#Archaeology31–Day 12–Friendship

I’ve been doing archaeology for quite a while, and have made lots of friends. Here are just a few pictures. I notice we seem to be doing a lot of eating…

#Archaeology31–Day 18–Caturday

#Archaeology31–Day 11–Shelfie

I have books all over. My husband also has a PhD in Arctic archaeology (although he now manages the Community Health Aid program for the North Slope Borough) so we have a fair number of duplicates, both in Arctic stuff and the sort of things you wind up with in grad school. Some of our duplicates, plus a bunch more books are on shelves in my office.

Office bookshelves. The boxes are due to the loss of drawers when I got my new standing desk. It really helps with my arms & hands post-surgery, but I haven’t figured out alternative drawers yet…

#Archaeology31–Day 10–It’s Ritual?

The term “ritual object” has become an archaeological cliche for items of unknown use. That’s not to say that people in the past did not have rituals, some of which involved objects. In some cases, objects had no clear practical purpose where they were found, yet had deliberately been placed there.

I would say that the rocks we found in burials at Nuvuk fit into this group. They were much larger than the average rock on that gravel spit, so they had to have been gathered deliberately. They were clearly placed in the grave. Why? We can only speculate. They could have been placed by mourners, somewhat like people may drop flowers in a grave today. Or they could have been given in trade for intact items buried with the person.

#Archaeology31–Day 8–Mineral

Clay! The ceramics on the North Slope, especially the more recent ones, are not high quality, but that seems to be because they were not fully fired, perhaps to conserve fuel.

Raw clay eroding in beach near Utqiaġvik

#Archaeology31–Day 7–Vegetable

Salmonberries! It’s always a good day when you find patches of ripe berries.

Tikiġaq aqpiuqqaqtuq. Point Hope has a lot of salmonberries.

Patch of ripe berries in a road ROW we were surveying near Wainwright.

#Archaeology31–Day 6–Animal

Polar bears, of course. They hang out around Nuvuk a lot, which is why we always had bear guards. Some days we could see eight at once out on the ice.