We always knew the site was there
but we thought it was gone due to erosion
My grandfather would tell about the
bow and arrow wars.
About two kids playing with darts
and one eye was poked
so the other kid's father came and did the same thing.
So from that it became a full-blown war.
To see this excavation
bring that story alive is
one of the most fascinating things I've seen.
The stories we've heard and the evidence
they're pulling out from Nunalleq
it's no longer a legend
it's becoming a fact
♪♪
My name is Rick Knecht and I'm
principle investigator of the project.
We have 11 PhD's
We use a lot of student volunteers.
We work with professional conservators to make it all happen.
We've got Doctor Paul Ledger
who's working on the history of climate here.
Doctor Verenique Forbes, who's an archeo-entimologist,
who studies insects.
Doctor P.T. Ashlock who's also
a professional archeologist from southeast Alaska.
Doctor Madonna Moss is from the University of Oregon, who specializes in faunal analysis.
There are mussel shells throughout this site. Here's another bigger piece
And we don't know where they're coming from
♪♪
The Nunalleq site was originally
A village. Elders tell us that
this site extended out about 200 feet.
Since 2009, we've lost more than 30 feet on that piece
of shoreline and our 2009-2010 excavation blocks
are completely gone already. It's very much a race against time.
But this particular structure with the covered boardwalk, running
down the middle of it was an adaptation to the
bow and arrow wars.
That was a period of intense conflict
between different native villages here in the YK delta.
And no one knew exactly when it had happened, other than it happened
before the Russians arrived. This collective communal house
was burned down by attackers from another village up the Kuskowkwim.
We think it happened about 1640 based on carbon dates of
the charred grass and so on, on the floor.
♪♪
We've been excavating Nunalleq for about six years now.
I sent Rick a few pictures of
artifacts I had from the locals.
He came right over
He didn't even unpack, he went down to the beach and they started
walking and they started finding artifacts.
Those first group was a tough bunch.
There's these three students
and a professor that come down and start looking for
artifacts. Wind. Rain. Shine. They'd do it.
My mind was saying, man these guys are crazy. But
they're trying to beat the erosions.
We get bugs. We get weather
We get wind. We get rain. Ouch there's one now.
And so they're pretty challenging conditions.
We put in as many hours as we physically can.
12-14 hours a day, six days a week. Just so we can get to it in time.
Pizza! Give me P-I-Z-Z-A!
Laughter
♪♪
Rick is just great. He doesn't stop.
He's the perfect person for this site.
I wouldn't have no one else run this site except him.
Well I first came to Alaska to work as a graduate student in 1983.
And luckily it was a preserved site much like this one in Kodiak.
And that one was also eroding. And we worked hard to get a sample from that.
But the same time, our assumption was there were going to be more sites like that.
And the whole thing washed out. There wasn't even a rock, a fire-crack rock
left behind. That was shocking. And we ended up only getting
a 10 percent sample at best. And that's not going to happen again.
We're getting things that normally you just see in museum collections.
We've got arrows with the feathers still latched to them.
Grass rope that was used to make dog harnesses.
That kind of preservation.
♪♪
There's a piece of hair right here. I found that in my screen. P.T. found a ridiculously
large amount of hair and Bridgett found another huge clump of hair today.
It seems like when they cut their hair they just let it fall wherever it wanted to.
There's the lamp. The hair is kind of sticking out
right there. It's all over the place actually. There's been way hairer
lamps too. It's like oh you find hair oh this is like a hair sample
and then you dig a little more and then it's actually a lamp.
Bridgett found an earring
in the screen. Yeah that's definitely fauna
And then it would have a...it goes up to about there I think.
So I don't know how they actually wore them, like how it fit. They kind of look like clip-ons.
Yeah. Laughter.
I've heard that we have up to around
30,000 museum quality pieces, which will be coming
back to Quinhagak in 2017. We're hoping
to get a cultural center built here
and then I'm hoping all the artifacts will remain in the village
♪♪
We estimate this site my have
five to ten years left, maximum. It could be lost in one big winter
storm. It's like a museum is on fire, or a library.
And you have to rush in to save as many book and pieces of art as you can
♪♪
We're seeing things that
people remember from their childhoods. Elders have a chance
to reacquaint themselves and their children with
tangible remains of their heritage.
♪♪
Yeah, this project has been great.
I'm just honored to be part of it,
a small part of it.
♪♪