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

Interpretations and ConclusionsThe primary disappointment and handicap in the Tikchik excavationswas the absence of a recognizable division between the Russianand American periods of influence.This situation was not totallyunexpectedsince I had participated in the excavation of another historicsite in southwestern Alaska in which short term exotic influencescould not be isolated in an archaeological context. One is forced toconclude that there may be few, if any, sites in Alaska in which suchdimensions can be determined on a strong stratigraphic basis. Thetotal period of time involved is simply too short and the various externalinfluences on the Eskimo settlements apparently lacked sufficientintensity at specific points in time. It is obvious, then, thatarchaeology alone cannot solve the many problems of interpretingchange among nineteenth century Eskimos. However, a satisfactoryattempt at interpretation can be made, as has been noted elsewhere(Oswalt and VanStone, 1967) , by integrating archaeological data withinformants' statements and historical source material. It should benoted, however, that this is much more easily said than done. Eskimoinformants who have even the vaguest remembrance of events at theend of the nineteenth century are virtually nonexistent. Even whenone is encountered, it is unlikely that he will be able to remember culturaldetails sufficiently to be a major source of information to the ethnographer.In fact, the latter will probably consider himself fortunateif his informants can provide him with even the grossest informationabout the settlement pattern, approximate time of abandonment ofsites, etc. After all, it is the scarcity of informants for this periodthat has made it necessary to add archaeology to the research toolsof history and ethnography for the study of nineteenth century culturechange.Having noted the limitations of both ethnography and archaeologyin this connection, we can now turn to a consideration of thethird research tool, historical source materials. It will be obvious tothe reader by this time that history has provided much of the backgroundmaterial against which the description of the Tikchik site andcollections has been set,and that at the same time history has pro-341