Imagine you have only one page of a book, but you can’t find the rest of the story. Imagine that page consists of little pieces of a mountain that could not have travelled across Alaska in any other way than to have been carried there by human beings. Until recently, that was the story of Wiki Peak in Wrangell St Elias National Park and Preserve (WRST). Obsidian identified as having come from Wiki Peak had been found across Alaska, in some of the earliest known sites of human habitation. However, there was no physical sign anywhere near the mountain itself of the people who must have lived or traveled there.

WRST archeologist Lee Reininghaus suspected that the people who harvested and traded the Wiki Peak obsidian lived, or at least camped, on the shores of a vanished lake. Lake Atna was an enormous freshwater sea created by glacial ice dams that is estimated to have formed 40,000 years ago, and drained 30,000 years later. Reininghaus was determined to find out more about the people who lived there, but first she had to search for the shores of a lake that doesn’t exist anymore.

Reininghaus used multiple puzzle pieces to identify areas to search for ancient human occupation. These included local knowledge of traditional travel routes, evidence of former water features long gone dry, and imagining whether a person would want to camp, travel, or hunt in a particular feature of the landscape. Collaboration with Ahtna, Inc. to gather local knowledge and geologist Michael Loso to search for geomorphological features was essential to gather all of these types of information. 

Reininghaus investigated multiple sites to search for signs of human use that would have been contemporary with Lake Atna, over 10,000 years ago. She will present the results of this search in a WISE Science Lecture that will be held virtually on Friday February 5 at 5pm. Reininghaus would love to take your comments and questions at that lecture. There will be a subsequent, companion lecture by archaeologist John T. White on February 12. If you are reading this after the fact, you may still be able to access a recording of the lecture on the WISE website. You can also send questions or comments to Lee Reininghaus at lee_reininghaus@nps.gov

For information about the WISE lecture, please visit www.wise-edu.org

You can find the full text of Lee Reininghaus’ published results online at https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Lee_Reininghaus

Article by Allison Sayer