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The Kayuk Complex of Arctic Alaska

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

John M. Campbell
John M. Campbell*
Affiliation:
Yale University, New Haven, Conn.
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Abstract

Approximately 2400 stone and 77 bone and antler artifacts were obtained by extensive trenching of the Kayuk site, a large area on the banks of Kayuk Creek in Anaktuvuk Pass, Brooks Range, northern Alaska, where several Nunamiut Eskimo families now camp. No stratigraphy was noted and no structural features were encountered, but four fire areas were excavated. The most diagnostic artifact is the Kayuk point, a lanceolate form with finely executed parallel oblique flaking, which resembles most closely the Angostura point of the Great Plains. Other stone artifacts, some of which also exhibit the parallel oblique flaking, include blades, scrapers, angle burins, microblades, drills, and adz blades. Implements of bone and antler, mostly caribou, include harpoons, leister and fish spear prongs and barbs, and other forms common in recent and prehistoric Arctic sites. The Kayuk site is believed to have been a hunting camp used during caribou migrations through Anaktuvuk Pass by a prehistoric Eskimo group which probably wintered on the northern coast as do the modern Nunamiut. The Kayuk complex probably belongs somewhere in time between the Denbigh Flint complex and Ipiutak.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , July 1959 , pp. 94 - 105
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1959

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