Belongings as Archives: An Abundant Approach to Sugpiaq Archaeology

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The historian Tiya Miles argues for an abundant approach to history, in which researchers learn to excavate absences in the historical record instead of allowing those silences to stand. Belongings (a.k.a. artifacts or objects) are additional archives that contain the stories, energies, and contexts in which they were made and used. As part of my work with the Old Harbor Archaeological History Project (OHAHP), I use object-centered vignettes as an abundant approach to the recovery of Sugpiaq stories from the Russian colonial period in Alaska, which lacks documentation from a Sugpiaq perspective. OHAHP is a community-based participatory research program exploring the strategies of persistence and survivance among Sugpiaq communities in the southeastern Kodiak Archipelago during the period of Russian colonialism. Here I present close examinations of ulus, beads, and a ceramic vessel alongside standard analyses of artifact assemblages from the Ing’yuq site to interpret the lifeways of Sugpiaq ancestors during this tumultuous period of their history. While Sugpiaq ancestors faced immeasurable loss due to Russian colonization, these combined analyses of belongings show how they also leaned on each other for support, created well-crafted tools and adornments, made families, and maintained their relationships to land and sea.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38924.0