Archaeology
Scott Shirar, the museum’s research archaeologist, said the return of this collection to Alaska has tremendous potential. “The level of preservation at the Birnirk site was tremendous,” he said. “Many of the organic artifacts usually not preserved in the archaeological record were preserved at this site.” Organic artifacts, such as wooden boat pieces or other tools made from fur, leather, ivory, or bone, tend to disappear over the course of a couple thousand years. The standard clues used to piece together the past usually come from more durable stone artifact types. Shirar said the wide range of artifacts and material types in this collection will support a variety of interests. Anichenko’s work on skin boats is just the beginning. one side rib and two of the umiak’s bottom crosspieces. The shortest crosspiece likely represents the cross-bottom timber nearest to the stern or stem post. The artifact is embellished with three oval ivory inlays held in place with small ivory pins.
“Now that this collection is back in Alaska and at the UA Museum of the North, researchers have the opportunity to access many untold stories just waiting to be discovered.”
“These lack an immediate functional meaning, which implies they were used as decoration or had ritual significance,” Anichenko said. The Birnirk materials excavated by Carter are owned by the US Navy and were housed for decades at the Harvard Peabody Museum. In 2011, the Carter collections returned to Alaska and are presently curated at the University of Alaska Museum of the North.
ABOVE, LEFT TO RIGHT: Researcher Jenya Anichenko poses with the umiak pieces discovered in the Birnirk collection at the University of Alaska Museum of the North and dated at 1,000 years old, the oldest skin boat assembly known in the Circumpolar North. One of the umiak pieces is embellished with three oval ivory inlays held in place with small ivory pins. Jenya Anichenko says they were probably decorative or significant. Photos by Theresa Bakker.
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