Collaborative Archeology at Bering Land Bridge National Preserve

By Alix Pfennigwerth, biologist and science communicator, National Park Service.

Coastal erosion cuts through the dunes of Bering Land Bridge National Preserve. NPS.

For millennia, Iñupiaq people have lived on the barrier islands, beach ridges and dunes of what is now Bering Land Bridge National Preserve in northwest Alaska. The remains of past villages, houses, work areas and caches could tell a vivid story of life, technology, subsistence and climate change — past and present.

Sites at risk

Most of these sites have never been well studied, and they may soon be gone: coastal erosion, driven by sea level rise and retreating sea ice, threatens to damage or wash away what remains.

Kawerak, the regional Alaska Native non-profit corporation for the Bering Straits region, and the National Park Service are working together to assess, catalog and learn from the sites before it's too late.

• This summer, a team began first assessments using low-impact methods that leave sites and objects intact.
• The goal: understand past Iñupiaq lifeways and decide whether sites qualify for the National Register of Historic Places, which could support their preservation.

Archeology technicians search a deflated dune ridge for signs of past occupation. NPS / Justin Junge.

A partnership

Kawerak and archeologist Justin Junge (Western Arctic National Parklands and Bering Land Bridge National Preserve) signed a multi-year agreement that includes paid internships for people from local Iñupiaq communities, with two aims:

1. help interns build skills and knowledge through hands-on work and training;
2. share knowledge both ways between Iñupiaq communities and NPS staff.

Many Iñupiaq people living around the preserve descend directly from those who lived there hundreds or thousands of years ago. Their knowledge, handed down for generations — who lived there, when, and how their homes, tools and subsistence worked — complements and goes beyond what archeology alone can learn.

This dune, once a pre-contact Iñupiaq settlement and work area, shows erosion damage. NPS / Justin Junge.

Making it inclusive

• Collections close to home: objects from the project will be kept in Nome, where Iñupiaq people with ancestral ties to the sites can see and handle them.
• Elders' knowledge: Elders will help identify the traditional uses of objects, joining deep, place-based knowledge with the scientific process.

Working together, Junge says, everyone gets more out of the project in the long run — and everyone can learn more.

The project is funded in part by a research and education grant from the Ocean Alaska Science and Learning Center. Printable version.

Sources

Based on "Learning more through collaborative archeology," by Alix Pfennigwerth, Bering Land Bridge National Preserve, National Park Service; a work of the United States government in the public domain.