Wales Site

Last updated

Wales Site
Alaska Heritage Resources Survey
Wales Site.jpg
View of the Wales Site, with the city of Wales in the background
LocationAddress restricted [1]
Nearest city Wales, Alaska
NRHP reference No. 66000161
AHRS No.TEL-010
Significant dates
Added to NRHPOctober 15, 1966 [2]
Designated NHLDDecember 29, 1962 [3]

The Wales Site, whose principal component is the Kurigitavik mound, is a well-documented archeological site on the Cape Prince of Wales, near Wales, Alaska. This site has artifacts from the Birnirk culture [4] as well as the first discovery in Alaska of the later Thule culture. [3] The site was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1962 for its archaeological significance.

Contents

Description

The Wales site is located on the south shore of the Seward Peninsula of northwestern Alaska, very near Cape Prince of Wales, the westernmost point in North America. The area is archaeologically sensitive, with a significant number of sites clustered in an area between the native village of Wales and the former Tin City Air Force Station. The Kurigitavik Mound (whose most recent survey designation is TEL-079) has been the focus of significant archaeological activity since the 1920s, when it was first examined by the pioneering Canadian anthropologist Diamond Jenness. It was again excavated by Henry B. Collins of the Smithsonian Institution in the 1930s, and by Don Dumond in the 1970s. Most recently it has been the subject of an extensive investigation by Roger B. Harritt, beginning in the late 1990s and extending into the 2000s. [5] [6]

Finds at the site have included nearly complete partially subterranean house structures, including one in which seemingly ritualistically placed walrus skulls were found. Tools found at the site include barbed harpoon heads and bowls fashioned from baleen in a layer dated to the Punuk period (c. 800-1400 CE). The site is significant because it appears to include shifting cultural uses over time, between cultural groups engaged in different practices and originating either from other parts of Alaska or from Siberia. [5]

The site was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1962 for its archaeological significance, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1966. [2] [3]

See also

Related Research Articles

The Thule or proto-Inuit were the ancestors of all modern Inuit. They developed in coastal Alaska by 1000 AD and expanded eastward across northern Canada, reaching Greenland by the 13th century. In the process, they replaced people of the earlier Dorset culture who had previously inhabited the region. The appellation "Thule" originates from the location of Thule in northwest Greenland, facing Canada, where the archaeological remains of the people were first found at Comer's Midden.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cape Krusenstern National Monument</span> U.S. National Monument and National Historic Landmark

Cape Krusenstern National Monument and the colocated Cape Krusenstern Archeological District is a U.S. National Monument and a National Historic Landmark centered on Cape Krusenstern in northwestern Alaska. The national monument was one of fifteen new National Park Service units designated by the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) of 1980. It was initially declared a national monument under the authority of the Antiquities Act by President Jimmy Carter on December 1, 1978.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Plum Bayou Mounds Archeological State Park</span> Archaeological site from the Late Woodland period in Arkansas

Plum Bayou Mounds Archeological State Park, formerly known as "Toltec Mounds Archeological State Park", also known as Knapp Mounds, Toltec Mounds or Toltec Mounds site, is an archaeological site from the Late Woodland period in Arkansas that protects an 18-mound complex with the tallest surviving prehistoric mounds in Arkansas. The site is on the banks of Mound Lake, an oxbow lake of the Arkansas River. It was occupied by its original inhabitants from the 7th to the 11th century. The site is designated as a National Historic Landmark.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amalik Bay Archeological District</span> Archaeological site in Alaska, United States

The Amalik Bay Archeological District is a geographic area with a significant number of archaeological sites in Alaska. It is located on the Pacific coast of Katmai National Park and Preserve, in the mainland portion of Kodiak Island Borough, Alaska.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Birnirk site</span> Archaeological site in Alaska, United States

The Birnirk site is an archaeological site near Utqiagvik, Alaska. It includes sixteen prehistoric mounds which have yielded evidence of very early Birnirk and Thule culture. It is the type site of the Birnirk culture, and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1962 for its archaeological importance in understanding prehistoric Arctic cultures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brooks River Archeological District</span> Archaeological site in Alaska, United States

The Brooks River Archaeological District encompasses a large complex of archaeological sites along the banks of the Brooks River in Katmai National Park and Preserve in the U.S. state of Alaska. It includes at least twenty separate settlement sites with documented occupation dates from 2500 BCE to recent (post-contact) history. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1993. The site is partly occupied by the Brooks Camp, one of the major visitor areas of the park.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gallagher Flint Station Archeological Site</span> Archaeological site in Alaska, United States

The Gallagher Flint Station Archeological Site is an archaeological site and National Historic Landmark in northern Alaska. Discovered in 1970 during the construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, it yielded a radiocarbon date of 10,540 B.P., making it the oldest site of human activity then known in the state at the time of its discovery.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Iyatayet site</span> Archaeological site in Alaska, United States

The Iyatayet site is an archaeological site and National Historic Landmark located on the northwest shore of Cape Denbigh on Norton Bay in Nome Census Area, Alaska. It shows evidence of several separate cultures, dating back as far as 6000 B.C. It was excavated starting in 1948 by J. Louis Giddings, the pioneering archaeologist of the area. It is significant as the type site of the Norton culture, representative of human occupation c. 500BCE-500CE, first described by Giddings in 1964. It is also significant for the Denbigh Flint complex, which lay underneath the Norton materials, and provides evidence of some of the earliest human activity in the region. The site was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1961.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Onion Portage Archeological District</span> Archaeological site in Alaska, United States

The Onion Portage Archeological District encompasses a major archaeological site in Kobuk Valley National Park in northwestern Alaska. The site is a deeply stratified site, at which archaeologists have located nine complexes ranging dating from approximately 6500BC to AD1700. The site has been of critical benefit for the study of Arctic cultures, and is used to determine the cultural chronology of the region.

The Palugvik Site, also known as Palugvik Archeological District, is an archaeological site on Hawkins Island in Prince William Sound, near Cordova, Alaska, within Chugach National Forest. The site, first excavated in 1930, was the first to provide a view of prehistoric human habitation in Prince William Sound, the ancestral home of the Chugach people, and is one of the two primary sites for identifying the sequence of occupation in the area. The site was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1962, and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1966.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yukon Island</span>

Yukon Island is an island in outer Kachemak Bay, an inlet of the Cook Inlet of south central Alaska. The island is located about 9 miles (14 km) south of Homer. The island is archaeologically sensitive, with a number of sites documenting the prehistory of the bay. The Yukon Island Main Site, a National Historic Landmark, is a major shell midden site at which the pioneering archaeologist Frederica de Laguna was able to sequence 1500 years of the area's prehistory, and other sites have been found on the island since then. The island is now home to an educational retreat center.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Walrus Islands</span> Archaeological site in Alaska, United States

The Walrus Islands are a group of craggy coastal islands in the Bering Sea, close to the northern shores of Bristol Bay, Alaska at the entrance to Togiak Bay. They are located 18 km to the east of Hagemeister Island, and are protected as the Walrus Islands State Game Sanctuary by the state. A part of the island group is also of archaeological importance, with numerous deeply stratified sites covering 6,000 years of human use. For this reason, Crooked Island, Summit Island and Round Island were designated the Walrus Islands Archeological District, a National Historic Landmark District comprising 14 historical sites, in December 2016.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gambell Sites</span> Archaeological site in Alaska, United States

The Gambell Sites are five archeological sites which established a chronology of over 2000 years of human habitation on St. Lawrence Island near Gambell, Alaska.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Register of Historic Places listings in Northwest Arctic Borough, Alaska</span>

This is a list of the National Register of Historic Places listings in Northwest Arctic Borough, Alaska.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Register of Historic Places listings in Matanuska-Susitna Borough, Alaska</span>

This is a list of the National Register of Historic Places listings in Matanuska-Susitna Borough, Alaska.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Register of Historic Places listings in North Slope Borough, Alaska</span>

This is a list of the National Register of Historic Places listings in North Slope Borough, Alaska.

Takli Island is an island off the southern coast of the Alaska Peninsula in the Shelikof Strait of southwestern Alaska. It is located at the mouth of Amalik Bay, off the mainland portion of Kodiak Island Borough, in Katmai National Park and Preserve. The area was first archaeologically investigated in the 1960s, when the prehistory of the area was little known, and the island's sites are type sites for a series of archaeological cultures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Register of Historic Places listings in Copper River Census Area, Alaska</span>

This is a list of the National Register of Historic Places listings in Copper River Census Area, Alaska.

References

  1. Federal and state laws and practices restrict general public access to information regarding the specific location of this resource. In some cases, this is to protect archeological sites from vandalism, while in other cases it is restricted at the request of the owner. See: Knoerl, John; Miller, Diane; Shrimpton, Rebecca H. (1990), Guidelines for Restricting Information about Historic and Prehistoric Resources, National Register Bulletin, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, OCLC   20706997 .
  2. 1 2 "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places . National Park Service. April 15, 2008.
  3. 1 2 3 "Wales Site". National Historic Landmark summary listing. National Park Service. Retrieved July 3, 2008.
  4. NHL Alaska details
  5. 1 2 Harritt, Roger B (2004). "A Preliminary Reevaluation of the Punuk-Thule Interface at Wales, Alaska". Arctic Anthropology. 41 (2). JSTOR   40316626.
  6. Re-examining Wales' Role in Bering Strait Prehistory: Some Preliminary Results of Recent Work by Roger Harritt of the University of Alaska Anchorage