A food storage pit dating back nearly 1,000 years has been discovered on Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson (JBER) in Alaska, offering a rare glimpse into ancient food preservation methods and shedding light on the long history of the region. The cache pit was radiocarbon dated to nearly 1,000 years ago.
Measuring about 3.5 feet deep, the pit was lined with birch bark to keep dirt, moisture, and rodents out. The birch bark lining helped preserve the contents of the pit through the harsh conditions of southeastern Alaska.
Archaeologists from JBER, Northern Land Use Research Alaska, and area tribal councils uncovered the pit along Upper Cook Inlet in June. Such caches are rarely discovered intact.
Initially, archaeologists expected the cache pit to be a few hundred years old, but radiocarbon testing revealed it was much older, indicating it was used about 1,000 years ago.
“When we got the results back that said it was 960 years, plus or minus 30, we were shocked. [We] were jumping up and down in our cube in tears. It was very, very exciting,” said Elizabeth Ortiz, an archaeologist involved in the discovery, according to Smithsonian Magazine.
The cache pit is located along a well-known Dene trail that the Denaʼina people used to access fish camps, which led north from the area of modern Anchorage. The trail was significant for the Denaʼina people’s seasonal movements and subsistence practices.
The Dene people, also known as Athabascans, including the Dena’ina and Ahtna tribes, traditionally used these places for summer fishing and harvesting salmon and terrestrial meat. These practices were integral to their way of life and survival in the region.
Ortiz explained that it is not yet clear if the meat of moose or caribou had been stored in the cache or if they just lived in the area. Researchers plan to conduct further tests to determine the exact contents of the pit.
“Because the location is so close to the water, researchers expected to see traces of marine animals and fish inside the cellar, but the soil samples showed terrestrial animals such as moose or caribou,” Ortiz said, according to Archaeology Magazine.
“It’s just like a little time capsule up there,” said Margan Grover, archaeologist and JBER cultural resource manager, according to Alaska Public Media. Grover noted that finding such an old and well-preserved site in the Anchorage Bowl is rare.
Elders from Eklutna remember a fish camp in the area that belonged to the Theodore family with ties to Eklutna and Knik tribes. Some elders believe that an old birch tree with a letter T carved into it was an identifier for the camp.
“Anchorage is a new town. You know, 1914 is when it’s first established,” Grover said, according to Alaska Public Media. “But there are people who were here much longer than that, and they were amazing stewards of this land, and so we have to make sure we acknowledge that.”
“I hope that tribal governments and the U.S. government will use the cache site as motivation to work toward our shared goals and the co-production of knowledge about our past,” said Aaron Leggett, the president of the Native Village of Eklutna, according to Smithsonian Magazine. “There’s still a lot more work to be done on Denaʼina archaeology, and especially in Upper Cook Inlet,” Leggett said. “It’s further confirmation of Denaʼina oral tradition.”
The research team plans to conduct additional radiocarbon and stable isotope tests to determine whether the food buried in the cache pit was from the land or the sea.
“I feel like every site that we learn about, every site that we can further investigate, is a piece of our history that was potentially lost. So this is kind of regaining some of the history that we were separated from,” said Angela Wade, a Chickaloon village tribal citizen and its tribal historic preservation officer, according to Smithsonian Magazine.
This article was written in collaboration with generative AI company Alchemiq
This article was originally published at www.jpost.com
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