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Amy Steffian, Marny A. Leist, Sven Haakanson Jr., and Patrick Saltonstall, eds. Kalunek-From Karluk: Kodiak Alutiiq History and the Archaeology of the Karluk One Village Site. Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press, 2015. 398 pp. Cloth, $50.00.
While busy generations of villagers fished, foraged, hunted, danced, and played on the shores of the Karluk River on Kodiak Island, Alaska, where incarnation after incarnation of snug, multiroom sod and driftwood houses studded the riverbanks, those villagers also slowly recorded the history of the village.
But in 1983, under siege from accelerating erosion and in danger of being lost forever, the village of Karluk One became the intense focus of archaeologists, elders, villagers, scholars, researchers, Native organizations, and the like, becoming Alaska's most revealing and far-reaching archaeological project. This diverse group of people embarked on a project to salvage, record, interpret, and preserve not only the artifacts but also the history of the culture from which they came. Through these artifacts those who lived at Karluk One are revealed in such depth and detail that they begin to take form and fill with substance as we read. Kalunek-From Karluk is a landmarkbookthat deftly melds the story of the dig with Alutiiq history, ethnology, and anthropology and with the voices of elders, villagers, archaeologists, scholars, and the caretakers of the Karluk One collection, composing a dynamic time line on which the daily life of this ancient village is clearly...