Research - Mythical Landscape

Archeology in a Mythical Landscape: Glacier Bay National Park
- by Aron Crowell

The icy, mountainous terrain of Glacier Bay National Park evokes conjoined natural and cultural histories. Tlingit Indian traditions tell of migrations into the region long ago from the south and east of violent conflicts between clans, and of relocations necessitated by dramatic physical changes in the coastal environment. In these tales, recorded by Franz Boas, John Swanton, Frederica DeLaguna and other anthropologists, villages are crushed beneath glaciers that surge through their valleys in response to careless human invitations or broken taboos. In others, a great high tide drives the ancestors to mountaintop retreats, where they build stone "nests" to protect themselves against bears. Raven, escaping from the flood with a box containing the sun, recreates the land, trees, and heavens.

Current interdisciplinary studies around Glacier Bay, directed by Arctic Studies Center archaeologist Aron Crowell and funded by the National Park Service, support an intriguing hypothesis-- that these legends may have their basis in real geological events associated with the Little Ice Age, a period of cooler temperatures that began some 800 years ago, reached its maximum about 250 years ago, and ended around 1900 A.D.

photo: National Park Service

Geological studies conducted in the summer of 1995 by Dan Mann (University of Alaska, Fairbanks) and Greg Streveler (Glacier Bay National Park) indicate that coastal glaciers increased dramatically in size during the Little Ice Age. At the same time, the coastline sank some five to seven meters in response to the increased burden of ice. Consequences would have been severe for the Tlingit, whose economy and settlements have always been oriented toward the sea. Shoreline villages were flooded or abandoned to the advancing glaciers, while salmon runs and productive shellfish beds were destroyed. During the last two centuries, a warming trend has brought glacial retreats, gradual rebound of the land, and the reforestation of uplifted shorelines and glacially-denuded valleys.

We now suspect that when La Perouse, Vancouver, and other foreign explorers first entered the territory of the northern Tlingit in the late 18th century, they encountered a Native population that was still in the process of adjusting to the Little Ice Age transformation of its environment. The Tlingit were expanding northward into Yakutat Bay and other territories formerly occupied by the Eyak (Athapaskan) Indians and Chugach (Eskimos), and gaining control of new resources through intensified coastal and interior trade. Interclan warfare, at least partially related to resource competition, was endemic. It is perhaps no coincidence that the fortification of villages and construction of defensible retreats on the tops of steep rock outcrops began some 800-900 years ago as the climate chilled and food resources are likely to have been in decline.

During the summer of 1995, archeologists Wayne Howell, Angela Demma, Susan Bender and Jeanne Schaaf joined Crowell and a team of volunteers and students in a six-week search for cultural remains along the thickly forested shorelines of Glacier Bay National Park. The team included Tlingit students Mike Mills and Bill Abbott, both attending the University of Alaska. The study expanded on an earlier archeological survey conducted in the park in 1963-65 by Robert Ackerman (Washington State University). A number of intriguing new discoveries were made, despite the challenges posed by thick undergrowth, highly changeable weather, and thriving populations of both insects and bears.

Perhaps most significantly, the formerly unknown location of a refuge settlement known as Hooknoowoo ("Dry Fort") in Hoonah Tlingit traditions was identified on top of a high granite outcrop. Field investigations provided data that will help clarify the history of settlement and warfare in the region. While radiocarbon dates are not yet available, stone and bone artifacts from test excavations indicate that the fort was used for hundreds of years prior to European contact. In later years-- in fact, up until the 1920's-- Hoonah Tlingit families occupied dwellings around the base of the rock, but its former purpose was largely forgotten.

Other types of sites discovered this summer included summer villages and camps used during hunting and trading trips, one with the remains of a wooden plank canoe. The unusual scarcity of shellfish in site middens hints at disturbance of this food resource by shifts in sea level, and analysis of food bone samples may yield a more detailed picture of adaptation to unstable Little Ice Age conditions.

Spruce and hemlock trees with old marks from bark and pitch gathering ("culturally-modified trees") were found everywhere in the coastal forest, some probably five or six hundred years in age. Hikes up several coastal mountains discovered the "stone nests" of Tlingit legend, which turned out to be manmade piles of lichen-covered rocks-- old but of unknown age-- that encircled the bare peaks 2500-3000 feet above sea level. The true meaning and function of these cairns remains unknown, although their use as caches, graves, or navigation markers (like the Inuit inukshuks of Canada) is unlikely.

An important preliminary conclusion of the Glacier Bay research is that few shoreline settlement sites predating the Little Ice Age maximum of 250 years ago will probably ever be found in the park. The height of the sea reached at that time (and during previous Holocene advances) would have caused most sites to be washed away. Repeated glacial advances have also been a major factor in the erasure of the archeological record.

There is still the potential, however, for finding sites of 9000-10,000 years in age, which would have remained above the maritime transgressions. Other older sites, like Dry Fort, where people lived well above the contemporary tideline may also be found in the future.

As the results of the 1995 survey indicate, the archeological resources of Glacier Bay National Park are significant despite gaps in preservation. An understanding of its fascinating cultural landscape is emerging through a combination of on-the-ground investigations, historical research, and systematic recording of Tlingit land use and place name information. Our project and these related efforts involve the cooperation of many people and organizations. We wish in particular to thank Mary Beth Moss (Resource Manager, Glacier Bay National Park), Park Superintendent Jim Brady, and Ken Grant of the Hoonah Indian Association for their support and assistance.

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