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Sitka National Historical Park, Year 3 of 4 Parkwide Inventory

The third year of the Sitka NHP parkwide site survey was conducted from May 24 to June 29. The archeological team included archeologist and project director Bill Hunt; NPS archeological technicians Arlo McKee, Erin Dempsey, and Callie Unverzagt; Sitka NHP laborers Mike Howard, Fawn Abt, and Sean Griffin; and volunteers John Banks (Red Cloud, MN), Laura Crawford (Lincoln, NE), Katie Griffen (Sitka, AK), Kay Sargent (Bellevue, WA), and Jennifer Williams (Norwalk, OH),.

This year, the primary goal for the field team was to complete shovel testing of the park. Shovel testing is a relatively quick method of assessing the subsurface archeological components of an area. Shovel tests are small hand-excavated holes which allow the investigator to quickly examine subsoils for cultural deposits. Due to the dense vegetation at Sitka National Historical Park, shovel testing is the main way of locating archeological sites throughout the park. The team dug 245 shovel tests this year in the southeast quarter of the park. Results of the shovel testing will be analyzed in coming months. Two historic features were recorded, a log walk and an associated depression which may be a privy pit. One possible prehistoric feature, a 3 m x 2 m x 1 m deep depression, was also located.

Once shovel testing was completed, the crew's attention turned to test excavations. Based on the data collected from previous field seasons, twelve locations were identified for testing. Many of these locations have extensive and often thick charcoal beds which had returned prehistoric radiocarbon dates. Although few artifacts were recovered from these tests, an anvil stone was recovered from a shallow, bowl-shaped feature in the northwest corner of the Fort Clearing. Also, a square firehearth was identified in the woods west of the Fort Clearing. This hearth is about 1.4 m north-south and the same east-west. Based on a radiocarbon date from a 2006 shovel test that intruded into this feature, the hearth dates between AD 1450 and 1650. The form and size of the feature suggests it may be an element of a Tlingit house, perhaps a summer smoke house or, much less likely, a larger winter season house. Similar square hearths have been noted by other researchers for late pre-contact and historic Tlingit sites on the Northwest Coast. No artifacts were recovered during the excavation of the hearth. Typically, at this point in time, Tlingit tool assemblages commonly included bone and wood tools, basketry and twine, and ground slate. Flaked tools were relatively uncommon in comparison.

An archeological team from the Midwest Archeological Center will return to Sitka in 2008 to further explore the area immediately surrounding the hearth. The team will also conduct further test excavations at the Fort Clearing in an attempt to locate features associated with the 1804 Kiks.adi fort or early 19th century Russian occupations.