Connecting Language, Places, Stories, and Archaeology for Landscape-level Heritage Preservation: A Collaborative Archaeology Case Study of Eyak Lake, Alaska

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Collaborative and Community-Based Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This paper explores a methodological process for documenting the intricate relationships between language, place names, stories, and cultural places for effective landscape heritage preservation. This multi-disciplinary program, led by the Eyak community, is focused on the analysis of place-based data and cultural knowledge systems, as the basis for protecting and mitigating the threats and impacts upon Eyak heritage and land; embedded within a broader program of language revitalization and community resilience. As a community initiative, it is the language learning process itself that directs the community-based research into the way place names and stories are organized and structured; it is the method of revealing aspects of underlying knowledge systems and cultural principles embedded in landscape. When integrated with archaeological methods and regional studies, the process also provides insights into patterns of traditional settlement and traditional management practices, and how they relate to these cultural systems and layers. This methodological process outlined here is applied in an assessment of Eyak Lake as a collaborative, strategic response to a range of direct and indirect threats to heritage places - including traditional burial grounds and salmon habitats - within this cultural landscape.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Collaborative and Community-Based Archaeology   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 23926