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Cape Krusenstern National Monument
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In October 1989 Lenihan and Murphy from SRC joined Doug Anderson from Brown University in a project to solve an archeological problem relating to beach ridge succession in this part of the Chukchi Sea. The age of prehistoric sites was known to correlate to beach ridges formed by wind-driven ice floes and gravels with the oldest being further inland. These included Ipiutak, Norton and Choris peoples. |
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| The earliest horizons (Denbigh culture circa 2000 B.C.) were particularly compelling. A site found by J. Louis Giddings, Andersons former professor at Brown indicated that ancestors to the Eskimos had apparently hunted whales with primitive stone tools. Investigation of the ridges furthest from shore was curtailed by the presence of a shallow lagoon. This is where SRCs particular specialty came in. The three archeologists, accompanied by local park rangers of Eskimo descent, journeyed from Kotzebue by small boat through inland waterways to a point where they could don scuba gear and dry suits and examine the lagoon bottom underwater. The simple question was: did the ridges and their remarkable provenience characteristics continue on into the lagoon. If so, there would be compelling reason to design an underwater survey project to continue archeological investigation of the area. |
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In short, the teams finding was that the ridgelines did not continue under waters surface into the lagoon. Depending on the geological reason for the graduated (apparently scoured) gravel bottom, there would either be no material culture or artifacts whose value had been compromised by having been interspersed in a high-energy area.
- October 1989 - Larry Murphy, Dan Lenihan and Doug Anderson execute reconnaissance dives at Cape Krusenstern Lagoon to determine continuance of beach ridge underwater.
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Cape Krusenstern National Monument
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