Tikchik village: a nineteenth century riverine community in ... - Cluster

VANSTONE: TIKCHIK VILLAGE 307historical contact, there is obvious and specific evidence of continuitywith the past and it seems necessary that at least some aspects of thiscontinuity be dealt with in detail. With reference to house construction,one of the most consistent cultural features at Tikchik, it isknown that the house with four-post-center construction, a centralfireplace, and lateral sleeping places is widely distributed throughoutAlaska. The earliest occurrence is in the Old Whaling culture atCape Krusenstern (Giddings, 1961, p. 166), and the type is alsoknown from the early historic period on Hotham Inlet (Simpson,1875, p. 255), at Metlatavik near Wales on Seward Peninsula (Collins,1937, pp. 261-264), and on Nunivak Island (Collins, 1937, pp.258-260; Lantis, 1946, p. 157). Of particular interest here, however,isof house construction seems to have beenthe fact that this typeparticularly characteristic of the inland regions. It is found in allthe culture phases (1250-1750 A.D.) along the Kobuk River (Giddings,1952, pp. 11-19), at the Crow Village site (1840-1906), and hasbeen reported for the late aboriginal period along the lower Kuskokwim(Oswalt and VanStone, 1967, p. 12; Oswalt, 1963, pp. 29-30,119). My examination of other archaeological sites of the historicperiod in the Nushagak River region has led me to believe that thehouse form at Tikchik was characteristic of the entire area up to thetime when old style houses were entirely abandoned in the early 1930's.Traditional Eskimo stone working continued and the emphasis issuch that some discussion is called for. Most surprising of all, perhaps,is the presence of a sizeable number of small flint implementswhich indicates that the residents of Tikchik possessed a high degreeof skill in working this material. Of all the artifacts in the assemblage,they are the ones which are represented the least satisfactorilyin the comparative collections mentioned at the beginning of thischapter, and indeed, one type — the small hand drills, is not representedat all. It is probably true that if most of this material hadbeen found in another context, it would have been attributed to amuch earlier cultural manifestation. In fact, the Tikchik planoconvexscrapers, hand drills, and small projectile points most closelyresemble those from the Norton Culture at Cape Denbigh (Giddings,1964, PI. 53,13,16,20; Pis. 47 and 48; PL 55,i-5; PI. 56) which seemsto have flourished between approximately 400 B.C. and the beginningof the Christian era (Giddings, 1964, p. 244). However, these formswere widespread in Alaska and have frequently been encountered inthose sites where polished slate predominated. On the Kobuk Riverflint working persisted well into the historic period, and side and end