"Untangling the timbers": New Perspectives on Birnirk Architecture in Northwestern Alaska

Summary

Birnirk culture is well-known for driftwood structures that were repeatedly re-assembled to form low mounds. The structures were "hopeless tangle[s] of logs" to pioneering 1930s archaeologists whose reports lack details on construction techniques. Birnirk houses diverge from the preceding Old Bering Sea and later Thule single room houses with lengthy entrance tunnels. Our 2016 fieldwork "followed the wood," employing enhanced photography within two exceptionally preserved houses at Cape Espenberg, to infer Birnirk architectural strategies and used diagnostic assemblages to refine cultural filiations by comparison to Siberian Birnirk, and the transition to Thule through a high-resolution, tree-ring and 14 C, chronology.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• Arctic and Subarctic Coasts: Current Research and Modern Challenges

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 15751