LAS December2011 Headlines:
Ancient bronze artifact from East Asia unearthed at Alaska archaeology site
University of Colorado at Boulder News Center, November 14, 2011
A team of researchers led by the University of Colorado Boulder has discovered the first prehistoric bronze artifact made from a cast ever found in Alaska, a small, buckle-like object found in an ancient Eskimo dwelling and which likely originated in East Asia.
The artifact consists of two parts -- a rectangular bar, connected to an apparently broken circular ring, said CU-Boulder Research Associate John Hoffecker, who is leading the excavation project. The object, about 2 inches by 1 inch and less than 1 inch thick, was found in August by a team excavating a roughly 1,000-year-old house that had been dug into the side of a beach ridge by early Inupiat Eskimos at Cape Espenberg on the Seward Peninsula, which lies within the Bering Land Bridge National Preserve.
Both sections of the artifact are beveled on one side and concave on the other side, indicating it was manufactured in a mold, said Hoffecker, a fellow at CU-Boulder's Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research. A small piece of leather found wrapped around the rectangular bar by the research team yielded a radiocarbon date of roughly A.D. 600, which does not necessarily indicate the age of the object, he said.
"I was totally astonished," said Hoffecker. "The object appears to be older than the house we were excavating by at least a few hundred years."
Hoffecker and his CU-Boulder colleague Owen Mason said the bronze object resembles a belt buckle and may have been used as part of a harness or horse ornament prior to its arrival in Alaska. While they speculated the Inupiat Eskimos could have used the artifact as a clasp for human clothing or perhaps as part of a shaman's regalia, its function on both continents still remains a puzzle, they said.
Since bronze metallurgy from Alaska is unknown, the artifact likely was produced in East Asia and reflects long-distance trade from production centers in either Korea, China, Manchuria or southern Siberia, according to Mason. It conceivably could have been traded from the steppe region of southern Siberia, said Hoffecker, where people began casting bronze several thousand years ago.
Alternatively, some of the earliest Inupiat Eskimos in northwest Alaska -- the direct ancestors of modern Eskimos thought to have migrated into Alaska from adjacent Siberia some 1,500 years ago -- might have brought the object with them from the other side of the Bering Strait. "It was possibly valuable enough so that people hung onto it for generations, passing it down through families," said Mason, an INSTAAR affiliate and co-investigator on the Cape Espenberg excavations.
The Seward Peninsula is a prominent, arrowhead-shaped land mass that abuts the Bering Strait separating Alaska from Siberia. The peninsula was part of the Bering Land Bridge linking Asia and North America during the last ice age when sea level had dropped dramatically, and may have been used by early peoples as a corridor to migrate from Asia into the New World some 14,000 years ago.
The artifact was discovered in August by University of California, Davis, doctoral student Jeremy Foin under 3 feet of sediment near an entryway to a house at Cape Espenberg. Other project members included Chris Darwent of UC Davis, Claire Alix of the University of Paris, Nancy Bigelow of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, Max Friesen of the University of Toronto and Gina Hernandez of the National Park Service.
"The shape of the object immediately caught my eye," said Foin, who spotted the soil-covered artifact in an archaeological sifting screen. "After I saw that it clearly had been cast in a mold, my first thought was disbelief, quickly followed by the realization that I had found something of potentially great significance."
The CU-led excavations are part of a National Science Foundation-funded project designed to study human response to climate change at Cape Espenberg from A.D. 800 to A.D. 1400, a critical period of cultural change in the western Arctic, said Mason. Of particular interest are temperature and environmental changes that may be related to Earth's Medieval Warm Period that lasted from about A.D. 950 to 1250.
"That particular time period is thought by some to be an analog of what is happening to our environment now as Earth's temperatures are rising," said Mason. "One of our goals is to find out how these people adapted to a changing climate through their subsistence activities."
The Cape Espenberg beach ridges, wave-swept deposits made of sand and sediment running parallel to the shoreline that were deposited over centuries, often are capped by blowing sand to form high dunes. The Cape Espenberg dwellings were dug into the dunes and shored up with driftwood and occasional whale bones.
The team is examining the timing and formation of the beach ridges as well as the contents of peat and pond sediment cores to help them reconstruct the sea-level history and the changing environment faced by Cape Espenberg's settlers. Information on past climates also is contained in driftwood tree rings, and the team is working with INSTAAR affiliate Scott Elias, a University of London professor and expert on beetle fossils, who is helping the team reconstruct past temperatures at Cape Espenberg.
While the hunting of bowhead whales was a way of life for Inupiat Eskimos at Barrow and Point Hope in northwestern Alaska 1,000 years ago, it is still not clear if the Cape Espenberg people were whaling, said Mason. While whale baleen -- a strong, flexible material found in the mouths of whales that acts as a food filter -- and a variety of whale bones have been found during excavations there, the sea offshore is extremely shallow and some distance from modern whale migration routes. However, there is evidence of fishing and seal and caribou hunting by the group, he said.
The Inupiat Eskimos are believed to have occupied Cape Espenberg from about A.D. 1000 until the mid-1800s, said Hoffecker. They are part of the indigenous Eskimo culture that lives in Earth's circumpolar regions like Alaska, Siberia and Canada.
The Cape Espenberg site has yielded a treasure trove of several thousand artifacts, including sealing harpoons, fishing spears and lures, a copper needle, slate knives, antler arrow points, a shovel made from a walrus scapula, a beaver incisor pendant, ceramics, and even toy bows and toy harpoons. The bronze artifact unearthed in August is currently under study by prehistoric metallurgical expert and Purdue University Assistant Professor H. Kory Cooper.
A video news story on the discovery is available by going to and clicking on the story headline. A podcast on the find can be found at
NOTE: What follows is two separate articles with information on the Pulliam Building Renovation Project:
Returning Community to the Pulliam Community Building
Pulliam Project Making Significant Strides
Pulliam Building Renovation Project news release, November 17, 2011
The State Historical Fund has awarded the City of Loveland and thePulliam Building Renovation Project a $15,000 Structural AssessmentGrant. These funds will be used to look deeper into the structure ofthe building to help with architectural, mechanical, and engineeringaspects of the renovation project.
This is a big step on the path of renovating and operating thePulliam Community Building for the next ten to twenty years. It willhelp tremendously in refining the design elements of the renovation.
Total Funds Raised Now Tops $170,000
Two more generous donations and pledges have been received bycommunity supporters: Lis and Earl Sethre and Mary and DavidGullikson. These donations have been matched by the PulliamCharitable Trust. In addition, because the project is in theEnterprise Zone, they can receive income tax credits for theircontributions.
We thank these forward thinking citizens for their support!
More Support from Businesses
Mary and Jeff Hiatt of the Bonnell building are putting their supportbehind the Pulliam Building as are other significant business ownersin the event business. Joe Palieri, owner of The Garden Room, is onthe Pulliam Operations Advisory Committee. They all recognize thebenefits to downtown, and our community, that the Pulliam Buildingcan provide.
You too can take advantage of the Enterprise Zone tax credits. Makeyour contribution before the end of 2011 and a pledge for 2012. Contact Norm Rehme for details or see our website:
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Loveland's Pulliam Building draws state grant
Colorado Historical Fund will pay for assessment of structure's condition
By Tom Hacker,Loveland Reporter-Herald Staff Writer, Posted11/28/2011
Efforts to rehabilitate the Pulliam Building, the art-deco relic of the Depression era on Cleveland Avenue, has gotten a boost from the Colorado Historical Society.
While the $14,715 grant is a minute slice of the $2.9 million tab that backers of the Pulliam resurrection hope to raise, it is a key to unlocking other historic preservation grants that could put a bigger dent in the project's cost.
The grant will fund a structural and engineering assessment of the building, steps needed to secure state and federal historic landmark status as well as to lay the foundation for future reconstruction work.
The evaluation will cover the 75-year-old building's structural, mechanical, electrical and accessibility features
"We hope to use that study as the basis for future grant funding that we know is available, in the range of $300,000 or so," said Bethany Clark, historic preservation planner for the city.
Historic designation also opens the door to federal and state tax credits to offset rehabilitation expenses. Given the funding formula that will be required to move the project ahead, every source counts.
Loveland resident Norm Rehme, who is leading the Pulliam preservation movement, also counts on a city contribution to the costs in exchange for a guarantee to cover operating and maintenance expenses that are a continuous drain on public resources.
"This would reduce the city's annual subsidy to zero," Rehme told city councilors last summer when he described a non-profit corporation that would operate the Pulliam as a community center for events of all kinds.
Fort Collins architect Carl Glaser, who is working with Rehme on the project, said the state grant had been anonymously matched by a private donor in Loveland, reflecting the support that the Pulliam renovation work is gaining.
"It's really time," Glaser said. "It's time for the Pulliam. It will play a very important role in the infusion of energy for downtown Loveland."
Tom Hacker can be reached at 669-5050, ext. 521, or .
Tom Westfall Book:
For information on how to order your own copy of Tom Westfall’s new book, Stone Fruit, see the LAS News and Upcoming Events section on the next page. Get your copy today!
LAS Find of the Month, December2011:
Members can bring an artifact to be entered into the competition at the monthly meeting, which will be judged based on the following rules:
1. Must be a member of LAS in good standing.
2. The artifact must be a personal find.
3. It must have been found within the specified time frame, i.e., within the month prior to the meeting.
4. The artifact doesn’t have to be a Colorado find—all that matters is that it was found in the last month.
The Find of the Month for December 2011 was made byRuth Kasl.
Type: Knife
Material: Quartzite
Location: Converse County, Wyoming
LAS News and Upcoming Events:
Tom Westfall bookTom Westfall’s new book, Stone Fruit, is now on sale. To
purchase your copy send$26.50 to:
Tom Westfall
10512 Co. Rd. 39
Sterling, Co 80751
You can also e-mail Tom at , or
phone him at970-630-3748. Order now – the price will be
going up after the beginning of the year.
January 3, 2012January meeting. No speaker is planned. Bring artifacts for show and tell.
February 7, 2012February meeting. Speaker and presentation to be announced.
March 6, 2012March meeting. Jason Chambers, 2010 Dorothy Mountain Scholarship recipient, will
be giving a presentation on his research at the Lindenmeyer site in northern
Colorado.
SPEAKERS NEEDED!! If you have a program you’d like to give or know of someone who would like to give a presentation at one of our meetings please let us know. We’re trying to schedule speakers for calendar year 2012, and January is just around the corner!
- ALSO -
Don’t forget to pay your dues for 2012!
- Sponsor of the Annual Loveland Stone Age Fair -
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