Archaeology and cultural ecology of the prehistoric Angoon Tlingit

The ethnographic territory of the Angoon Tlingit includes parts of three large islands in the Alexander Archipelago of southeast Alaska. This research focuses on the area surrounding the village of Angoon on Admiralty Island. My objectives were: (1) to establish a local chronology and determine the antiquity of sites occupied during ethnohistoric times; (2) to examine the cultural use of the natural environment as represented in the faunal remains contained in archaeological deposits; and (3) to examine the validity of the ethnographic model of Tlingit subsistence and settlement for the prehistoric period.;Ten archaeological sites were selected as representative of three general site types: villages, forts, and fishing sites. In 1949-50, de Laguna (1960) conducted excavations at two of the forts, and briefly investigated three of the other sites. Since de Laguna's work, there has been no other archaeological research in the Angoon area. This study supplements de Laguna's research with new chronological and ecofactual data. Because of Admiralty Island's status as a National Monument Wilderness, I excavated small samples which were intensively analyzed.;This study has documented prehistoric use at 10 sites in the Angoon project area. The oldest site, the Favorite Bay fish weir, indicates that the Angoon Tlingit procured large quantities of salmon for storage 3000 years ago. Villages and fishing sites date within the last 1600 years, with fort occupation beginning about 1000 years ago.;Some site attributes, including site setting and the spatial distribution of cultural deposits, reflect ethnohistoric site functions. However, the subsistence remains provide surprisingly little evidence for functional specialization; a wide range of resources were exploited from all sites, exhibiting differential local resource availability. Faunal assemblages from six of the eight sites were statistically similar, regardless of ethnohistoric function. At all sites, midden contents reveal a strong reliance on shellfish as well as salmon. Saxidomus giganteus was particularly important in the Angoon economy. Faunal assemblages of two sites indicate specialized activities, not all of which were predicted from ethnohistoric data. The ethnographic model provides a general portrait of subsistence and settlement, but does not account for the adaptive strategy of the prehistoric Angoon Tlingit as revealed in the archaeological record.