached to the bundles of ribs were 

paper tags written by Hall stating “10373, Relics 

of Franklin’s Expedition,” and “Ribs of Ki-a frame 

that came from Ook-joo-lik made of one of Sir 

John Franklin’s boats that was one of the N.W.P. 

{Northwest Passage} ships{,} Hall See 8/69 “Sir 

J. F{.} Book” (Fig. 2). This inscription “see Hall 

8/79 Sir J. F. Book” lead me back to the following 

passage made on August 8th, 1869, in Hall’s Franklin 

Book:

“I asked In-nook-poo-zhe-jook about the kiaframe I have wh. I showed him. He said that it 

came from Oo-joo-lik – from the shore of a small 

Island called Ar-re-wing-mow-ring (as near as 

I can make out the almost unspeakable word) + 

that near by where the ship that drifted to Ook-jolik was 1st seen + was finally sunk + broken up.”

After an intensive search, HMS Erebus was located 

near Oo-joo-lik, Nunavut in 2014. The Terror, in 

2016, was located, oddly enough, in Terror Bay, 

Nunavut. As Terror had sunk intact, and Erebus had 

been damaged and sunk near Oo-joo-lik, there is no 

doubt the kayak pieces came from Erebus. In-nookpoo-zhe-jook, who knew Sŭpunger, had been one 

of the Inuit who had visited and obtained materials 

from the Franklin Expedition boats initially found by 

Francis Leopold McClintock and W.R. Hobson in 

1859 in Erebus Bay KWI. That In-nook-poo-zhe-jook 

knew the origin of the wood, that it had ultimately 

come from the Erebus and had been fashioned by 

Sŭpunger and collected by Hall was astounding. 

Holding the kayak in my hands, fashioned by the 

hands of Sŭpunger (Fig. 3), I was overwhelmed 

with the historical connections to the mystery of the 

Franklin Expedition and the search that ensued. I 

am most grateful for the opportunity that Jones and 

Loring provided me. It was truly a gift personally 

and supported my scholarship. As in the ballad of a 

famous song, I had truly found “the hand of Franklin 

reaching for the Beaufort Sea.”

Fig. 2. Bundled kayak parts with Hall’s tag (left) and closeup of tags (right)

Fig. 3. Russell S. Taichman with Hall’s kayak parts made 

from wood from the HMS Erebus
 ASC Newsletter 73

OUTREACH

KNOWING NATURE: STORIES OF THE 

BOREAL FOREST 

The Arctic Studies Center’s exhibition, Knowing 

Nature: Stories of the Boreal Forest, prepared by the 

Smithsonian Traveling Exhibition Service, will make 

its national premier at the Michigan State University 

Museum in April 2023. As described by SITES: “The 

boreal forest holds stories written over thousands of 

years, stories of 500 billion trees, billions of migratory 

birds, millions of lakes and miles of rivers. The 

boreal forest stores more carbon that most tropical 

forests and plays a significant role in stabilizing our 

climate. The boreal forest is also home to hundreds of 

Indigenous Nations and communities. Their ways of 

knowing nature offer a vision for a sustainable future. 

The exhibition integrates themes of climate change, 

Indigenous perspectives, and the relationship between 

people and nature. It takes audiences on a learning 

journey that starts with curiosity, builds empathy, 

and leads to action. Knowing Nature offers stories of 

resilience, strength and hope in a changing world.”

Produced by Carol Bossert and curated by Stephen 

Loring, William Fitzhugh, Rob Mullen, Kevin 

Brownlee, Gary and Joan McGuffin, Jeff Wells, 

and others, the exhibition focuses on climate change 

and the global importance of our northernmost forests 

through first-person stories, commissioned objects, 

interactive experiences, and exquisite photography 

and videography. The exhibition describes the 

ecology, animals, plants, peoples, and history of 

the largest intact forest on Earth and calls attention 

to its importance as a source of water, natural 

resources, wildlife, and human habitat that needs 

urgent recognition and conservation. The exhibit is 

made possible by the National Audubon Society with 

additional support from The Anders Foundation, 

Charlie and Nancy Hogan, and Anne C. Madison, 

and will travel in North America in 2023–2027. For 

more information and bookings visit the website. 

ISSUMAQATIGINGNIQ: AN EDUCATIONAL 

MODEL TO ENGAGE THE NEXT 

GENERATION OF INUIT AND SCIENTIFIC 

COLLABORATORS

By Martin Nweeia

I2I, Exploring the Nunaverse, continues its mission to 

educate and celebrate Inuit traditional knowledge as a 

different way of thinking and knowing the environment. 

Forming written and video educational modules that 

highlight how science and Inuit Knowledge complement 

each other, the program integrates observations from 

an Inuit perspective and from scientific data collection 

about the natural environment. After a three-year hiatus, 

I2I, funded by the National Science Foundation and 

The United States Embassy in Canada, will set out to 

complete workshops in Canada and the United States 

with Inuit and scientific partners to formulate content 

for the educational program. These modules will then be 

packaged as an educational program designed to expose 

non-Inuit students to a different “way of knowing” their 

environment, and for Inuit students to better understand 

how science can complement their observations of their 

natural environment. The first workshop was in New 

York City in support of the 21st Session of the United 

Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues and 

gathered participants from the pan-Arctic nations of 

Canada, United States, Greenland, and Russia.

Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit (IQ), “the Inuit way of 

knowing” and science approach observation of the 

natural and physical world from different knowledge 

frames. Studies that integrate IQ and science 

demonstrate the inherent value of using observations 

and findings from both to understand Arctic systems. 

Yet, holders of IQ and scientists often do not fully 

appreciate the practice of the other, because they think 

and approach observation and knowledge differently. 

An educational program Isumaqatigingniq “thinking 

together” (I-STEM) will highlight studies of the Arctic 

ecosystems for NexGen thinkers from both Inuit and 

non-Inuit backgrounds. Future collaborations of these 

Participants in a workshop in New York City during the 

United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Peoples. 

Photo by Stephen Loring Photo by Pamela Peeters
74 ASC Newsletter

groups will better equip students to address themes that 

design, optimize, and implement collaborative observing 

systems and the transfer of Arctic observations to reach 

global platforms. The call for action that identifies 

Inuit collaboration with international research efforts is 

essential for successful scientific investigation outcomes. 

Implementing an active educational program that 

engages high school youth to understand the value of 

incorporating these two ways of knowing will help foster 

that future educational environment of collaboration. 

The educational I-STEM model will bring a new Inuit 

perspective to formal scientific education programs and 

share perspectives of science and Inuit knowledge within 

Inuit educational programs, so that Isumaqatigingniq

can grow and incorporate new perspectives on Arctic 

observations and knowledge. The resulting products 

will be six instructional written and video format 

modules incorporating ten of the United Nations 17 

sustainable goals that illustrate and integrate approaches 

of understanding Arctic ecosystems through the lens of 

science and Inuit traditional knowledge.

FISH SKIN PEOPLES OF THE BERING 

STRAIT: ENCOUNTERS IN HOKKAIDO, 

JAPAN

By Elisa Palomino, June Pardue and Anatoly Donkan

In March 2022, fish skin fieldwork was conducted 

throughout the National Museums of Hokkaido, bringing 

world-class fish skin experts into direct contact with 

historical Ainu collections and artifacts. The fieldwork 

and accompanying conference, supported by the Japan 

Foundation, improved knowledge of sustainable fish 

skin traditional production, thus addressing pressing 

sustainability issues.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Japan’s borders 

had been closed to all but Japanese passport holders 

since April 2020. Japan reopened borders to research 

visa-holders on March 1st, 2022. Despite many 

difficulties, our fieldwork took place and provided 

a unique opportunity to hold a number of museum 

artifact consultations in the course of seven days. The 

main members of the team were Native Alutiiq and 

Inupiaq fish skin artist June Pardue, fish skin tanner 

and sculptor Anatoly Donkan, and Nanai from Eastern 

Siberia. Wengfen Yu, a Hezhe from Northeast China 

and main inheritor of Hezhe fish skin art, could not join 

us but stayed closely connected to the group.

Our first focus group was held at Hokkaido University 

Botanical Garden and Museum with curator Masaru 

Kato. We examined a Sakhalin Ainu fish skin robe, 

several fish skin boots, one having woven grass 

socks stuffed inside. June, an expert grass weaver, 

noticed the similarities with her own Alutiiq grass 

woven socks. The second day at Upopoy National 

Ainu Museum and Park saw first encounter of Arctic 

and Subarctic Native cultures: June met Masahiro 

Nomoto, Director of Culture Promotion Department, 

who kindly guided us through the impressive new 

grounds of the biggest Ainu Museum in Hokkaido. 

He was also our connection with the Arctic Studies 

Center as a contributor to the Ainu exhibition who built 

the Ainu house (chise) and boat (itaomachip) for the 

Smithsonian exhibit, Ainu: Spirit of a Northern People

curated by Bill Fitzhugh and Chisato Dubreuil at the 

NMNH in 2000. It is wonderful to see one project lead 

to another, to strengthen old bonds and forge new ones. 

On our third day, we visited the Nibutani Ainu Cultural 

Museum created by Shigeru Kayano in 1972. Kayano 

was the leading figure in the Ainu culture movement 

and the first Ainu member of Japan’s parliament and 

was largely responsible in 1994 for the enactment of the 

“New Ainu Law.” Shigeru Kayano’s son Shiro Kayano, 

his successor as head of the museum, gave a warm 

welcome to Donkan, as the two share a relationship of 

more than 20 years, dating back to Donkan's friendship 

with Shigeru and his wife Reiko. Donkan and June were 

able to examine a fish skin garment created by Wengfen 

Yu, the Hezhe artist who was unable to join us on this 

fieldtrip. The salmon skin jacket and trousers were 

executed by her mother in the 1950s. We could remark 

that, despite the garment having been on display in the 

museum for more than 70 years, it still looked quite new 

and well-preserved. This is due to the use of cornmeal 

for the removal of oils from the fish skins. Concerning 

how these fish skin garments are preserved, Wengfen Yu 

mentioned that every spring and autumn the garments 

would be taken out, placed on a flat surface and rubbed 

all over with cornmeal, a technique similar to drycleaning. The cornmeal removes dirt, dust and soften the 

skins at once. At the end, when all the cornmeal dust is 

removed, the garment will be just like new. 

It was wonderful to see four Arctic and Subarctic Native 

cultures (Ainu, Hezhe, Alutiiq, and Nanai) united around 

the art of fish skin tanning. Donkan presented his own 

fish skin robe produced in collaboration with Ms. Reiko 

Kayano with bleached fish skins. We were also able to 

meet Ms. Kayano, a 91-year-old Ainu weaver and wife 

of Shigeru Kayano. Reiko shared with us all the steps of 

recreating a Sakhalin Ainu fish skin robe replica produced 

by her for the Mimpaku National Museum of Ethnology 

in Osaka. This was another older project leading to a 

new one. During this rich third day we also visited the 

Nibutani Ainu Museum with Kenji Sekine and his wife 

Maki, an Ainu embroidery artist and whose mother, 

Yukiko, is one of the last elm bark weavers in Hokkaido. 

Maki and June discussed the Ainu patterns and motifs 
 ASC Newsletter 75

on her Kaparamip Ainu embroidered robes. The Alaska 

Native artists connecting with June via social media 

noticed the similarities between the Ainu embroidered 

patterns and Tlingit designs.

During our fourth and last day in 

Hokkaido, we held a focus group 

at Hokkaido Museum of Northern 

Peoples in Abashiri with curator 

Ms Irumi Sasakura. We had 

the opportunity to view all the 

artifacts that Donkan had created 

for the museum twenty years ago. 

He demonstrated the traditional 

techniques practiced by the Nanai 

along the Amur River sharing tools, 

knowledge, and processes. He 

showed us how to use the Nanai 

wooden tool he made to soften fish 

skins. Back in D.C. in January 2023, 

when Igor Krupnik was introducing 

the NMNH’s Siberian collections 

to Bill Wierzbowski, curator at the 

Penn Museum, we found this same 

artefact. Exactly this kind of mutual 

enriching cultural interface and 

exchange was the aim of the fieldtrip.

The last day we held a focus group 

at the Bunka Gakuen Costume 

Museum in Tokyo, studying 

Donkan’s shaman robe, and right 

afterwards the Arctic Fish Skin 

Heritage conference was held at 

Tokyo Bunka Gakuen University. 

June Pardue's presentation: 

“Connecting Alaska Native 

communities through fish skin 

traditions” analysed the fish 

skin, basket weaving, and tool 

collections she had seen on this 

trip and compared them with 

their equivalents of her Alutiiq 

community. She shared the work 

of fellow Native fish skin artists in 

Alaska as well as the prolific fish 

skin tanning workshops—over one 

hundred that she has implemented in rural Alaska and 

online worldwide since April 2020. Anatoly Donkan's 

presentation: “Nanai shaman robes: sacred and 

ceremonial meaning” featured his Amur Ethnic Art 

Museum artifacts comprising Nanai garments made of 

hand-painted and embroidered fish skin, and his own 

replicas of historical fish skin robes and tanning tools.

Since June’s return home, she has earned the position 

of associate lecturer of Alaska Native Art History 

at University of Alaska Anchorage UAA. After the 

fieldwork, June set up a Facebook group to share 

her knowledge of fish skin tanning with a global 

audience and in less than 2 

months she gained over 2,000 

followers. The internet is helping 

fish skin enthusiasts to connect 

around this process. Without 

geographical restriction, a tradition 

originally linked to Arctic and 

Subarctic areas has developed 

new cultural connections through 

individuals and groups. In 2022 

June collaborated with Dawn 

Biddison at the Alaska office of 

the Smithsonian Arctic Studies 

Center and with the Alaska 

Native Heritage Center on a 

project about Alaska Native 

knowledge on natural dyes from 

Dena’ina Lands. She participated 

in the creation of instructional 

resources, a set of 15 videos and 

a booklet featuring the dyeing of 

fish skin and other Alaska Native 

subsistence materials. The videos 

on Smithsonian Learning Lab 

are living proof on how to build 

collaborations addressing culturally 

sensitive issues around traditional 

knowledge of fish skin practices. 

It was June and Donkan’s dream 

to connect face-to-face with fish 

skin knowledge keepers and artistic 

stewards of natural resources. For 

the Ainu communities it was vital 

to meet Indigenous Peoples from 

around the world, and to understand 

what place Ainu People have in the 

Indigenous world. For me, as an 

Arctic fish skin scholar, it was my 

dream to help to make it happen. 

Not only these elders benefited, but 

also the museum curators who were 

honoured to meet and learn from 

these artists, fieldtrip participants, 

and online viewers of the conference. 

Our gratitude goes to William Fitzhugh, director of the 

Arctic Studies Center, and his team: Stephen Loring, 

Igor Krupnik, John Cloud, Nancy Shorey, Bernadette 

Driscoll, Dawn Biddison, and Aron Crowell. We are 

grateful to the Hokkaido National Museums, museum 

curators, Japanese universities, fish skin tanners and 

Alaska Native tribes and communities.

Elisa Palomino, June Pardue, an Alutiiq 

fish skin artist, Ainu performer artist, 

and Masahiro Nomoto, Director of 

Culture Promotion Department at the 

Upopoy National Ainu Museum. Shiraoi, 

Hokkaido. Photo courtesy Elisa Palomino

Anatoly Donkan, a Nanai from Eastern 

Siberia, demonstrating how to use the 

wooden tool he made to soften fish 

skins. Photo courtesy Elisa Palomino
76 ASC Newsletter

BOOK REVIEWS

THE SOCIALITY OF INDIGENOUS DANCE 

IN ALASKA. HAPPINESS, TRADITION, 

AND ENVIRONMENT AMONG YUPIK ON 

ST. LAWRENCE ISLAND AND IÑUPIAT IN 

UTQIAGVIK, BY HIROKO IKUTA

Routledge: London and New York, 2022

By Igor Krupnik

The book is one of the latest 

installments in a new series, 

Arctic Worlds. Communities, 

Political Ecology and Ways 

of Knowing, begun a few 

years ago by the Routledge 

in London, under the general 

editorship of our colleagues, 

David Anderson and Robert 

J. Losey. The author, Dr. 

Hiroko Ikuta, started as 

Anthropology student at 

the University of Alaska 

Fairbanks and received 

her Ph.D. at the University of Aberdeen. She did her 

fieldwork in Gambell and Savoonga on St. Lawrence 

Island and in Utqiagvik (then called Barrow) in the late 

2000s. She has lived in Alaska for 18 years, while at 

UAF and working for the Alaska Department of Fish 

and Game, before returning to her native Japan, where 

she currently teaches at the Kyushu University in the 

city of Fukuoka in southern Japan.

Beyond these dry biographical facts, this book is also a 

product of love and of deep thoughts. Ikuta approaches 

Alaskan Native dancing as an Anthropologist, but also as 

a fellow practitioner, as she did her best to participate in 

Indigenous community dancing whenever and wherever 

it was possible. The book is illustrated by scores of 

historical photographs but also by pictures that Ikuta 

took herself in the communities she worked in. She is an 

avid photographer; she also collected musical recordings 

and taped extended interviews with Native dancers, a 

portion of which are cited in the book.

Despite its long academic title (evidently a relic from 

the Ph.D. thesis at the University of Aberdeen), the 

book is very inspirational. Its six chapters cover a broad 

scope of issues – from Happiness and Personhood to the 

symbolic meaning of Dance and a Drum, to the role of 

dancing and drumming in supporting community health, 

stability, and inner cultural core. The latter has been 

long advocated – by ethnomusicologists and by dancers 

and community leaders themselves. Hiroko’s novel

contribution is by introducing different social models 

in how dancing strengthens Indigenous communities 

and identities. It is the very comparative nature of 

Ikuta’s fieldwork—among the Yupik on St. Lawrence 

Island and the Iñupiat in Utqiagvik that offered to her 

the comparative lenses, internal and external, that were 

missing among her esteemed predecessors. 

The persistence of Indigenous dancing and singing/

drumming culture, naturally, depended on the history 

and political landscape of each aboriginal community 

in Alaska. They all went through a period of cultural 

oppression (at least, of marginalization) of Indigenous 

dancing and singing traditions by various Christian 

denominations that got established in Alaskan 

communities in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Some 

were very strict in condemning Native dances as ‘pagan 

rituals’; others were more tolerable, which facilitated 

transitions to modernity and the preservation of old 

community rites. Ikuta’s selection of St. Lawrence 

Island and Utqiagvik, the two most prominent ‘hubs’ of 

Native Alaskan dancing and music culture allowed her 

to argue that such cultures (in plural!) may be preserved 

in different ways–from a quite informal context of 

small, often spontaneous community gatherings 

centered around scores of active practitioners (as on 

St. Lawrence Island) to the formally organized dance 

ensembles and large competitive community festivals 

(as in Utqiagvik). The good news is that one way or the 

other, Native dances serve as a mechanism of healing 

and cohesion, but, as Ikuta argues, not as the only nor 

even as a guaranteed path to cultural and language 

retention. This thoughtful and mind-provoking book 

is with us to stay. It should be consulted by those who 

study culture transitions, language retention, and other 

paths to resilience in our rapidly changing world.

MEMORY AND LANDSCAPES: INDIGENOUS 

RESPONSES TO A CHANGING NORTH, 

EDITED BY KENNETH L. PRATT AND SCOTT 

A. HEYES

Athabasca University Press, Edmonton, AB, 

Canada, 2022

By Igor Krupnik

This beautifully designed and exquisitely illustrated 

book edited by two ASC Research Associates, Kenneth 

Pratt from the BIA Alaska Region Office in Anchorage, 

and Scott Heyes at the University of South Australia 

in Adelaide, Australia, ‘scoops’ the North American 

Arctic and Subarctic from west to east, from the Bering 

Strait, including Chukotka, Russia to West Greenland. 
 ASC Newsletter 77

It is an outcome of a long 

path that started at a thematic 

session at the 18th Inuit 

Studies Conference, Arctic/

Inuit/Connections hosted 

by the ASC in Washington, 

D.C., in October 2012 (ASC 

NSL 2013) and concluded 

with a 400-page volume. It 

has been a long road with 

a few stops, but certainly 

worth undertaking, including 

partnering with the Athabasca University Press. The 

team of two volume co-editors offers an excellent match, 

because of their personal regional focus (Alaska and 

the Eastern Arctic respectively); their shared interest in 

Indigenous landscapes, memories, and oral traditions; 

and their preferred use of historical sources (for Pratt, 

an ethnohistorian) and physical traces on the land (for 

Heyes, a landscape architecture). They were able to host 

an impressive team of contributors, literally a ‘who’s 

who’ list of scholars engaged in Indigenous knowledge 

about land, landscape, and oral tradition.

The volume is organized in three sections, Indigenous 

History and Identity (Part 1), Forces of Change (Part 2), 

and Knowing the Land (Part 3). Each section is preceded 

by an eloquent statement by Indigenous Elders and 

land-users–Vinnie Baron and Felix St. Aubin, a teacher 

and hunter from Kangiqsualujjauq in Nunavik; Apay’u 

Moore, a Yup’ik artist from Bristol Bay, Alaska, and 

Evon Peter, a Gwich’in educator and community leader 

from Arctic Village, Alaska. The volume is opened by a 

foreword by Hugh Brody, anthropologist, filmmaker, 

and an author of many seminal books, including Living 

Arctic (1987), Maps and Dreams (1981), and The Other 

Side of Eden (2000), and the Introduction by the volume 

co-editors. With eighteen chapter authors, they made a 

powerful team.

Naturally, the chapters differ in focus, strength, and 

the depth of authors’ local knowledge, even though 

they all deal with memories and landscapes in various 

cultural contexts. The first two sections cover primarily 

the issues of identity and aboriginal history (even if 

the distinction in Parts 1 and 2 is sometimes blurred). 

The ‘History and Identity’ section opens with Aron 

Crowell’s overview of the early migration narratives 

from Southeast Alaska, tested against archaeological 

and geological data. Murielle Nagy’s and Robert 

Drozda‘s chapters on Inuvialuit ethnonyms and 

Nunivak Island toponyms are squarely in the ‘identity’ 

field, as is the chapter by Martha Dowsley and coauthors about women’s attachment to the land in the 

Eastern Canadian Arctic via plant gathering and berry 

harvesting.

Four chapters in Part 2 (by Mark Nuttall on 

Greenland; Ken Pratt on the Yukon Delta; William 

Simeone on the Copper River Basin; and Scott Heyes

and Peter Jacobs on the historical types of Aboriginal 

dwellings in Nunavik) address the same junction of 

Aboriginal memories and landscapes via the lenses of 

change–environmental, cultural, and historical. Lastly, 

the third and final section is fully dedicated to place 

names–along the Inuit-Yup’ik and Dene language 

borders (Gary Holton), in the Yukon-Kuskokwim 

Delta (Louann Rank), in the Kivalliq Region of 

Nunavut (Peter Dawson and co-authors), and on 

Chukotka Senyavin Strait Islands (Michael Chlenov). 

Altogether, this book makes a wonderful compendium 

of knowledge and an invaluable resource, accompanied 

by dozens of large color photographs and numerous 

maps in a beautifully designed volume. Congratulations 

to Ken and Scott, and the entire team!

RESILIENCE THROUGH KNOWLEDGE COPRODUCTION. INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE, 

SCIENCE, AND GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL 

CHANGE, EDITED BY MARIE ROUÉ, 

DOUGLAS NAKASHIMA, AND IGOR 

KRUPNIK

Cambridge University Press and UNSECO, 

Cambridge and Paris, 2022

By Igor Krupnik

This book looks like a sequel, almost like No.2 in a 

virtual UNESCO-Cambridge series on Indigenous 

knowledge and Climate Change, in the footsteps of 

the previous collection, 

Indigenous Knowledge for 

Climate Change Assessment 

and Adaptation (Nakashima 

et al. eds., 2018). The two 

volumes look very much 

alike, have the same format 

and similarly beautiful color 

covers, and were produced 

by a close team of co-editors. 

Yet their histories were very 

different. The 2018 collection 

came out of an international 

symposium held in 2011 in 

Mexico-City organized by 

Douglas Nakashima and Jennifer Rubis, then both 

at the UNESCO “Local and Indigenous Knowledge 

Systems (LINKS)” program in Paris. It was aimed at the 

release of the Fifth Assessment Report (AR-5) of the 

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 

but appeared several years later. The current collection, 

Resilience Through Knowledge Co-Production, 
78 ASC Newsletter

emerged from two smaller symposia in 2012 and 2014 

in Paris hosted by the LINKS office and co-chaired by 

Nakashima and Marie Roué. It has fewer chapters (17), 

including the Introduction by Roué and Nakashima, and 

a short Epilogue by Igor Krupnik. It was also ‘freed’ 

from the association with the IPCC process, with two 

notable consequences. 

The first feature of the new volume is an impressive 

share of stories from the Arctic and Northern regions 

that carry the brunt of impacts of global climate 

change, but also the impressive range of participatory 

research in knowledge co-production. It also matches 

nicely with the research interests of the three coeditors, who are all Arctic specialists. Part One features 

six chapters describing various co-production efforts 

across the North—mostly in Alaska and Northern 

Scandinavia (by Huntington et al. on the shifting 

paradigms from collaboration to co-production in 

scores of knowledge documentation projects in 

Alaska; by Eicken et al.) on the learning about sea 

ice from the people of Wales, Alaska through decades 

of observations; by Druckenmiller on sharing 

knowledge about the ocean on Alaska’s North Slope; 

by Krupnik on making Indigenous ‘sea ice dictionaries’ 

in Chukotka and Alaska; by Roué et al., and Roturier

et al. on partnering with the Sámi herders in northern 

Sweden; but also two more chapters in other sections 

of the book (by Bruce Forbes and co-authors on Yamal 

Peninsula in West Siberia, and by Anders Henriksen

Bongo, a Sámi herder from Northern Norway). This is 

an impressive record in itself that proves that the Arctic 

or the ‘Great North’ is clearly in the forefront of efforts 

in knowledge co-production and ahead of other world 

regions. 

The other notable feature of the new book is its strong 

public (even political) message expressed by two 

co-editors, Roué and Nakashima, in their extensive 

Introduction. Though the ‘co-production’ of knowledge 

emerged as an effort in partnership or collaboration 

among the diverse field of scholarship and various 

actors, governmental, community-based, and public, 

today’s co-production is a tool and the driving force 

in the process of decolonization of knowledge and of 

the scholarly research with Indigenous communities. 

The chapter argues for the new ethical standards to be 

applied to any effort in co-producing knowledge with 

communities, new approaches, as well as new tools. 

It reviews what went wrong with the previous efforts 

and how things may be corrected and advanced when 

a new ‘decolonized’ approach to co-production is 

implemented. Whereas some scholars may disagree, 

this is a must-read collection for everyone interested in 

partnering with Indigenous knowledge experts and in 

working with communities across the North. 

EXPEDITION RELICS FROM HIGH ARCTIC 

GREENLAND: EIGHT DECADES OF 

EXPLORATION HISTORY TOLD THROUGH 

102 OBJECTS, BY PETER R. DAWES

Museum Tusculanum Press, Copenhagen, 2022

By William Fitzhugh

In December 2022 a 

very large book with an 

intriguing title appeared in 

the mail. At first, I could 

not make heads or tails of 

its detailed descriptions of 

isolated objects assembled 

opportunistically by the 

author and a few other 

researchers during field 

projects in far northern 

Greenland. Coming from an archaeological background 

in which context is everything, how could a few nails, 

message bottles, rusty cans, an ion wheel, a whalebone 

sledge shoe, a copper washer, a leather fragment and 

other sundries collected as ‘relics’ over the course of 

40 years from scores of expedition sites, back-bone an 

exploration history of northernmost Greenland? But as 

I dove into this oversize 5 lb. book, I realized Dawes

has created ‘treasure from trash’—from a disparate 

collection of 102 objects accompanied by the stories, 

history, people who left these objects behind. What 

seemed at first like a lifelong antiquarian relic-hunting 

pursuit turns out to be a magnificent piece of contextual 

scholarship.

None of these objects are particularly noteworthy 

by themselves, and while they have been described 

and researched with great precision, are beautifully 

photographed, and are now safely stored in museums 

and archives, they serve Dawes’ purpose. He uses them 

to introduce the reader to the remarkable expeditionary 

history when between 1850 and 1935, from Elisha 

Kane to the Oxford Expedition, hundreds of explorers, 

scientists, ship captains, and Inuit support teams, as 

well as the nations and financiers who backed then, 

threw themselves into one of the most dangerous places 

on Earth in quest of North Pole glory, geography, 

science, self-discovery, bravado, and even death.

While conducting geological work for the DanishGreenland Geological Survey, Dawes and a few others 

collected these momentos from the remains of base 

camps, fly-camps, message cairns, and object cast-off 

sites. Each expedition is described; its personnel are 

introduced, and their movements mapped. Great care is 

used to document the Greenland Inuit who were mostly 

responsible for the lives saved and successes achieved. 
 ASC Newsletter 79

Even the dogs receive the eulogy they deserve, for 

unlike most humans, few survived.

Dawes has created a remarkable volume documenting 

an audacious era of exploration before radios and 

aircraft brought an end to the quest for ‘furthest north’. 

Through careful selection of stories and people, detailed 

references to literature, photography of expeditions and 

landscapes, the story of these ‘relics’ becomes a reader’s 

path to this latter-day ‘ultima Thule.’

BOOK ANNOUNCEMENT BY WILLIAM 

FITZHUGH

Deer Stones of Northern Mongolia, by Jamsranjav 

Bayarsaikhan, Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center 

and Inuit Press International, 2022.

Archaeology of Bronze Age Mongolia: a Deer Stone 

Diary, by William W. Fitzhugh. Smithsonian Arctic 

Studies Center and Inuit Press International, 2023.

In 2001 the Arctic Studies Center began a research 

project that brought the Smithsonian and the 

Mongolia National Museum into partnership studying 

Mongolian’s Bronze Age deer stone monuments that 

has lasted for more than twenty years. From 2001 

to 2013 we conducted annual field projects centered 

in northern Mongolia—the heartland of deer stone 

distribution. The project involved dating these iconic 

monuments, investigating their role in Bronze Age 

mortuary ceremonialism, interpreting their symbolism, 

and exploring their stylistic relationships with other 

Central and West Asian cultures and early Bering Sea 

Eskimo art. The ASC has now published a set of two 

volumes on the results. 

Bayarsaikhan’s volume 

was initially prepared as 

a Ph.D. dissertation for 

the National University of 

Mongolia. We translated the 

text from Mongolian and 

prepared illustrations and 

appendices. Bayarsaikhan’s 

focus is the analysis of deer 

stone art engraved on deer 

stone monuments in northern 

Mongolia. His work greatly 

expands earlier work by V.V.

Volkov, who published the first detailed survey of deer 

stone sites and illustrated some of their carvings in 

his 1981 Russian language monograph. Bayarsaikhan 

includes a detailed description of the long history of 

deer stone studies which was conducted mostly by 

Russian scholars in the mid-20th century. In addition 

to classifying deer stone art motifs, he brings to the 

discussion ethnographic and mythological material 

relevant to their interpretation, establishing a link in 

heritage beliefs extending over more than 3,000 years. 

His book is the most comprehensive study ever done 

on deer stone art and will set the baseline for all future 

work.

Fitzhugh’s volume sets 

forth the archaeological 

context of the SmithsonianMongolian deer stone project 

and describing the fieldwork, 

sites and monuments 

studied, and the results of the 

decade-long investigation. 

This book also explores 

the wider relationship of 

Bronze Age deer stone art 

and culture—defined as 

the Deer Stone-Khirigsuur 

Complex, or simply, ‘Deer Stone Culture’—and its 

relationship with the famous Syctho-Saka art horizon 

in Central and West Asia and similar stylistic features 

known from early Eskimo cultures of the Bering Strait 

region. Although no ‘smoking guns’ have been found 

connecting deer stones and Eskimo art, radiocarbon 

dates from horse sacrifices associated with deer stone 

and khirigsuur burials established the deer stone 

culture and art era existed from 1400-700 B.C.E., 

making it a foundational component rather than a 

derivative style of the Scythian art horizon of 700-200 

B.C.E. Fitzhugh’s book demonstrates that deer stones 

are monuments to specific individual leaders whose 

weapons and ornaments would have been recognizable 

to all members of their society. Stylistically, the book 

integrates descriptions of deer stone archaeology 

with excerpts from field diaries describing the 

interactions with local herders and visitors that provide 

contemporary context for the archaeological work.

Together, these volumes present a comprehensive 

treatment of the historical, ritual, and artistic life of 

Late Bronze Age Mongolia at a time when this society 

was about to be transformed into a series of nomadic 

states and empires whose horsemen conquered and 

governed a large part of central Eurasia. Deer stones, 

which we have found are portraits of individual 

ancient Mongolian leaders, have for the first time 

given Mongolians and the rest of the world a glimpse 

of 700-years of biographical statuary. The fact that 

many of these stone men stand in a linear north-south 

arrangement, only a few meters apart, suggests that 

they represent historical sequences of Mongolia’s 

ancient leaders. 

Books are available from the Arctic Studies Center or 

Amazon.com
80 ASC Newsletter

THE AMUR RIVER: BETWEEN RUSSIA AND 

CHINA, BY COLIN THUBRON

Harper Collins, 2021.

Reviewed by William Fitzhugh

Although its 3,000 mile 

length makes the Amur the 

tenth longest river in the 

world, its name would not 

be recognizable to most 

Europeans or Americans. The 

reason is right there in the 

title—‘between’. For 1,100 

miles it forms the border 

between China and Russia, 

and this geography and 

history have sentenced it to be 

a contested cultural, political, 

and economic frontier for 

thousands of years. Thubron’s 

elegantly-written river-tale documents his travel from 

Amur headwaters in Mongolia to its huge “desolate 

end” opposite Sakhalin Island in the southern Okhotsk 

Sea. Traveling alone as a 80-year old Westerner, he was 

curious to see how conditions had changed since he 

made the trip twenty years earlier. The book describes a 

harrowing adventure on horseback through the Amur’s 

northern Mongolia headwater swamps; by canoe, car, 

and a variety of riverboats through Russia; along the 

thousand-mile Russia-China Amur border; and back 

into Russia, then passing Khabarovsk, before reaching 

the river’s immense delta—all while nursing a neardebilitating Mongolia riding injury.

 Thubron’s narrative is a masterful compilation of 

history, geographic description, personal interviews 

of monks, bandits, poachers, businessman, officials, 

soldiers, fishermen, drunks, and poets. His descriptions 

of people, places, history, and states of mind are 

elegant, peppered with amazing phrases and astonishing 

vocabulary—befitting his reputation as one of the finest 

travel-writers of all time. He is respectful of everyone 

and reports their views with great nuance. I found 

myself comparing his book to Patrick Leigh Fermor’s 

multi-volume description of travels from Britain through 

Germany and along the Danube on the eve of WWII. 

Paralleling Thubron’s verbal wonders is the stark 

reality of multi-ethnic indigenous peoples caught in the 

vise between Russian and Chinese ethno-politics, beset 

upon by criminality and corruption. The message of the 

book is starkly bleak, partly due to the demographic, 

military, and industrial horrors of the Soviet period, 

the constant modern downward spiral due to forces 

individuals cannot control or influence—much of it 

rooted in a clash of Russian and Chinese ethnicities 

and values, leaving an absence of hope for humane, 

sustainable lives in the future. And the Amur—she just 

flows on, her sturgeon, salmon, sea mammals, and land 

animals also victims of over-exploitation that began 

when the Nanai, Nivkh, Negidal and other indigenous 

peoples were overwhelmed by Russian/Soviet and 

Chinese domination, corrupt officials, and lack of 

environmental respect. 

ONCE UPON THE PERMAFROST: KNOWING 

CULTURE AND CLIMATE CHANGE IN 

SIBERIA, BY SUSAN A. CRATE

University of Arizona Press, 2022

Reviewed by W. Fitzhugh

“The Sakha people of Siberia 

live far from most of us in a 

forbidding and changing land 

of extreme cold and heat, 

underlain with permafrost. 

Through many years of 

research with them, Susan 

Crate brings to life how the 

knowledge and narratives 

of local people, explorers, 

and scientists reveal the 

interplay between culture 

and environment and why, in 

a profound sense, we all do 

‘live on permafrost.’”― Bonnie McCay

Susan Crate has given us a striking example of the 

complicated trajectory of a people and culture that has 

adapted and survived some of the most challenging 

conditions imaginable. In less than a century the 

Sakah (formerly Yakut) have been repeatedly 

upheaved by political, economic, social, technological, 

environmental, and climate change. Crate lived with 

the Sakha people for several years in the early 1990s 

and returned in recent years to document how two 

villages on the Vilyuy River, a west tributary of the 

great Lena River, are dealing with, and adapting to, 

forces largely beyond their control.

Crate’s analysis centers culture, language, and alaas as 

the core of Sakha identity in their thousand-year history 

of adaptation to the Middle Lena River. Sakha people 

originated as a cattle-breeding, Turkic-speaking people 

whose roots lay further south in the Baikal region north 

of Mongolia. Replacing Tungus (Evenk) hunters and 

reindeer breeders, they settled the river valleys where 

grass was available for their horses and cows and 

supplemented their diet with hunting and gathering. 

The core of family life was built ‘living by alaas’—a 
 ASC Newsletter 81

term for the pockets of grasslands that sustained their 

animals but also became a culture-environmental 

philosophy for traditional life.

Today that thousand-year Sakha lifeway and the culture 

that supported it has been challenged as never before, 

threatening their very existence as a culture and people. 

Sakha language is being replaced by Russian as cell 

phones and media communication expands; young 

people are choosing education and city-life over rearing 

animals; the comings and goings of political regimes and 

damaging development plans have been destabilizing. 

Underlying everything is the melting permafrost that is 

turning pastures, roads, and homesteads into a maze of 

humps and dips, ponds, and marshes, making haying, 

vehicle travel, and life itself nearly impossible. Crate’s 

presentation of the Sakha experience is a clarion call for 

environmental sanity while there is still time to mitigate 

the disasters confronting Sakha. Despite this, Crate is 

hopeful that Sakha resilience will prevail and its people 

will find a new balance—if governing authorities listen 

to the message of alaas. Afterall, there was a time when 

the Sakha left an earlier homeland and found a new way 

and culture that has thrived for nearly 1000 years. As 

Crate notes, “Metaphorically, we all live on permafrost.”

AN EXPLORATION OF PREHISTORIC 

ONTOLOGIES IN THE BERING STRAIT 

REGION: BOUNDARIES AND STRUCTURES, 

BY FENG QU

Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2021

Preface to the book by William Fitzhugh

As a student at Jilin University in China, Feng Qu

heard a lecture on the role of shamanism in Chinese 

history and its early archaeological cultures given 

by the visiting AmericanChinese archaeologist, K.C.

Chang. Inspired to learn 

more about connections 

between archaeology and 

psychology, Qu enrolled in 

2003 at Holland’s Leiden 

University where he was 

introduced to modern 

theories and literature on 

shamanism. Then, in 2009, 

aware of Alaska’s prehistoric 

connections with China 

identified by Henry Collins’ 

research into the Old Bering 

Sea culture and Larsen’s and 

Rainey’s interpretation of Ipiutak art, Qu entered the 

Ph.D. program at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks. 

Soon after, he and I began a correspondence as he 

explored the literature on ancient Bering Strait cultures 

and studied collections in Fairbanks and Washington, 

D.C. This book presents Qu’s search for foundations 

and meaning in ancient Eskimo art.

Qu has unique qualifications for researching a question 

that has intrigued and plagued Arctic archaeologists 

for decades. The first break-through came when Henry 

Collins identified connections between ancient Alaskan 

Eskimo art and burial ritual in Bronze and Iron Age 

Shang and Chou cultures in northern China. In the 

decades that followed, attempts to identify protoEskimo links in the Far East, Scytho-Siberian art of 

Central Asia, and the Asian Arctic failed to provide 

answers. The problem remained dormant until Feng 

Qu began investigating connections between Bering 

Sea art and Neolithic cultures of northern China where 

prototypes in the ritual use of jade, animal symbolism, 

shamanic forms, hunting magic, and human-animal 

relations could be recognized in Neolithic Liangzhou 

sites more than a thousand years before Shang.

Not only does Qu point the way toward a new vision of 

the origin of Eskimo culture and art: he also explores its 

anthropological foundations using modern ethnographic 

and ecological data. His exploration follows the 

discovery that 19th century Southwest Alaskan Yup’ik 

art can be traced directly back to Old Bering Sea 

roots. Most work by culture historians involves using 

archaeological remains to provide chronological and 

culture classification structure but leaves unexplored 

the social and ritual basis for art. Qu’s studies provide 

tools for understanding ancient art and ritual in a 

broader context, explored from multiple theoretical 

vantage-points. His approach embodying elements 

of animal ecology, hunting magic, and theriomorphic 

imagery brings insight that can be applied generally 

to interpretation of ancient ritual art from Paleolithic 

caves to contemporary Inuit art. Much more remains to 

be researched, but Qu challenges archaeologists and art 

historians to look in new directions.

Prehistoric Ontologies brings a broad array of scholarly 

disciplines together to tackle long-standing questions 

about the history and function of ancient Bering Sea 

Eskimo art and its relationship with the ancient cultures 

and art of the Far East. Although this book is focused 

primarily on Eskimo cultures, it paves the way for 

a reanalysis of Beringian connections, utilizing new 

anthropological theory and archaeological evidence 

beginning to be uncovered in China and other regions 

of Northeast Asia. Qu’s publications bode well for 

progress understanding China’s northern connections 

with the Arctic and the origins and functions of artistic 

expression, ritual, and belief in the North Pacific 

region.
82 ASC Newsletter

KEVIN R. WOOD (1962–2022): A MARINERTURNED ARCTIC OCEANOGRAPHER

By Igor Krupnik

In February 2022, the ASC lost a good friend, and the 

field of Arctic oceanography and of Arctic historical 

climatology lost an important figure and a dedicated 

explorer. Dr. Kevin R. Wood, 1962–2022, was a 

researcher at the University of Washington’ Joint 

Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Oceans, 

with a joint appointment at the NOAA Pacific Marine 

Environmental Laboratory (PMEL) in Seattle, WA. 

Quiet and unassuming, Kevin was a rare scholar in his 

field of polar ice-weather-climate-ocean interaction 

who was dedicated to the studies of historical records 

and who cherished publications from the days of 

whalers and early explorers as an invaluable source for 

today’s understanding of planetary change.

I first met Kevin in winter 2004/2005 at a polar 

meeting in Washington, D.C. It was the second year 

of preparations for the International Polar Year 2007–

2008. Kevin was then on detail to the NOAA Office 

of Arctic Research and was duly digitizing, together 

with his friend and NOAA colleague, Igor Smolyar, 

large-size antiquarian volumes published after the 

first International Polar Year (IPY) of 1882–1884. It 

was an effort in both data rescue and data mining, as 

the two were trying to organize old meteorological 

records from 14 stations that had been active during 

IPY 1882–1884. It took them two years to complete the 

task of synthesizing data that was left unfinished over a 

century prior. NOAA produced a site; Kevin published 

a ground-breaking paper (Climate lessons from the 

First International Polar Year, 2006, with James 

Overland), and I learned to listen carefully to Kevin’s 

insight, as well as to his personal stories.

Kevin, then in his early 40s, was greatly enjoying his 

life as a marine scientist. Born in Jacksonville, FL, 

TRANSITIONS

he had a prior sailor/mariner career of over 20 years 

that included stints as a professional lobsterman, a 

transatlantic sailor, a merchant mariner, a second mate 

on research ships that belonged to the Woods Hall 

Oceanographic Center, as well as a crew member on 

the NSF-supported Antarctic ship missions. He had 

a strange aura of calmness and a gravitas of a man, 

who had seen more than office cubicles of the NOAA 

Arctic Research program in Silver Spring, MD. After 

completing his detail, he returned to Seattle, found a 

wonderful wife, Kelly McBroom, started a family, 

and launched a science career that took him to Arctic 

icebreakers, distant polar camps, and decks of Russian 

ships, under a joint project named Russian American 

Long-Term Census of the Arctic, RUSALCA (which 

in Russian means ‘mermaid’). He flew on aerial 

missions to deploy marine robotic vehicles and ocean 

temperature floats. He published crucial papers, 

together with his mentor, Dr. James Overland. It was a 

life well lived.

In between his many missions, Kevin never lost interest 

in historical data, and his passion of scooping records 

of the early polar explorers, whalers, and mariners 

for any observations of sea ice, winds, and shifting 

ice and weather regimes. This was the field where 

we overlapped and shared passion for. He started a 

citizen science-driven project to transcribe log-books 

for the U.S. vessels traveling in the Arctic and North 

Pacific since the early 1800s. He was instrumental in 

finding the place of wreckage of the U.S. Jeannette 

under Capt. George W. De Long in 1881 in the East 

Siberian Sea. He was a great person to listen to when 

we overlapped during these 20 years. He was always 

an engaged listener of stories about what Indigenous 

hunters observed about Arctic sea ice under today’s 

climate change. His was the voice, the insight, and the 

knowledge that we are to miss badly. Our sympathies 

go to his wife Kelly, his young sons, and to his many 

colleagues in Seattle who are mourning his loss.

WILLIAM MIICHAEL LOWE (1938–2023) AND 

ILENE SPENCER LOWE (1942–2022)

Excerpts from obituaries by Gordon Lowe, with notes 

by Bill Fitzhugh

Bill joined the military in 1956, becoming a proud 

member of the RCAF. He liked to say that he was an 

engine changer. Bill met the woman who became his 

wife, for 59 years, Ilene while stationed in Portage 

La Prairie. He was a member of the RCAF for 20 

years. Upon his retirement in 1976, he moved back 

to his home town, Port Saunders in northwestern 
 ASC Newsletter 83

Newfoundland. In 1978, he became part of the 

Canadian Air Cadets, obtaining the rank of Captain. 

Bill was a proud member of the Regular Force and the 

Cadet Instructor Cadre for 45 years.

After his return to Port Saunders, he worked as harbor 

master, bus driver, police guard, wharf-builder, and 

many others. His love was teaching, and he spent 15 

years providing instruction for St. John Ambulance 

First Aid Training, Firearm training, and small boat 

safety courses throughout the Northern Peninsula and 

Labrador. Some of Bill’s best times were spent with his 

brothers and friends in the Sleepy Hollow cabin or on 

his boat, Blue Star, lobster fishing.

Ilene was born in Dauphin, Manitoba and in 1963 

married Bill Lowe and were blessed with three 

children, Gordon, George, and Shaunda. As Bill 

was serving in the Canadian Air Force, they made 

their home wherever Bill's career took them. Ilene’s 

professional life was nursing.

William Fitzhugh adds: I began working with Bill 

and Ilene in the mid-1970s when we began keeping 

Tunuyak in Port Saunders, where Tony Morse’s 

Labrador research vessel, Pitsiulak, was being berthed 

at the Marine Center. We soon became fast friends, 

and when Pitsiulak was transferred to the Smithsonian 

by University of Massachusetts, our captain, Perry 

Colbourne, became a periodic resident of the ‘Lowe 

Palace’. For years thereafter we visited with the Lowes, 

who followed our activities in the ASC newsletters, 

and occasionally put us up when breakdowns or 

other calamities fell our way and required specialized 

assistance. Above all, Bill and Ilene, and son George, 

became part of the extended Arctic Studies family, 

providing sustenance, bedding, beer, and untold 

volumes of information, conversation, and stories. 

This past July, waving aside health issues, Bill and 

Ilene invited us to stay with them for a few days while 

doing surveys of the Newfoundland coast, giving us 

memories we shall treasure.

DOROTHY HARLEY EBER: CULTURAL 

HISTORIAN

By Bernadette Driscoll Engelstad

The multitude 

of articles and 

publications by 

Dorothy Harley 

Eber (1925–

2022) reflect 

a compelling 

interest in Inuit 

biography, 

oral history, 

cultural life, and 

contemporary 

social issues. 

Trained as 

a journalist, 

Eber compiled 

a remarkable 

repository of Inuit oral history, carrying out 

extensive interviews with Inuit artists and Elders 

in communities on Baffin Island and the central 

Canadian Arctic. ‘Looking for the artists of Dorset’—

the title of an early article published in the literary 

magazine Canadian Forum—brought Eber to 

Kinngait (Cape Dorset) in 1971. Interviews with 

Pitseolak Ashoona (c. 1904-1983), the spirited 

matriarch of Kinngait, culminated in the lively 

biography, Pitseolak: Pictures Out of My Life (1972), 

followed by an animated documentary produced by 

the National Film Board (1973). Proud of her own 

artistic success, Pitseolak encouraged other family 

members to develop their artistic ability, including 

her daughter, Napachie Pootoogook (1938–2002), 

her son, sculptor Kiugak Ashoona (1933–2014), and 

granddaughters Annie Pootoogook (1969–2016), 

Shuvinai Ashoona, and Goota Ashoona. The 

recent exhibition, Ashoona: Enduring Art Stories at 

the Canadian Guild of Crafts in Montreal (2022), 

celebrated the family’s phenomenal talent presenting 

artwork by twenty-two of Pitseolak’s descendants 

while the richly illustrated digital publication,

Pitseolak Ashoona: Life & Work, by Christine 

Lalonde of the National Gallery of Canada provides 

a fitting tribute to the artist as well as the pioneering 

work of Dorothy Harley Eber.

Initially published in 1975 and re-issued by McGill 

University Press in 1993, People From Our Side: A 

life Story with Photographs and Oral Biography was 

a collaborative undertaking between the Inuit camp 

leader Peter Pitseolak (1902–1973) and Eber, along 

with translator Ann Meekitjuk Hanson. Pitseolak’s 

autobiography, hand-written in syllabic script and 

Dinner with Ilene and Bill Lowe in mid-July, 2022, at their 

home in Port Saunders, with Whitney Hadley-Salay, Bella 

Fermin, Perry Colbourne, and Ben Fitzhugh. Photo by Sarai 

Barreiro-Argüelles

Dorothy Eber. Photo courtesy of Jean 

Harley
84 ASC Newsletter

accompanied by black and white photographs taken 

by Pitseolak during the 1940s and 1950s, comprise a 

history of 20th century Inuit life in the Seekooseelak 

region of south Baffin Island. Recording details of 

camp history, cultural practices, and reflections on the 

transformational changes taking place throughout the 

region, the memoir was written by Pitseolak ‘so youth 

would know the ways of Inuit long ago’. Prompted by 

Robert Flaherty’s visit in the early 1920s, and motion 

picture films shown by Donald Macmillan during 

a stopover by the Bowdoin expedition, Pitseolak’s 

photographs include family portraits as well as 

staged events of seal hunting, ice fishing, setting a 

fox trap, preparing a qomatik, as well as the staged 

dramatization of a missing hunter lost on the ice. The 

quality of the photographs reveals Pitseolak’s passion 

for the medium and remarkable technical ability, even 

developing the negatives in an igloo. Concerned over 

their preservation, Pitseolak presented over 1,600 

negatives to the Notman Archives at the McCord 

Museum in Montreal. The 1980 exhibition, Peter 

Pitseolak: Inuit Historian of Seekoseelak, featured a 

broad selection of photographs, watercolor collages, 

prints, and ivory carvings by this versatile artist with 

extensive texts by Dorothy Eber and David Bellman, 

including photo captions identifying many of the 

individuals portrayed in the images.

As a cultural historian, Dorothy Eber is perhaps best 

known for the publication, When the Whalers Were 

Up North: Memories of Inuit from the Eastern Arctic

(1989), recounting family memories and childhood 

interactions with the Scottish whaling crews on Baffin 

Island and the American whalers on the west coast 

of Hudson Bay during the late 19th and early 20th 

centuries. Eber’s personal rapport, combined with 

the trust of informants and interpreters, provided 

insight into the transformative effect of the whaling 

era on Inuit families and hunting culture. The deeply 

respected Elder, Joe Curley—a young hunter at the 

time of Rasmussen’s visit in the 1920s— recounted 

lively memories of the New Bedford whaling captain, 

George Comer. Translating for her mother and Eber, 

Bernadette Miqqusaaq Dean was surprised to see 

for the first time photographs of her grandfather, 

Tommy Bruce as a child, and her great-grandmother, 

Siusarnaq (aka Shoofly/Nivisannaq) taken by the 

whaling captain, George Comer, A.P. Low, and 

Geraldine Moodie. Together with Elder Rhoda 

Karetak, Bernadette sought out the beaded tuilli 

(woman’s parka) belonging to Siusarnaq, given by 

Captain Comer to the American Museum of Natural 

History in New York in 1906. Amazed at the wealth 

of Inuit cultural heritage preserved in such a distant 

museum, she organized a research tour by Inuit Elders 

and educators to the storerooms of major museums in

New York, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C, Ottawa and 

Toronto which is recorded in the documentary, Inuit 

Piqutingit: What Belongs to Inuit, co-directed by Dean 

and Iglulik filmmaker, Zacharias Kunuk.

Turning her attention to the legal system in the North, 

Eber paired sculptures created by Inuit artists (many 

from Kugluktuk/Coppermine) for the noted jurist, J.H.

Sissons, with detailed accounts of court proceedings 

by the NWT Supreme Court held in Inuit communities 

across the North. Images of Justice (1997) features 

sculptures from the Yellowknife Courthouse collection, 

including the image of Justice Sissons with book in 

hand seated behind an inordinately high, long desk. 

Along with informal commentary from lawyers, 

interpreters, community members, and others involved 

in the various cases, Eber’s detailed discussion of court 

proceedings provide a poignant insight into the effects 

of the judicial system on Inuit life across the North. 

With an ardent interest in Arctic exploration—

perhaps reflecting her British ancestry—Encounters 

on the Passage: Inuit Meet the Explorers (2008) 

is a lively record of Inuit communal memories of 

Arctic exploration of the British expeditions of 

Martin Frobisher, William Parry, John Ross, 

and Sir John Franklin as well as the Norwegian 

expedition of the Gjoa led by Roald Amundsen. 

Known in Kinngait/Cape Dorset as ‘Apirsuqti’, “she 

who asks questions”, Dorothy Harley Eber has made 

an invaluable contribution to Inuit cultural history, 

not only recording the vital memories of Elders, but 

awakening the curiosity, passion, and interest of the 

next generation.
 ASC Newsletter 85

JEAN BLODGETT: SHAPING A CURATORIAL 

VISION OF INUIT ART 

By Bernadette Driscoll Engelstad

Through pioneering exhibitions and publications, Jean 

Blodgett (1945–2020) became Canada’s first full-time 

curator of Inuit Art, building a curatorial framework 

for the recognition of contemporary Inuit art as a vital 

expression of Canadian art history. Arriving at the 

Winnipeg Art Gallery (WAG) in 1975, Jean curated 

the Gallery’s expansive collection of Inuit sculpture, 

prints, drawings and textile art by Inuit artists brought 

together in the 1950s and 1960s by artist/art historian 

George Swinton and Winnipeg-based botanist, Jerry 

F. Twomey. The Swinton collection, featuring over 

1,000 drawings, prints, and sculptures acquired by the 

WAG in 1965 and 1976, complemented the Twomey 

collection of almost 3,000 sculptures by Inuit artists 

from across the Canadian Arctic, purchased by the 

Province of Manitoba and the Government of Canada 

in 1971. Along with subsequent acquisitions and 

donations, this remarkable collection of Inuit art is now 

celebrated in Qaumajuq, the strikingly designed, newly 

opened center of Inuit art at the Winnipeg Art Gallery1

. 

During a richly productive tenure at the WAG (1975–

1979), Jean organized community, thematic, solo, and 

two-person exhibitions bringing the accomplished 

work of Inuit artists to the world’s attention. Through 

an annual series of settlement exhibits, Jean created 

a meaningful framework in order to highlight the 

creative work of individual artists, explore the varied 

use of material resources (e.g., stone, ivory, antler, 

whalebone), and examine Inuit art production within 

a social, historical, and geographical context. Fully 

illustrated, the settlement catalogs (Port Harrison/

Inoucdjouac, 1976–77; Povungnituk, 1977–78; Repulse 

Bay 1978–79; and Cape Dorset 1980) documented 

the Gallery’s collection over time, through the 

dedicated work of photographer, Ernie Mayer. By 

recruiting a network of informed contributors (e.g., 

artists Pauloosie Kasadluak, Madeline Isserkut, and 

Kananginak Pootoogook as well as James Houston, 

George Swinton, Marybelle Mitchell, Terrence 

Ryan, Dorothy Eber, et al.), Jean provided insight into 

the artistic development of Inuit art during these early 

years, particularly, as one commentator noted, ‘given 

the dearth of writing’ at the time. 

In Tuu’luuq/Anguhadluq (1976), Jean worked closely 

with the Sanavik Cooperative in Qamani’tuaq (Baker 

Lake) and Canadian Arctic Producers (the marketing 

arm of Inuit art cooperatives) gathering over 120 

drawings, prints and textile art by Marion Tuu’luuq

and her husband, Luke Anguhadluq. The twentytwo appliqué and embroidered fabric hangings by 

Tuu’luuq helped to ensure the recognition of Inuit 

textile art as a vital and vibrant expression of Inuit 

women’s creative production. Karoo Ashevak (1977) 

paid tribute to the accomplished work of the young 

sculptor who tragically perished in a house fire in his 

home community of Taloyoak in 1974. His masterful 

sculpture, the ‘Coming and Going of the Shaman’ (c. 

1973) set the stage for Jean’s curatorial tour de force, a 

study of shamanism as a subject in Inuit art. Drawing 

on art works from North American museums and 

galleries, as well as private collections and northern 

art cooperatives, The Coming and Going of the 

Shaman: Eskimo Shamanism and Art (1978) featured 

historic and contemporary works by Inuit artists from 

across the Canadian Arctic and Alaska. Reflecting on 

contemporary issues impacting the lives of Inuit across 

the Canadian Arctic, Looking South (1977) and Eskimo 

Narrative (1979) introduced the work of Inuit artists at 

numerous venues across Canada and the United States

After relocating to Toronto in 1979, Jean shared 

her curatorial expertise at cultural and academic 

institutions, including the Art Gallery of Ontario 

(AGO), Agnes Etherington Art Centre (Queen’s 

University), Art Gallery of Hamilton, Carleton 

University (Ottawa), London Regional Art Gallery, the 

Windsor Art Gallery, and the McMichael Canadian Art 

Collection. During the early 1980s, Jean carried out 

artists’ interviews in Kinngait (Cape Dorset) supporting 

several later exhibitions, including Etidlooie Etidlooie 

(1984) and North Baffin Drawings: Collected by Terry 

Ryan on North Baffin Island in 1964 (1986), as well 

as Kenojuak Ashevak (1985), the first commercially 

published monograph of an Inuit graphic artist. Jean’s 

early curatorial work undoubtedly strengthened critical 

interest in Inuit art across Canada.

As Jean’s successor at the WAG (1979–1885), I 

continued the settlement exhibits featuring the 

sculpture of artists from Rankin Inlet/Kangirlliniq 
86 ASC Newsletter

(1981); Belcher 

Islands/Sanikiluaq 

(1981); Eskimo 

Point/Arviat 

(1982); and Baffin 

Island (1983), as 

well as work by 

graphic artists 

from Qamani’tuaq 

(Baker Lake) 

and Ulukhaktuq/

Holman, leaving 

WAG in 1985 to 

join the curatorial 

team preparing 

the 1988 Olympic 

exhibition, The 

Spirit Sings: 

Artistic Traditions 

of Canada’s First Peoples at the Glenbow Museum. 

At this point, Jean returned to WAG and, with Marie 

Bouchard, curated the retrospective exhibition of 

Jessie Oonark’s drawings, prints, and textile art, 

accompanied by a finely researched catalog. In 

addition, at the request of then-Director Terrence 

Heath, Jean carried out a feasibility study for a 

proposed Centre of Inuit Art—a dream now realized in 

the opening of Qaumajuq.

As Chief Curator at the McMichael Canadian Art 

Collection, Jean oversaw the landmark loan of over 

100,000 drawings by artists from the West Baffin 

Eskimo Cooperative in Kinngait/Cape Dorset, the 

source for several of Jean’s later exhibitions, including 

In Cape Dorset We Do It This Way (1991), Strange 

Scenes: Early Cape Dorset Drawings (1993), and 

Three Women, Three Generations: Drawings by 

Pitseolak Ashoona, Napachie Pootoogook and Shuvinai 

Ashoona (1999). Building on this remarkable archival 

collection, the McMichael has developed a superb 

digital program that provides access for registered 

viewers to research hundreds of drawings by Kinngait/

Cape Dorset graphic artists/ 

After leaving the McMichael, Jean expanded her 

research in circumpolar art, taking up a teaching 

appointment at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks 

and curating the innovative exhibition, In the Shadow 

of the Midnight Sun: Sami and Inuit Art, 2000–2005. 

At the request of the Alaska State Council on the Arts, 

Jean prepared the posthumous manuscript culminating 

the life-work of fellow scholar, Susan W. Fair for 

publication in Alaska Native Art: Tradition, Innovation, 

Continuity (University of Alaska Press, 2006). This 

beautifully illustrated catalog documents over 250 

sculptures, paintings, masks, clothing items, dolls, 

baskets and artifacts by Inupiat, Yup’ik, Aleut, Tlingit, 

Haida, Tsimshian, and Athabaskan artists, many on 

view in the striking exhibition at the Ted Stevens 

International Airport in Anchorage.

Throughout a curatorial career stretching over almost 

50 years, Jean’s outstanding record of exhibitions, 

catalogues, and artist monographs—worthy of 

continued review and study—championed the creative 

imagination and intellectual prowess of Inuit artists 

while detailing the development of Inuit art as a critical 

sector of Canadian art history and vital contribution to 

human history. 

1

 – Qaumajuq. For a detailed discussion of the early 

history of Inuit art at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, see 

Wight, Darlene, The Swinton Collection of Inuit Art

(1987); The Jerry Twomey Collection at the Winnipeg 

Art Gallery: Inuit Sculpture from the Canadian Arctic 

(2003); Creation and Transformation: Defining 

Moments in Inuit Art (2012). The National Museum 

of Man (now the Canadian Museum of History) also 

demonstrated an early interest in collecting Inuit art, 

particularly as an ethnohistorical reflection of Inuit life 

across the Canadian Arctic. 

GEORGE NOONGWOOK, 1949-2023: 

WHALING CAPTAIN AND A MUSIC KEEPER

By Henry P. Huntington and Igor Krupnik

George Mangtaquli Noongwook, Yupik Elder from 

Savoonga on St. Lawrence Island, Alaska, passed away 

on March 18, 2023. George was a drummer, singer, 

and historian of St. Lawrence Island music; an ardent 

advocate of Yupik and Iñupiaq whaling rights through 

his role on the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission; a 

dedicated and insightful scholar of his people and their 

environment; and a man devoted to his family and friends.

George was born in Savoonga in 1949 into a large 

supportive family of several uncles, siblings, cousins, 

and other relatives. Like most of his generation, he 

left home to attend the Mt. Edgecumbe high school in 

Sitka, Alaska. From there, he enrolled at the University 

of Alaska Fairbanks, but left because he was unhappy 

with the way that he and other Alaska Natives were 

treated. This being the Vietnam War era, George was 

soon drafted into the U.S. Army. After basic training 

at Fort Lewis, in Washington state, he was posted to 

Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri, with the 5th Engineer 

Battalion. After the Army, he returned to his home 

community and resumed his life as a subsistence 

hunter, whaler, and a community spokesperson.

George’s whaling career started when he was just 12. At 

that time, people from Savoonga traveled each spring 
 ASC Newsletter 87

to Gambell, the other village on St. 

Lawrence Island, to go whaling. By 

the time George came back from the 

Army, his uncle Nathan Noongwook

had led Savoonga’s effort to resume 

whaling at the traditional site of 

Pugughileq. George became a 

lifelong whaler, and eventually 

a whaling captain himself. Not 

surprisingly, the Savoonga Whaling 

Captains Association selected George 

to be the community’s voice and its 

representative to the Alaska Eskimo 

Whaling Commission (AEWC), 

created in response to the 1977 

ban by the International Whaling 

Commission (IWC) of all aboriginal 

bowhead whaling in Alaska and 

Canada. 

George spent decades on the AEWC, 

serving variously as chairman, vice 

chairman, and in other roles. Doing 

so required traveling to annual 

IWC meetings, held all around the 

world, and often at times conflicting 

with the annual hunting cycle on 

St. Lawrence Island. George was a passionate and 

eloquent advocate for Yupik and Iñupiat whaling rights. 

Eventually, the ban on aboriginal whaling in Alaska 

had been replaced with a quota, which meant that the 

Native whalers had to battle for the quota’s renewal 

every few years. In 2019, George and his fellow 

AEWC commissioners plus a team of lawyers and 

scientists traveled to Florianopolis in Brazil, for another 

IWC meeting. Their goal was to create a permanent 

quota for Alaskan whalers. George gave an eloquent 

speech, citing the whalers’ desire to provide for their 

families and communities and to carry on their cultural 

traditions. The IWC approved the permanent quota, and 

a major victory was achieved.

It was shortly after his return from the Army that 

George found his other path. His father once told him 

that his grandfather Jimmie Toolie and uncle Nathan 

Noongwook wanted to see him at his father’s coffee 

shop. George rushed there to make sure everyone was 

okay. He was met by a row of singers and drummers 

and an enthusiastic greeting from Jimmie and Nathan. 

They explained that they had chosen him to learn the 

Yupik songs of Savoonga, including the histories of 

the songs, who composed them, and for whom. At that 

time, George knew little about the musical traditions 

of St. Lawrence Island. In his words, “The songs were 

enthralling, and the dances were beautiful. The songs 

just caught me up, full of laughter and good feeling.” 

Till his last days, George was 

working with a team of researchers 

to transfer his extensive music 

collection to durable media and to 

document the history of Yupik songs 

and music.

With his intellectual abilities and 

interests, George inevitably became 

involved in several research projects 

involving St. Lawrence Island. He 

led local efforts that resulted in the 

book Sikumengllu Eslamengllu 

Esghapalleghput, Watching Ice 

and Weather Our Way (2004), as 

well as the documentation of Yupik 

knowledge about bowhead whales 

around St. Lawrence Island. George 

took part in two major research 

programs, one about the Bering Sea 

and one about the northern Bering 

and Chukchi Seas, as well as many 

other projects, including the music 

study mentioned earlier. George 

approached this work with generosity 

and good humor. He was also an 

eloquent writer, deeply in touch with 

the cultural and spiritual meaning of his actions. He will 

be greatly missed by his family, his community, and 

those of us fortunate to have known him as a friend, a 

research partner, co-author, and mentor.

AN ARCTIC STUDIES ‘THANK YOU’ TO OUR 

RECENT RETIRED COLLEAGUES

As part of the Department of Anthropology, the ASC 

cannot function without the assistance and knowledge 

of our colleagues. Marcia Bakry provided our books, 

reports, lectures, and exhibits with informative and 

stylish illustrations. As head of the Repatriation 

Program, Bill Billeck shepherded relations with Alaska 

Native communities in the return of collections and 

human remains. David Rosenthal served as Collection 

Manager for many years and has been instrumental 

in ensuring the photo documentation, preservation, 

and access to our arctic treasures. Laurie Burgess

has for three decades, in various capacities, ending 

up as co-Chair, kept the Department on a sound 

managerial track. And Douglas Ubelaker, while not 

getting his hands chapped by Arctic weather, served 

as Department Chair, edited vol. 3 of the Handbook of 

American Indians and provided assistance to the ASC 

when advice was needed on matters of human biology 

and related fields. THANK YOU ALL! Best WISHES 

AND HAPPY SAILING! 

George Noongwook singing Yupik 

songs on a visit to Clyde River, Inuit 

community in Nunavut, Canada in May 

2017. Photo by Henry Huntington
88 ASC Newsletter

2022 ASC STAFF PUBLICATIONS

Biddison, Dawn

Batuk’enelyashi: Natural Dyes from Dena’ina Lands, a 

15-video DVD set, booklet, and website

Crowell, Aron L.

What “Really Happened”: A Migration Narrative from 

Southeast Alaska Compared to Archaeological and 

Geological Data. In Memory and Landscape: Indigenous 

Responses to a Changing North, ed. K. Pratt and S. 

Heyes. Athabasca University Press, Edmonton.

Indigenous Peoples, Museums, and Anthropology. 

In Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 

1, Introduction, edited by I. Krupnik, pp. 119-135. 

Smithsonian Scholarly Press, Washington, D.C.

Fitzhugh, William W.

The Puzzling Origin of Mongolian Deer Stones 

(abstract). International Conference II. Arctic 

Archaeology Abstracts. Pp. 72-74. Archaeology Center 

of the Yamal-Nenets Okrug. Salekhard, Russia.

A Note on Shell Island-1 (GcBi-11) and Some Thoughts 

on the Labrador Ramah Chert Trade. Provincial 

Archaeology Office 2021 Archaeology Review 19:74-80. 

Government of Newfoundland and Labrador. St. John’s. 

(William W. Fitzhugh and Stephen Loring).

Editor: Deer Stones of Northern Mongolia, by J. 

Bayarsaikhan. Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center and 

IPI Press, 285pp. Washington DC. 

Northeast Asia Prehistory “In the Twinkling of an 

Eye”. Preface in The Maritime Prehistory of Northeast 

Asia, edited by Jim Cassidy, Irina Ponkratova, and Ben 

Fitzhugh, pp. v-xiv. Springer. 

Emergence of Cultural Diversity: Long-Distance 

Interactions and Cultural Complexity in Native North 

America. In Handbook of North American Indians: 

Summary Volume, edited by Igor Krupnik, pp. 90-105. 

Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution. (Rogers, 

Daniel, and William W. Fitzhugh)

Robson, H. K., Lucquin, A., Admiraal, A., ...Fitzhugh, 

W. W... et al. (2022). Light production by ceramic 

using hunter-gatherer-fishers of the circum-Baltic. 

Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, 88, 25-52. 

Krupnik, Igor

Handbook of North American Indians, Vol. 1 

(Introduction). Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press, 

xvi+931 p.

Resilience through Knowledge Co-production: 

Indigenous Knowledge, Science and Global 

Environmental Change. Marie Roué, Douglas 

Nakashima, and Igor Krupnik, eds., 294 p. Cambridge 

and Paris: Cambridge University Press and UNESCO. 

Antecedents of the Smithsonian Handbook Project: 

1800s–1965. In Handbook of North American Indians. 

Vol. 1. Igor Krupnik, ed., pp.10–30. Washington, D.C.: 

Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press.

Introduction: A Gateway to the Handbook Series. In 

Handbook of North American Indians. Vol. 1. Igor 

Krupnik, ed., pp.1–9. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian 

Institution Scholarly Press. 

Native American Communities and Climate Change. 

Margaret Hiza Redsteer, Igor Krupnik, and Julie K. 

Maldonado. In Handbook of North American Indians. 

Vol. 1. Igor Krupnik, ed., pp.247–264. Washington, 

D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press. 

The Beginnings, 1965–1971. Adrianna Link and Igor 

Krupnik. In Handbook of North American Indians. Vol. 

1. Igor Krupnik, ed., pp.500-515. Washington, D.C.: 

Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press.

Negotiating Co-Production: Climbing the Learning 

Curve (Epilogue). In Resilience through Knowledge 

Co-production: Indigenous Knowledge, Science and 

Global Environmental Change. Marie Roué, Douglas 

Nakashima, and Igor Krupnik, eds., pp. 277-285. 

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Indigenous Ice Dictionaries: Sharing Knowledge for 

a Changing World. In Resilience through Knowledge 

Co-production: Indigenous Knowledge, Science and 

Global Environmental Change. Marie Roué, Douglas 

Nakashima, and Igor Krupnik, eds., pp.93–116. 

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 

Learning about Sea Ice from the Kiñikmiut: A Decade 

of Ice Seasons at Wales, 2006–2016. Hajo Eicken, 

Igor Krupnik, Winton Weyapuk, Jr., and Matthew 

Druckenmiller. In Resilience through Knowledge 

Co-production: Indigenous Knowledge, Science 

and Global Environmental Change. Marie Roué, 

Douglas Nakashima, and Igor Krupnik, eds., pp.43-66. 

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 

Ainana: from “Ethnographers’ Friend” to Partner to 

National Symbol. Igor Krupnik and Dmitrii Oparin. 

Etnografia 3(17):220–246. St. Petersburg (in Russian)

Über Wissenschaft, Krieg und Freundschaf (On Science, 

War, and Friendship). In Franz Boas: Die Haltung eines 
 ASC Newsletter 89

Contact Information

Arctic Studies Center

Department of Anthropology

Natural History Building, MRC 112

Smithsonian Institution

P.O. Box 37012

10th and Constitution Ave. N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20013-7012

(202) 633-1887 (phone) (202) 357-2684 (fax)

ASC Anchorage Office

Anchorage Museum

625 C Street Anchorage, AK 99501

(907) 929-9207

Arctic Studies Center homepage 

https://naturalhistory.si.edu/research/anthropology/

programs/arctic-studies-center

For ASC publications visit: https://repository.si.edu/

handle/10088/36085/browse

Magnetic North–ASC Blog: http://nmnh.typepad.com/

arctic_studies/

ASC Twitter Account: @arcticstudies

ASC Facebook Account: https://www.facebook.com/pages/

Arctic-Studies-Center/133066950060693

ASC Anchorage Sharing Knowledge website: http://alaska.

si.edu

Wissenschaftlers in Zeiten politischer Umbrüchethe 

(Franz Boas: Attitude of a Scientist in Times of Political 

Upheaval). Erich Kasten, ed., pp.183–197. Fürstenberg/

Havel: Kulturstiftung Sibirien. 

Loring, Stephen

Indigenous North Americans and Archaeology, by 

George Nicholas, Dorothy Lippert, and Stephen 

Loring. In Handbook of North American Indians. Vol. 

1, edited by Igor Krupnik. Pp.57-74. Washington DC: 

Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press.

Frank Ferdinand Schambach (1937–2021): 

Celebrating his Life and Archaeological 

Contributions. By Stephen Loring et al). The Arkansas 

Archaeologist 59:1-27.

Nweeia, Martin

Damas, J., Corbo, M., Kim, J., Turner-Maier, J., 

Farré, M., Larkin, D.M., Ryder, O.A., Steiner, C., 

Houck, M.L., Hall, S. and Shiue, L. Evolution of the 

ancestral mammalian karyotype and syntenic regions. 

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 

119(40): e2209139119.

Wolff, Christopher B.

The Longhouses of the Maritime Archaic: Increasing 

Complexity or Regional Resistance. In More Than 

Shelter from the Storm: Hunter-Gatherer Houses and 

the Built Environment, p. 218-242. Edited by Danielle 

Macdonald and Brian Andrews. University of Florida 

Press, Gainesville, FL.

The Struggle was Real: on the End of the Archaic in the 

Eastern Subarctic of North America, p. 23-48. In The 

Far Northeast: 3000BP to Contact, edited by Kenneth 

Holyoke and Gabriel Hrynick. Mercury Series, 

Canadian Museum of History. University of Ottawa 

Press, Ottawa. (Donald H. Holly Jr., Christopher B. 

Wolff, and Stephen H. Hull)

Dugout canoes from lakes of the Adirondack uplands. 

Adirondack Journal of Environmental Studies, Vol. 

25, No. 1, Article 3 (Curt J. Stager, David Fadden, and 

Christopher B. Wolff)

Handbook of North American 

Indians, Volume 1: Introduction

Edited by Igor Krupnik

Publisher: Smithsonian Institution

Scholarly Press

Open access digital edition

available now:

https://doi.org/10.5479/si.21262173

(ISBN: 978-1-944466-54-1)

Winter 2022/23: Print copies available

for purchase at the GPO Bookstore

https://bookstore.gpo.gov

Handbook of North American Indians, 

Volume 1: Introduction

New from the Smithsonian Institution, Handbook of North 

American Indians, Volume 1 is the ultimate reference book 

on Native American communities and their past, present, 

and future. Volume 1 is the definitive introduction to 

Native American history and culture, and the muchanticipated opening volume to the Smithsonian’s 

20-volume Handbook of North American Indians series—

the largest collection of knowledge on Indigenous peoples 

of the US, Canada, and Northern Mexico. 

While the most recent volume, Indians in Contemporary 

Society, was published in 2008, the series spans decades, 

with most earlier volumes released in the 1970s–1990s. 

Volume 1 offers much-needed updates on the status of 

Native American societies, advances in American Indian 

studies, and contemporary perspectives on issues facing 

North American Indigenous peoples today. 

The only volume in the series to be available in both print 

and digital formats, Volume 1 is the collaborative effort of 

75 contributors from the US, Canada, Mexico, UK, and 

Germany, including 19 Indigenous authors from across 

North America. The comprehensive volume contains 35

chapters, 3 appendices, an extensive bibliography with 

more than 7,400 entries, and more than 350 illustrations. 

Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 1 brilliantly 

details the rich and diverse lives, cultures, and experiences 

of Native Americans.

About the Editor: IGOR KRUPNIK is curator of Arctic 

and Northern Ethnology at the Smithsonian’s National 

Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC. His areas 

of expertise include the modern cultures, ecological 

knowledge and cultural heritage of Arctic people, and the 

impact of modern climate change on Arctic residents.
Penalty for Private Use $300

Official BusinessWashington, DC 20013-701210th and Constitution, NWP.O. Box 37012Smithsonian InstitutionNatural History Building, MRC 112Department of AnthropologyArctic Studies Center Presorted Standard

Postage & Fees Paid

Smithsonian Institution

G-94

This newsletter was edited by William Fitzhugh, 

Igor Krupnik, Stephen Loring, Aron Crowell, Dawn 

Biddison and Nancy Shorey. 

Designed and produced by

Nancy Shorey, Fiona Steiwer, and Igor Chechushkov