Adlavik Islands

July 2002 camp which is located a little ways to the northeast of the site which is off to the left of the photo. One of the best things about the research at Adlavik, as all the students will agree, is the pleasure and excitement that is to be had in camping out at the site.(Dr. Stephen Loring) (larger version)

A joint initiative by the Smithsonian Institution and the Robert S. Peabody Museum of Archaeology in Andover, Massachusetts, in collaboration with the community of Makkovik (including the Jens [John Christian] Erhardt School and the Makkovik Historical Society) was launched during the summer of 1999. From its inception, the project was designed specifically as a community archaeology project whose avowed goals include working with the community to develop a program on archaeology in the local school curriculum; providing training and employment opportunities; identifying archaeological and historical resources in the vicinity of the community and to advance the heritage appreciation and awareness of tourism opportunities; and fostering pride in Labrador culture and heritage.

his picture, taken during the summer of 2000, shows Lena Onalik, Tracy-Ann Evans and Amalia Tuglavinia excavating in the "midden" out in front of House-1. The midden is the dumping area where people threw the accumulated trash and refuse from inside the house. You can see in the picture how rich the soil is and how it is full of animal bones (mostly seal). Tracy-Ann and Amalia have excavated down to the level of the old sandy beach which would have been the ground level at the time the Inuit arrived at Adlavik. All the dark brown dirt that they have dug away is the accumulated midden: slops, wood chips, old skins, garbage, etc. discarded by the Inuit inhabitants at the site. (larger version)

The goals of the 1999 fieldwork included determining the community's interest in supporting a cooperative archaeological program associated with the J.C. Erhardt school, and assessing the viability of a site at Adlavik Harbour, about 35 kms east of the village. The 1999 fieldwork was conducted under a research permit issued by the Newfoundland-Labrador Division of Culture, Tourism and Recreation. It was supported by the Arctic Studies Center, the Robert S. Peabody Museum, Brown University, the community of Makkovik, the Makkovik Historical Society and by a generous grant from the Quebec-Labrador Foundation. The student team from Makkovik - Bernie Andersen, Errol Andersen, Tracy-Ann Evans, Amalia [Tuglavina], and Lena Onalik - proved to be exceptionally dedicated, hard-working and imaginative.

The remains of three large rectangular sod-wall structures were discovered at Adlavik Harbour in 1987 during a Smithsonian reconnaissance. Along with the famous site at Eskimo Island in the Narrows of Hamilton Inlet, the Adlavik Harbour site appears to be one of the southernmost Eskimo settlements in Labrador. Research here is expected to contribute tremendously to an understanding of Labrador Eskimo culture history. The size of these structures suggested that they are the remains of Inuit communal houses dating to sometime in the late-17th or early-18th century, a time when Inuit groups in Labrador were coalescing around prominent native leaders. It was a time of tremendous social change as Inuit families sought prestige and power through increased interactions with Europeans, interaction that ran the spectrum from trading to warfare to outright murder.

We hoped the 1999 field work would enable us to determine the rough chronology of the site and acquire information about the extent of cultural deposits and their preservation at the site so that we would be able to determine how an archaeology program for high school students could be planned and developed. Fieldwork was conducted between August fourteenth and the twenty-second.

This slide looks over the site to the bay full of ice. House-1 (partially excavated) is the large rectangular depression in the lower middle of the photograph. Some of the walls of House-3 are to the left of it. (larger version)

The sod-house structures at Adlavik Harbour are nestled beneath a high bedrock knoll that hides the site from view by travelers working their way along the Labrador coast. We suspect that this defensive attribute of the site's situation is not fortuitous, but reflects the pervasive climate of social unrest, a consequence of the incessant internecine raiding and trading that characterized 17-18th century relations between the Inuit and the expanding European presence along the south and central Labrador coasts.

This is the view up the entrance tunnel into House-1. When the people lived here it would have been covered with skins and sods making a narrow and cramped crawlway to get into the house. (larger version)

Test units were placed in the interior of House-1 and House-2 with more or less similar results. They demonstrated that the structures were both exceptionally well-preserved and undisturbed, with features including paved floors, sleeping platforms, lamp stands, storage alcoves, etc., which upon completion of excavations would present striking and dramatic examples of 18th century Labrador Inuit winter dwelling.

A two-meter long test-excavation unit was placed in the midden in front of House-1, just beyond the beginning of the entrance passage. The loamy organic midden soil proved to be almost 40cm deep and full of refuse bone and wood demonstrating the presence of an intact stratified deposit with exceptional preservation.

The midden contains a promising array of artifactual remains from both domestic and subsistence contexts, indicative of both traditional Inuit tools and technologies (especially harpoon technology and fragments of soapstone kettles) and new tool forms (harpoons made of iron, European iron pots) and raw materials (iron nails, spikes, bolts and scrap). A few European ceramic shreds were recovered including grey stoneware and delft-ware. Preliminary analysis supports the interpretation that the site was occupied sometime between ca. AD 1680 and 1750.

This photograph shows the finished excavation in the midden out in front of House-1. The north arrow is resting on the old sandy beach ontop of which the Inuit built their houses and threw their trash. In the wall you can see almost 40cms of midden deposits. We think all this refuse accumulated over a three to five year period (perhaps a little longer???). Note the thin white lines near the top of the wall: these are the remains of mussel shells which we think indicates an early spring diet. (larger version)

While middens are usually interpreted as areas of refuse accumulation, their proximity to houses means that certain activities including wood cutting, animal butchery, tool manufacture, maintenance of dog teams and storage facilities must have occurred on or in close vicinity to the midden. Just one example of these sorts of activities is indicated by the large whale vertebra that was found that had been used as an anvil in the production of tools and for splitting wood. A test-pit in the entrance passage for House-2 produced not only iron scraps and many nails and rivets but also the neck and upper portion of a large green glass bottle of late 17th century English style. The bottle fragments may attest to Inuit interest in glass as a raw material or perhaps in the wine contents. The glass may be the remains of scavenged objects found at European sites, or a bottle that washed ashore to the astonishment of the Inuit--as attested to in a delightful story recorded by Junius Bird (Archaeology of the Hopedale Region, 1945:163).

This is a photograph of the top of an 18th century hand-blown glass bottle that almost certainly had some sort of liquor in it when it was last full! Found in the entrance way out in from of House-2 at Adlavik Harbour. (larger version)

In this original (1934) pre-play of the Gods Must be Crazy, Bird's Inuit assistant Heinrich Ursak, commented on similar bottle fragments recovered from the Hopedale sod-houses, recounted a song he knew about the discovery of the first glass bottle even seen by an Inuk! This is a remarkable example of the tenacity of oral history since the event, according to Mr. Ursak, had happened prior to the arrival of the Moravians at Hopedale in 1781. The story even included the fact that the bottle was round-bottomed and would not stand upright, a description that fits what we know about many 18th century bottles like the one recovered at Adlavik.

The general paucity of European manufactured products at Adlavik Harbour - with the significant exception of iron (iron nails, spikes, bolts and scrap) - suggests that the assemblage of European objects and materials was derived from Inuit raids or scavenging expeditions to southern Labrador. The site location itself implies both a need to monitor the coming and going of groups (Inuit and Europeans alike) along the central coast and perhaps, fear of retaliation, given its hidden, defensive position.

At Adlavik we have found lots of iron, as well as scraps of copper sheeting (either from boat keels or more likely from huge copper basins and tubs), and lead. European raw materials that the Inuit acquired and then fashioned into their own tools: iron nails became ulu knives, harpoon end-blades, snow knives, cod jigs, arrowheads and deer spears; lead was melted down and cast to make ornaments and copper was cut to make earrings and head-bands. We think that the European metals were acquired in southern Labrador during raids to seasonally abandoned European fishing stations. (larger version)

However exciting the archaeology and the history of Labrador's indigenous Indian and Inuit populations are, much of the results of this research are unknown to Labrador communities. Until recently few First Nations individuals have been involved in more than a cursory fashion in archaeological projects addressing their own history. The primary goal of our project is to address this problem and to make archaeology an intimate feature of coastal Labrador communities. We believe that the project will contribute significantly to an awareness of the deep historical roots of the community and serve as a source of local pride for young people and a model for projects in other Labrador communities.

Both the Arctic Studies Center and the Robert S. Peabody Museum for Archaeology believe that community based research is the future of archaeology in Labrador. The project is committed to careful exploration and development of Labrador's heritage resources and to make opportunities available to young people from Labrador communities. The future of the past in Labrador belongs to Labradorians. Our research seeks to develop new ways to involve student, community members and political leadership in the production of Labrador history.

Evidence of our success is noted in comments from the student evaluations:

When I found out that I was going on this trip, I was very happy for many reasons. One was to learn about the way the Inuit lived and to go back to the place where I fished with my uncle who passed away, so it was good to be back there and to see what archaeology is like. - Errol Andersen

Overall this was one of the most boring, but most interesting things I have ever been on. I have learned a lot about the past life of my ancestors and how important archaeology really is. - Tracy-Ann Evans

As I sit here and collect my thoughts of the past week, I realize I've learned so much about the way our ancestors lived and it makes me feel proud that I could learn more about our culture from this expedition. - Lena Onalik

Essay on Experiences at Adlavik Islands Archaeological Dig - By Erin Andersen

Nisbet Harbour Dig