Book
The anthropology of Kodiak Island
AMS Press • New York • Published In 1975 • Pages:
By: Hrdlicka, Ales.
AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
This is a photocopy reprint of the 1944 edition. The Koniag were an important and little known population of American aboriginals. They were the occupants of Kodiak Island and the neighboring coast of southwest Alaska, at the time of European contact and constituted Hrdlicka's opinion, 'one of the largest native American groups of the time' (p. 19). The Koniag themselves, however, were relative latecomers to the island, arriving only 300-400 years before the Russians. They displaced a physically and culturally distinct population, the Pre-Koniag, which had occupied the island for perhaps the last 2000 years (pp.320-322). This monograph is divided into 4 parts. The first (pp. 9-92) reviews the ethnohistorical literature, principally Russian, and presents a basic descriptive ethnography based on the observations of Europeans in contact with the Koniag from the discovery of the island in 1763, to those of visitors of the mid 19th century. The second part (pp. 93-134) is a brief account of Hrdlicka's archaeological surveys of Kodiak and the neighboring area. The third part and the bulk of the book (pp. 135-352) is an almost day-by-day account of his archaeological work on the island. It is well illustrated but is little more than field notes and yearly summaries. The archaeological evidence remains largely unanalyzed (see 2:Heizer), and the cultural context of this material is not clear. The fourth part (pp. 353-434) concerns the physical anthropology of the Koniag and Pre-Koniag. It includes measurements of the full-blooded Koniag and the excavated skeletons. The skeletal remains are compared with American whites (as a standard), and Eskimos, Alutes, and Alaskan Indians in order to determine racial affiliations. Hrdlicka concludes that the Koniag are 'an anthropologically distinct unit widely different in many respects from the Eskimo, considerably closer to yet somewhat distinct from the Alutes' (p. 394). He concludes that the Pre-Koniag were most likely part of the larger Algonquin branch of the American natives. Two appendices covering stone and bone artifacts (pp. 434-474) and the archaeological remains of plant and animal life (pp. 475-481) are also included. The ethnohistorical section is probably the most valuable part of the source in terms of providing a description of a living culture.
- SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
- Maps
- Anthropometry
- Descriptive somatology
- Racial identification
- Physiological data
- Prehistory
- Acculturation and culture contact
- Lithic industries
- Dwellings
- Heating and lighting equipment
- cultureCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
- Alutiiq
- HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document
- 2005
- RegionThe area the document pertains to
- North America
- Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
- Arctic and Subarctic
- Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs
- Book
- Evaluation
- Creator TypeThe type of person writing the document, e.g. Ethnographer, Missionary, Archaeologist, Folklorist, Linguist, Indigenous Person, and so on.
- Physical Anthropologist
- Document Rating A ranking done by HRAF anthropologists based on the strength of the source material on a scale of 1 to 5, as follows: 1 - poor; 2 - fair; 3 - good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent; 4 - excellent secondary data; 5 - excellent primary data.
- 4: Excellent Secondary Data
- 5: Excellent Primary Data
- AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection
- Martin Malone ; 1976
- Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
- 1931-1936
- Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
- ca. 1 A.D.-1936 A.D.
- Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
- Kodiak Island, Alaska, United States
- NotesAdditional notes
- Ales Hrdlicka
- Reprint of the 1944 ed. published by the Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology, Philadelphia
- Since the cultural context of the archaeological evidence is not clear, nearly all of it has been indexed for Prehistory (172).
- Discussions of the skeletal material have been indexed for Anthropometry (141) and Prehistory (172).
- Includes bibliographical references (p. 480-482) and index
- LCCNLibrary of Congress Control Number
- 74005848
- LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
- Koniagmiut Eskimos