Expanding the Kachemak: Surplus Production and the Development of Multi-Season Storage in Alaska's Kodiak Archipelago

Abstract

Surplus production is a hallmark of Alaska's prehistoric coastal societies. Over the millennia, foragers procured greater quantities of resources with increasing efficiency, developing economies dependent upon storage and institutionalized exchange. In the central Gulf of Alaska, notable evidence of surplus production comes from the late phase of the Kachemak tradition. Since de Laguna's pioneering studies, archaeologists have noted that intensified fishing, storage, and exchange typify this tradition. However, few have investigated the roots of these behaviors. When, how, and why did foragers begin producing well beyond immediate needs? This paper explores archaeological evidence for surplus production in the Kodiak Archipelago, focusing on patterns in land use, technology, and exchange preserved in Ocean Bay II and Early Kachemak assemblages from the Chiniak Bay region. It suggests that surplus production for the purposes of seasonal food storage began in the Early Kachemak, and accelerated in the Late Kachemak as population levels climbed.

Economies of driftwood: Fuel harvesting strategies in the Kodiak Archipelago

“…The practice of smoking and storing fish for winter consumption is at least 3,300 years old in Kodiak (Steffian et al 2006) and represents another end-use category for fuelwood. Large charcoal accumulations start to appear in the archaeological record at Early Kachemak tradition sites, such as the Zaimka Mound, Outlet, and Horseshoe Cove sites, dated between 4000 and 2700 cal BP.…”

“…Large charcoal accumulations start to appear in the archaeological record at Early Kachemak tradition sites, such as the Zaimka Mound, Outlet, and Horseshoe Cove sites, dated between 4000 and 2700 cal BP. The accumulations are presumed to represent fish drying or smoking sites, based on the intermingling of faunal and wood remains (Saltonstall and Steffian 2006;Tennessen 2000).…”

“…Archaeological research and ethnohistoric records show that the primary fuel used by Indigenous Kodiak Island residents was wood (Knecht 1995;Steffian et al 2006;Tennessen 2000). Stone lamps fuelled by sea mammal oil were commonly used to produce heat and light, but abundant charcoal deposits suggest that wood was the staple fuel that heated semi-subterranean sod homes, smoked salmon, and warmed the allimportant banya.…”

Ethnogenesis and surplus food production: communitas and identity building among nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Ilchamus, Lake Baringo, Kenya

“…There is also an extensive body of literature on the archaeological recognition of different kinds of surplus, the modes and conditions of its production, and of its distribution (e.g. Steffian, Saltonstall, and Kopperl 2006;Van der Veen and Jones 2007;Bogaard et al 2009;Kuijt and Finlayson 2009;Groot and Lentjes 2016)-Identifying these is nonetheless frequently challenging, as surplus is always relative and contextually defined (Morehart 2014), and consequently there are no universal material correlates for recognising its presence archaeologically.…”

Cod Fishing in Russian America: The Archaeology of a 19th-Century Alutiiq Work Camp on Alaska's Kodiak Island

“…The Museum conducted excavations in 2009 and 2010 at the adjacent Mikt'sqaq Angayuk site, whose deposits are contiguous with Zaimka Mound (Steffian et al 2002(Steffian et al , 2006Steffian and Saltonstall 2005). There, a surface depression clearly indicated the presence of a semisubterranean Alutiiq house, but only through excavation was it revealed as an historic occupation and associated midden.…”