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<< Our Photo Pages >> Feniak Lake - Rock Art in United States in Alaska

Submitted by bat400 on Monday, 24 October 2011  Page Views: 8725

Rock ArtSite Name: Feniak Lake
Country: United States
NOTE: This site is 55.572 km away from the location you searched for.

Region: Alaska Type: Rock Art
Nearest Town: Anchorage, AK  Nearest Village: Kotzebue, AK
Latitude: 68.273000N  Longitude: 158.33W
Condition:
5Perfect
4Almost Perfect
3Reasonable but with some damage
2Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site
1Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks
0No data.
-1Completely destroyed
4 Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
no data Access:
5Can be driven to, probably with disabled access
4Short walk on a footpath
3Requiring a bit more of a walk
2A long walk
1In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find
0No data.
1 Accuracy:
5co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates
4co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map
3co-ordinates scaled from a bad map
2co-ordinates of the nearest village
1co-ordinates of the nearest town
0no data
3

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Feniak Lake
Feniak Lake submitted by bat400_photo : Feniak4. Photo by Scott Shirar. Source: University of Alaska Fairbanks News release dated 7th Sept 11. One of the petroglyph-adorned boulders found in the Noatak National Preserve by archaeologists working for the National Park Service 40 years ago. (Vote or comment on this photo)
Rock Art in Alaska.
The rock art is found on inscribed boulders near a Late Prehistoric village site. In addition to petroglyphs, the village site contains stone ringed structure sites called qargi and many archaeological features associated with hunting, storage and home sites.

The village site is considered to be late prehistoric, but some evidence indicates occupation as early as 1000 AD. Feniak Lake is part of the Noatak National Preserve. It is within the Brooks Range and is not accessible without a guide and generally a float plane.

Note: Clay disks appear to be a new artifact type for Alaska. “We only opened up a small amount of ground at the site, ... four of these artifacts indicates there are probably more and that something really significant is happening”
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"Feniak Lake" | Login/Create an Account | 4 News and Comments
  
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Re: Archaeologists Find Curious Prehistoric Artifacts At Noatak National Preserve by Anonymous on Tuesday, 05 June 2018
That "rock" art is not what you think it is..think big contact mud fossil university what you have there is a fossilised sole of a foot the heel to be exact bottoms up the carving are the foot print not carvings at all
Dr.Was

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UAF archaeologist excited by discovery of clay disks in Noatak National Preserve by bat400 on Monday, 24 October 2011
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Another news item from coldrum:

Scott Shirar headed to Noatak National Preserve in July with petroglyphs and boulders on his mind. But when the University of Alaska Museum of the North archaeologist left the Northwest Alaska preserve two weeks later, four small clay disks had stolen his attention.

The biggest of the disks is only about the size of a silver dollar, but they’re a big discovery, Shirar said. Similar disks have been found on St. Lawrence and Kodiak islands but never before in Arctic Alaska.

The find could potentially tweak modern conceptions about daily life for the ancient inhabitants around the Noatak River.

Shirar said items found at such sites are generally basic tools or animal bones. The discovery of the mysterious clay disks — two of which are etched with basic designs — adds a bit of intrigue to the lives of people who lived in the area as long as 1,000 years ago.

“A lot of times it’s survival things: What were people eating, how were they killing things?” Shirar said. “This gives you a little more of a look at the artistic and emotional side, which is always exciting as an archaeologist.”

There are several theories about what the disks might be, but the answer remains hazy.

In other areas, similar items have been used as gaming pieces, lids for small baskets, decorative jewelry or counterweights used to help spin fabric into yarn. An Inupiaq member of the dig team thought they might be buttons for skin tents.

Shirar said carbon dating of charcoal at the site should provide a good estimate of when the disks were made. Once that puzzle has been solved, he plans to spend the winter researching their function.

“That’s the big question right now,” Shirar said. “What were people using them for?”

Mike Holt, the National Park Service archaeologist for the Arctic National Park lands, said the discovery of the disks adds some excitement to a site that had been located but largely unexplored for nearly 40 years.

“We were quite excited to find them, and even more elated when we found out that nobody knows what they are,” Holt said. “It’s always fun to find something new.”

The archaeological project began as something quite different. Several boulders covered with manmade carvings and depressions had been discovered in the 1960s and 1970s near Feniak Lake. The rock art, called petroglyphs, had remained undocumented until this summer, when a team from the UA Museum of the North and the National Park Service collaborated to describe them formally.

While on site, the team also worked to excavate about 10 ancient dwellings. Small, shallow areas were explored in each home, Shirar said, as well as from a communal dwelling in the area.

In all, Shirar said only about 3 or 4 square meters were unearthed, but the discovery of the disks provided more than enough incentive to continue. He said a return visit to the site is planned for next summer.

The prospects for more discoveries looks good. Holt said a “pedestrian survey” through another site spotted two more clay disks simply sitting on the ground.

“It’s got the ‘wow factor’ for us,” Holt said. “It’s very exciting.”

Read more: Fairbanks Daily News-Miner - UAF archaeologist excited by discovery of clay disks in Noatak National Preserve
http://www.newsminer.com/view/full_story/15496938/article-UAF-archaeologist-excited-by-discovery-of-clay-disks-in-Noatak-National-Preserve?
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Re: Archaeologists Find Curious Prehistoric Artifacts At Noatak National Preserve by Condros on Monday, 24 October 2011
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Thanks bat400 and Coldrum for this great article, I can't wait to see detailed photos of the disks they mention, as well as any carbon dating at the site.
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Archaeologists Find Curious Prehistoric Artifacts At Noatak National Preserve by bat400 on Sunday, 23 October 2011
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coldrum submitted this news story:

A team from the University of Alaska Museum of the North expected to find more boulders etched with petroglyphs during an expedition to further explore the remains of three prehistoric lake-front dwellings in Northwest Alaska’s Noatak National Preserve this summer.

However, when archaeologist Scott Shirar and members of his team began small-scale excavations at two of the sites, they made a fascinating new discovery: four decorated clay disks that appear to be the first of their kind found in Alaska.

“The first one looks like a little stone that had some scratch marks on it,” said Shirar, a research archaeologist at the University of Alaska Museum of the North. “We got really excited when we found the second one with the drilled hole and the more complicated etchings on it. That’s when we realised we had something unique.”

After discussion with colleagues and searching for references in the archaeological record, Shirar came to the conclusion that the disks appear to be a new artefact type for Alaska. He added, “We only opened up a really small amount of ground at the site, so the fact that we found four of these artefacts indicates there are probably more and that something really significant is happening.”

While prehistoric rock art is common in some regions, such as the American Southwest, it is exceptionally rare in Interior and Northern Alaska

While prehistoric rock art is common in some regions, such as the American Southwest, it is exceptionally rare in Interior and Northern Alaska. Archaeologists working in the 1960s and 70s found the boulders at three different lake-front sites in what is now the Noatak National Preserve.

The rock art remained on location, undocumented for almost 40 years until this summer, when a team from the UA Museum of the North and the National Park Service assembled to create a permanent record at two of the sites.

Mareca Guthrie, fine arts collection manager at the University of Alaska Museum of the North, joined the expedition to make sketches and take tracings of the boulders. At first, she was just excited for an opportunity to get out of the basement of the museum for a week, but she quickly developed an appreciation for the people who had lived there.

“It felt so intimate to be looking through someone else’s things, knowing that they sat in the same spot and saw the same view of the mountains. When I started getting tired of the mixed nuts I brought for lunch, I thought, ‘Did the kids complain when they ate caribou day after day or were they thankful to have it?’” she said. “I became so hungry to know more about them, I’m afraid I may have driven the archaeologists a little crazy with my questions.”

The team visited the site to both document the rock art and also excavate subterranean house pits to locate samples that could be used for radiocarbon dating, such as animal bones, charcoal or other organic matter in order to get a better idea of when people lived there.

Shirar said the precise meaning of these petroglyphs, as well as the designs on the clay disks, is still unknown, but their value is clear.

“These objects and places clearly had special significance to their makers. These finds offer an especially tangible reminder of the rich spiritual and intellectual lives they led.”

Read more at >> http://www.pasthorizonspr.com.
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