Chaluka
SAM-001
Chaluka is a large mound located adjacent to the modern village of Nikolski on Umnak Island in the Fox Island group of the eastern Aleutians. According to anthropologist William Laughlin, the name Chaluka is the old Aleut/Unangan name for the village at Nikolski (Laughlin and Marsh 1951:80). The location has been consistently occupied for as much as 4,000 years and is the longest continuous sequence of Unangan history in the Aleutian Islands. During his stay at Nikolski in 1909 as a part of the Jessup Expedition, Waldemar Jochelson noted that many locals still lived on top of the Chaluka mound; settlement on the mound itself would continue through much of the twentieth century (Laughlin 1980:79). Owing to its extraordinary record of Aleut/Unangax̂ cultural heritage and its archaeological significance, Chaluka is recognized as a National Historic Landmark.
Long known as an important archaeological site, Chaluka was visited by William Healy Dall in the nineteenth century and Alex Hrdlicka in 1938. Systematic investigations at Chaluka were conducted on and off from the 1950s to the 1970s and were directed by William Laughlin. Extensive excavations led by Laughlin, and later his student Jean Aigner, provided a cross-section of the mound at Chaluka. Analysis of materials from these investigations led to the recognition of a long span of occupation in the Aleutian islands extending to the mid-Holocene (ca. 4,000 years ago) and provided important stratigraphic and chronologically controlled sequence with which to study the changes in technology and subsistence practices over time. These analyses are presented in several publications by Laughlin, Aigner, and their students (See Bibliography).
The Chaluka mound measures nearly 215 x 61 meters and reaches depths of 8 meters above the low-lying coastal plain on which it sits. The mound consists of a dense midden formed by the accumulation of discarded animal bone, lithic artifacts, marine shell, and other cultural debris generated over centuries of occupation. Layers of volcanic ash fall (tephra) and intact or remnants of abandoned house floors and structural elements are interstratified with midden deposits. Published radiocarbon dates (Aigner 1966) indicate that midden accumulation began about 4,000 years ago and continued until approximately 500 years ago.
The settlement at Chaluka was permanent to semi-permanent based on the repeated construction of semi-subterranean housing structures. Analyses of sea mammal and bird bones within the midden indicate that the site was occupied during all seasons. The faunal remains and technological inventory show a reliance on fishing and sea mammal hunting for subsistence. An increase in the amount of fish bones and the addition of a diverse array of fishing technologies to the Chaluka toolkit suggests that the salmon run in Umnak Creek provided an increasing proportion of the diet over time. Based on the Chaluka sequence, and in conjunction with the findings of the much earlier sites on Anangula Island in Nikolski Bay also excavated by Laughlin’s team, Laughlin developed the dual-tradition model of Aleutian Prehistory (McCartney 1984). This model highlights fundamental technological and cultural continuity from the protohistoric period to the early Holocene, represented by the basal layers at Chaluka, and termed the Aleutian Tradition. Laughlin’s model proposes that prior to the Aleutian Tradition, people of the Anangula Tradition, represented by the Anangula Blade site, initially settled the Aleutian Islands, with a unique blade-oriented technological repertoire. Differences in stone and bone tool types between the Anangula and Aleutian and traditions are explained as a result of the gradual adaption of hunting and fishing technology to the unique maritime environment.
Archaeology and the Medvedev Party at Chaluka
The Medvedev Party was a group of Russian promyshleniki headed by Dennis Medvedev that, according to Aleut/Unangan oral history (Laughlin 1980:121-122) and historical written accounts (Coxe 1780:99, 119), had in 1764 established themselves on the west side of Chaluka. Sometime after, these men were victims of an attack by Umnak Aleuts in the context of an ongoing Aleut uprising against the Russian fur traders that spanned the years 1763-1764. Ivan Korovin arrived at Chaluka (then called the villages of Recheshnoi) from Unalaska in July of 1764 and discovered the slain bodies which he then buried in a single grave on the western end of the Chaluka mound (Cox 1780:99). Laughlin’s team investigated this burial in 1970 and uncovered skeletal and archaeological evidence to corroborate the Aleut telling of this event and historical accounts presented by Coxe.