CONTINUITY AND INNOVATION

Recovering sociocultural

and

other remains

from

a site where ethnographic

and

historical information is available gives an

added

dimension to the usual archeological inferences. In this context, under favorable circumstances a single site excavation can provide an exceptionally large

amount

of information about the processes of sociocultural stabihty

and

change. Seemingly the

Crow

Village site represents such apleasing combination.

From

history

we know

that the

community was

occupiedin 1844

and

that the last occupants left

between

1906

and

1912. Furthermore, it is clear that the village residents represented the farthest inland settlement of the

Yuk

in early historical tunes. History provides this outline

and

more, while ethnography offers anotherkind ofinformation.

The

ethnography of

most

valuew^ascompiled

by Edward W.

Nelson (1899) forthe

Esldmos

of western Alaska. Nelson's descriptions are of materials for both

Yuk and

Inuit speaking peoples. Fortunatelyfor this study, he col- lected a great dealof dataforthe area

from

St. Michaelsouthward to the

Kuskokwim

River

mouth. Thus

he provided a description ofthe historic coastal

Eskimo

culture which, in its prehistoricform,

was

the basis outof

which

riverine

Eskimo

cultm-ealong the

Kuskokwdm

grew.

A

comparison of the Nelson collection with a historic

and

recent prehistoric archeological collection

from Hooper Bay

Village (Oswalt, 1952) suggests that Nelson's material represents a

norm

foraboriginal centralBeringSeacoast

Eskimo

technologyforthehistoric

and

recent prehistoric eras. It is apparent that the

Crow

Village collection is

within the traditionofcoastal

Yuk

culture. In spiteof certain special characteristics, there can be

no doubt

that the inhabitants of

Crow

Village possessed a material cultm-e that

was

not radically different

from

thatof then-coastal kin. Thisfactisillustratedgraphically

when

the

Crow

Village artifacts are

compared

\^dth the materials collected

by

Nelson

and

those excavated

by

Oswalt at

Hooper Bay

Village.

Very

briefly, such acomparisonreveals thatan overwhelming majority of the traditional artifacts in all categories can be duplicated in one ortheother ofthese collections.

The

similarityisparticularlyevident

when

the

wooden

artifacts

from Crow

Village are considered. This is

not only the largest category of artifacts but is the

most

revealing culturally as well as the

most

comparable, particularly with regard to the collection

made by

Nelson.

Of

the nearly 250 identifiable tradi- tional

wooden

objects, only seven forms are not presentin the Nelson collection. Thesearethe "lance"fragment, the

wooden

fish spearside prong,

bench

plank support, checker, fhp dart, segmented doll,

and

"flat" carving.

None

of these forms is particularly diagnostic,

and

in

some

cases identification is tentative.

virston"*]

CROW

VILLAGE,

ALASKA 69 Thus

the

Crow

Village collection ofindigenous manufactured goods accurately reflects 19th-century coastal Bering Sea

Eskimo

material cultm-e.

The

latter

Eskimos

possessed aculturalinventory which

was

not only elaborate but also diversified in its forms, particularly with referenceto theeconomicsphere.

They had

atechnologywelladapted to sea

mammal

hunting,hunting

and

trappingon theland,

and

taking

fish. These people could readily adjust their economic lives to

any

situation compatiblewith their existing technology. This seems tobe precisely

what happened when

they entered the

Kuskokwim

River system. Fishing

and

land hunting

methods

were emphasized

and

sea

mammal

huntingforgotten. Inlight ofthesimilaritiesbetween Bering Sea coast

and Crow

Village artifact forms, it seems likely that either the

Yuk movement

inland

was

₍₁₎ quite recent; (2) earlybutretentive of close ties with the coastal peoples, or; (3) a combination of both situations. In

any

of these interpretations the basic cultural con- tinuity is clear.

Even

within the context of historical contact, there is additional

and more

specific evidence of continuity with the past. Traditional

Eskimo

stoneworking continued but with a different emphasis.

Hammerstones

existed because of their general efficiency as multi- pm'pose

pounding

implements, but they were not as plentiful as

might

be expected, judging

from

their

number and

diversity inrecent coastal

Eskimo

sites.

Whetstones

on the other

hand

were numerous,

and

since they

would

function to sharpen stone or metal blades

and

needles their continuity

was

assured. Their diversity of quality

was

probably a function of the different qualities of stone necessary for sharpening either stone or metal. Likewise stone-bladed ulus were frequently recovered. Inlight of thepresence of similar bladeforms

made from

canmetal,

which

couldnot

have

functionedeffectively,

we

inferthatlargepiecesofmetalsuitable forulu bladeswereunavailable.

Even

if such metal

had

been available, it is doubtful that sufiicient skill

would have

existed to refashion the metal into an ulu blade.

Today

(1963) ulu blades are cut

from

old

wood-saw

blades,

and

it

requu-es

good

toolsas well as

knowledge

ofreworking metal toproduce a serviceable ulu. Perhaps the

most

striking evidence of continuity in stone technology ^is found in stone artifacts for working skins.

There

is a greater diversity of these types than

m any

other stone category. This leads to the assumption that the technology of the Russians

and

Anglo-Americans could not contribute to this complex.

An

alternative explanation

would

be that the

women

were simply conservativein their skinworking techniques, but

we

favor theformer reason.

Probably the

most

striking characteristic of

Crow

Village material culture is the continuity of

wooden

artifact forms. This point has

70

previously been

made

but merits repeating.

As

long as the site

was

occupied, the traditional

woodworking

technologypersisted

and most

forms continued.

Metal

tools unquestionably increased the effi-

ciency of

woodworkmg,

but theydidnot change its characternor did

new wooden

forms of the Russians or Anglo-Americans

make

a deep impression.

Most wooden

artifacts can be identified in terms of the traditional forms.

An

examination of the trait list (Appendix 1) illustrates that

from

the

T-1 midden

proportionally

more

objects of

wood

were recovered than artifacts of

any

other material. Particularly noticeable is the scarcity oftradegoods

and

household

equipment from

the

T-1

midden, in contrast with the relative

abundance

of these objects in the

T-2

midden.

The

association of the

T-1 midden

with the working of

wood

isreinforced

by

the fact that an overwhelming majority of the unidentified fragments of

worked wood

^recovered

from

the site

came from

there. This is not particidarly surprising

when

it is realized that this

midden

is locateddirectly in front of the kashgee, while

T-2

is at the entrances ^to

H-3 and H-4. Thus

the objects recovered

from T-2

are associatedwith domesticrubbish, while those

from T-1

represent the

wood

manufactures that

would

be likely to take place in thekashgee.

One

^{of the}

most

^strikingfeaturesof theexcavation

was

the scarcity of

bone and

^{antler both}

from

the houses

and

middens.

A

table of

bone

occurrences, in

which

the bones are not distinguished

between

left

and

right (table₂₎,isquiterevealing. Itis

more

thanchancethat only one

bone was

^recovered

from

the extensive

T-1

midden.

When

bones were comparatively plentiful, as the beaver bones

from

T-2, they could be associated with a single animal. It

might be

inferred that the animals represented in the

bone

collection were rare in the locality

and

seldom hunted, yet this seems highly unlikely

from

the

comments by

Zagoskin (1956, pp. 204, 220-221)

and

informants' statements (Oswalt, 1963 b, pp. 127-128).

The

scarcity of bones is

understandable only in the context of statements

by

informants.

When Oswalt

asked

Sam

Phillips about the situation in 1953

and

Anania Theodore

ⁱⁿ 1954, bothstated thatanimal boneswere

thrown

into the^{river to}preventthedogs

from

chewing them. It

was

thought that for dogs to

chew

bones

would

oftend the spirit of the animal involved and, as a consequence, the species

would

be difficultif not impossible to take in the future. This belief

and

its practice is partially validated

by

the absence of bones

chewed by

dogs although dogs wererepresentedin thecollection ofbones. If the

Crow

Village site were not in a historical context, the absence ofbones probably

would be

considered as in

some way

associated with a supernatural involvement

making

it necessary to deposit the bones outside of the

Oswalt and

Van Stone]

CROW

^VILLAGE,

ALASKA

Table ^2.

—

Animalbones recoveredfrom^thesite

71

Aiiimalbone