2014 excavation at agvik

Agvik (OkRn-1) is a Thule-Inuit archaeological site located on top of a steep bank about 30 km southeast of Sachs Harbour. Thule is the name archaeologists give to the ancestors of all Inuit peoples, including Inuvialuit, who migrated into the Canadian Arctic from Alaska around 1200 AD. The site has the remains of at least 13 houses, possibly as many as 15. Most of them cluster near a gully that leads from the top of bank down to the gravel beach.  Radiocarbon dates show that people lived at Agvik during two separate periods, first between around 1400 AD, and again around1550 AD.
 
Erosion, caused by climate change, is destroying many archaeological sites in the Arctic. Three houses at Agvik are under immediate threat. This concerns many Sachs Harbour community members and the IAP team because once these dwellings erode the stories they can tell about the past are lost forever. To try to salvage information from a quickly eroding house known as Dwelling 2, the IAP team partially excavated it in 2014. Dwelling 2 is a qarmaq that was lived in during the later occupation of the settlement. This period of time is poorly understood by archaeologists working in the region.
Map showing the location of Agvik.
The IAP team excavated for four weeks and uncovered over 400 artifacts. Community members helped identify and interpret several artifacts. An unusually large portion of the artifacts recovered were slate ulut (women’s knives) and ulut fragments – 94 in total! The team also recovered 44 pieces of un-worked slate. The excavation of Dwelling 2 produced over 30,000 animal bones and bone fragments. Findings from the excavation indicate that white fox processing may have been a central focus for the occupants of this dwelling. This comes as no surprise, as Banks Island has long been considered the “White Fox Capital of the World” and many Inuvialuit families first came to Banks Island in the 1920s and 30s for white fox trapping.

Click the links below to learn more about the excavation.