Caroline Funk

Rat Islands Archaeological Research 2003 and 2009: Working toward an Understanding of Regional Cultural, and Environmental Histories

Aleuts occupied the islands of the Rat Island group for at least 6,000 years. Previous archaeological studies unevenly targeted Amchitka Island and highly visible coastal sites on Kiska and Rat Islands, skewing perceptions about the use of landscapes, seascapes, and resources by the Aleut of the Rat Islands. Test excavations on Rat Island in 2003 and survey and testing during the 2009 Rats and Birds Project demonstrate the complexity and ubiquity of Aleut landscape use. New data from archaeological survey provide evidence that Rat Islands Aleuts left behind a wide variety of cultural features, including groups of depressions, isolated depressions, isolated lithics, lithic scatters, middens, subsurface cultural strata without surface manifestations, and others. Bird faunal remains from sites on the islands demonstrate that Aleuts on Rat, Amchitka, and Kiska Islands may have targeted different species. Patterns in lithic raw materials in sites also show inter-island variability. The expanded data sets contribute to a better understanding of Aleut history, Rat Islands environmental history, and the relationship between Aleuts and their land- and seascapes.

Anthropology in the Aleutians: Introductory Comments

Anthropological research in the Aleutians tends to be patchy in time and space. An apparent wealth of information becomes, on closer inspection, snippets of datasets separated by gaps. Decades may separate the various ethnohistorical, ethnographic, linguistic, cultural, or physical anthropology studies, and archaeological projects. Hundreds of kilometers stretch between project areas on the islands. Sample sizes are small or localized. No clearly defi ned cultural continuum guides our history building or frames our understanding about archipelagowide Aleut relationships with land- and seascapes, each other, people from other cultures, and nonhumans. All of us who perform research in the region recognize these limitations, and rectifying them is the transcendent goal of the many research endeavors operating in the Aleutians. A near-continuous series of projects focusing on understanding past Aleut lives in the Near Islands, the Rat Islands, the Andreanofs, and the Amaknak Bridge site on Unalaska among other locations began over twenty years ago. Archaeological research forms the core of the projects, but like all anthropological work in the Arctic, ethnographic, ethnohistoric, and cooperative interdisciplinary research are critical elements. The mass of knowledge produced by these many projects results in a larger, comparable, and broader information base (cf., Corbett, West, and Lefevre [ed.] 2010; Dumond [ed.] 2001; Funk this volume; Hanson 2010; Rogers this volume; West et al. [ed.]