Anthropology in the Aleutians: Introductory Comments

Anthropological research in the Aleutians tends to be patchy in time and space. An apparent wealth of information becomes, on closer inspection, snippets of datasets separated by gaps. Decades may separate the various ethnohistorical, ethnographic, linguistic, cultural, or physical anthropology studies, and archaeological projects. Hundreds of kilometers stretch between project areas on the islands. Sample sizes are small or localized. No clearly defined cultural continuum guides our history building or frames our understanding about archipelagowide Aleut relationships with land- and seascapes, each other, people from other cultures, and nonhumans. All of us who perform research in the region recognize these limitations, and rectifying them is the transcendent goal of the many research endeavors operating in the Aleutians.

A near-continuous series of projects focusing on understanding past Aleut lives in the Near Islands, the Rat Islands, the Andreanofs, and the Amaknak Bridge site on Unalaska among other locations began over twenty years ago. Archaeological research forms the core of the projects, but like all anthropological work in the Arctic, ethnographic, ethnohistoric, and cooperative interdisciplinary research are critical elements. The mass of knowledge produced by these many projects results in a larger, comparable, and broader information base (cf., Corbett, West, and Lefèvre [ed.] 2010; Dumond [ed.] 2001; Funk this volume; Hanson 2010; Rogers this volume; West et al. [ed.] 2011; West, O’Rourke, and Crawford 2010).

Interpretations about the Aleut past are moving away from the materialist, culture historical, and colonialist approaches common to past research approaches. Instead, the influence of historical documents drafted by Russian, American, French, and British explorers and religious personnel influence current interpretations of Aleut lives. Research approaches in the region now partner theories about human agency, landscapes, the socionatural aspect of human/environment intersections, and historical critique with strong, systematic field work and laboratory analyses. Notions of the dynamic nature of the long history of Aleut occupation of the Aleutians are growing clearer and more complex. There is no such thing as the Aleut past, but many Aleut pasts expressed dynamically, individually, and corporately by Aleuts living in different times and among different island groups.

The Aleutians include island groups that are often defined as separate cultural regimes, but in reality, the prehistoric occupants of these locations were aware of each other and participated in a shared cultural system. Research efforts in the Aleutians must acknowledge that collective synergy and work together to develop comparable data sets and non-localized interpretations along with detailed site or island or island group scale analyses. To that end, Corbett organized a Western Aleutians symposium at the Alaska Anthropological Association meetings in Kodiak, AK in 2006. This issue of Arctic Anthropology grew out of the symposium, as the conference stimulated more research in the region and reprisals of in-progress research.

The articles in this collection emerge from several completed and ongoing projects. The authors present a diversity of new data and interpretations, including new results from survey and excavation, lithic analyses, and faunal analyses. A previously unknown artistic representation is reported. Hypotheses about households and power structure, fresh looks at the history of research in the region, and a critical examination of the processes of land ownership and federal law are presented. The researchers apply interdisciplinary approaches to understanding the biological, geological, and climatological framework negotiated and manipulated by the Aleuts to create their unique cultures.