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Nuvuk Up early to join Anne Jensen , anthropologist for UIC (Ukpeagvik Inupiat Corporation) science division and eight Barrow High School students to begin work at Nuvuk, an ancient village and hunting camp at Pt. Barrow. Nuvuk is estimated to be 800-1200 years old. It was in use as a hunting camp until the 1950's or so. Anne's project is funded by an ECHO (Education through Cultural and Historical Organizations) grant. This grant also supports the People of Whaling exhibit at the Inupiat Heritage Center . Additionally, the grant pays the students a salary and they will work on the Nuvuk site throughout the summer. As we were getting ready to leave, Perry and a few other men were talking of grizzly bears moving north as far north as Atqasuk (60 miles south of Barrow). Perry and the men agreed that the bears seem confused out of their territory/habitat they don't know how to behave or what they are supposed to do. Camps have been attacked, and two campers were killed in (?). I heard only the tail-end of the conversation; it is considered rude to interrupt and ask questions, but it is OK to listen. Animals or plants in a strange place, or out of place, is something that gets immediate attention around here. They are not particularly afraid of grizzlies, just surprised by the change in the animals' behavior and location. We were packed up and ready to go by 8 a.m. Buna Along the way we saw thousands of seals scattered across the ice. All three species native to this area were represented ringed, spotted, and bearded. It looked as if someone had sprinkled coarse-ground pepper over a platter of snow. My untrained eyes had a difficult time seeming them or telling them apart from the dirty ice. Perry (a native of Barrow), our bear guard, could spot miniscule things on the horizon. He told me that the secret to good eyesight is to eat whitefish and salmon eyeballs. This diet seems to have worked for him because he can spot individual seals one-half mile away. Once he explained to me how to recognize seals I was able to pick them out. I was too far away for pictures (no telephoto lens), but with binoculars I could see them very well. Sleeping, fat, yawning, scratching, sunning, getting into scratch-slap fights over spots on the ice they remind me of big dogs. I asked why there weren't any people out hunting seals right now, and Perry said that right now people are more interested in getting to their hunting camps. He said that a lot of people may be out hunting tonight and over the next several days. I am glad that Perry was with us today with the ice being in so close and loaded with seals there are polar bears in the area. Fifteen have been spotted off the point, and a 6-foot youngster was seen behind an ice ridge that was about 1/2 mile from where we will be working. As we drove along Buna talked about the weather how the storms are getting worse and more frequent. The ocean keeps washing out the point and the roads bad for the tourist business, he says. Nuvuk was very cold. The wind was coming from the east and blowing across the ice. The students were in good spirits and eager to get to work. Anne explained that today would be spent digging test pits along the bluff edge. The students marked off a 50-m transect and set marker-flags every 1 meter. Test pits will be dug at 1m intervals, and to a depth of 30cm 50cm. The purpose of this is to look for bones, artifacts, organic matter, large pieces of wood or anything that may indicate a gravesite or housesite. As we were digging away, Perry and some of the students kept noticing a pair of snow buntings flying in and out from under a large piece of metal. They would jabber and squawk very agitated whenever anyone approached the metal. They had built a nest in a space about 1.5 2 inches high just enough shelter to keep the wind off under the metal. At first I thought that there was just a little pile of grass under one corner, but upon closer inspection I saw four chicks. We avoided the metal/nest and the parents settled down and began feeding the chicks again. Twenty minutes without food and the chicks would die, so we stayed away as much as possible. How these small, fragile animals survive in this climate is just amazing to me. Anne walked along the beachside of the bluff and spotted 2 gravesites and possibly 3 more. The bluff is so much more eroded this year that there is hardly any beach left at all. Not enough room for two people to walk side by side. The ice is up to the shore and has slammed into one spot where there is a grave. We could see bones spilled out onto the ice, but it was too dangerous to try to recover them. One of the students stepped on the edge of the bluff, just enough to loosen the gravel, and a skull tumbled down the slope. We were able to retrieve it before it got to the ice, and we managed to salvage the upper and lower jaws, most of the teeth, some leg bones (1 femur, 1 tibia, partial fibula, bits of tarsus and metatarsals). Too bad that we couldn't examine/mark the remains in place, but they literally fell out of the bluff before we could do anything. The grave will be excavated over the summer. It was interesting to watch the kids' reactions. They didn't think that they would actually find anything, and a couple of the girls did not want to have anything to do with the skull or bones. A physical anthropologist is arriving on Sunday to analyze human remains that have been found at Nuvuk. The Smithsonian has in its collection some Inupiat human remains, but they claim that their Inupiat remains and artifacts are Greenlandic in origin (even though they are the same age and type of those found at Nuvuk and at other locations on the coastal North Slope) and therefore the museum does not have to return these items to the Eskimos. DNA analysis for the Smithsonian and Nuvuk material has been requested and should settle the argument. It will be interesting to what the Smithsonian Museum will do. We returned to BASC by 5 p.m. The students excavated about 20 test pits, so they will finish the rest tomorrow and start another row tomorrow. Throughout the summer, they will be sifting through gravel, picking bits and pieces out of sand and rubble, and marking GPS locations of significant sites. I know that they will learn a great deal and that they will appreciate the opportunity to learn about their heritage and to contribute to research. I hope that I can join them again before I leave. I was ready for a shower and a rest. Tonight I will work on marking DGPS points for the cross-lake transect. Photos Gravesite falling down bluff ice against shore.
Marking 50m transect for test pits piece of metal where bird nest is hidden.
Anne Jensen demonstrating how to dig a test pit.
Students working on their test pit. Additional Journal Entries
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