The archaeology of the Yakutat Foreland : a socioecological view

Abstract

The Yakutat Foreland is a 120-km-long by 40-km-wide coastal plain, presently the ethnographic home of the YakutatTlingit. Prehistorically, the area was occupied variously by coastal groups from the west (Pacific Gulf Yupik speakers and Eyak) and by a migration of Antha Athapaskans from the Copper River Basin. This research takes a socioecological approach to human adaptation within the foreland environments. My objectives were: to reconstruct the depositional environmentof the foreland by examining developmental formation processes; to discuss the historic subsistence and settlement patterns and to project a model of prehistoric subsistence and settlement; to show the relationships between geomorphology, the biophysical environment, and human socioeconomic systems and communities; to establish antiquity of human settlement on the foreland by excavating the two village sites Shallow Water Town and Diyaguna'Et; to discuss site-specific interpretations as reflected in site formation and modification processes, the material culture,subsistence activities, intersite and intrasite patterning,and in human ecosystem interactions and spatial, economic,and social adaptations with the geomorphological and biophysical environment. The two village sites were selected for excavation based on their potential to answer questions concerning human occupation antiquity on the foreland, their ethnohistoric associations with living populations, because of anticipated physical impacts to the sites, and because aspects of the socioecological model could be applied to site-specific interpretations. Between 1949-1952 Frederica de Laguna conducted research on the Yakutat Tlingit at old Town on Knight Island and at both Shallow Water Town and Diyaguna'Et. A combined Cooperative Park Studies Unit, University of Alaska/Fairbanks, and Bureau of Indian Affairs-ANCSA (Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act) team visited Diyaguna'Et in 1981; no other archaeological research has been conducted on the foreland. This study documents human occupation of the Yakutat Foreland for at least the last 1100 years, showing the transition (material culture, intrasite settlement, and house types) that took place within both village sites from the prehistoric into the historic period. Previous work is supplemented with new information about foreland formation, subsistence areas and settlement patterns, chronological data, intrasite patterning, material culture, mortuary practices, and who the inhabitants were through time.