Deanna Kingston

The multi-disciplinary group of scientists, led by OSU anthropologist Deanna Kingston, confirmed the age of materials at the village site using carbon dating techniques.

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The finding came from a four-year archaeological investigation of the island's culture, traditional knowledge, language, place names, animals and plants, underway with a $563,000 grant from the National Science Foundation.Beginning in 2003, Kingston - whose mother grew up on the island - returned each year with 30 King Island elders and a scientific team that included an archaeologist, an ornithologist, a botanist and a linguist.

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In an Associated Press story from 2003, Kingston said she expected to find a trove of ecological knoweldge by working with King Island elders and asking them to interpret the land and its lore.
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"Like many other Alaska native communities, King Islanders possess deep and unique knowledge about the natural world upon which they have depended for centuries," said Kingston, whose mother grew up on the island.
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Deanna Kingston

"My team (including brother Scott Kingston and graduate research assistant Kai Henifin) made audiotapes of the elders pronouncing some of the names of all the places," Kingston said, noting that only about 100 native speakers are living today.
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The key, says Kingston, is to document as much of the knowledge of the King Islanders as possible before it is lost.

A team of researchers, led by Oregon State University anthropologist Deanna Kingston, has discovered a prehistoric village on a tiny island in the Bering Sea Gazette Times

Deanna Kingston (OSU)

Chief researcher Deanna Kingston from the University of Oregon anthropology department, with staff and King Island elders continue the research project titled "Documenting the cultural geography, biogeography and traditional ecological knowledge of King Island, Alaska."Kingston is an anthropologist with local ties to the King Island community of Nome and a specific interest in folklore, oral traditions, ethnohistory, symbolic anthropology and visual anthropology.

The project is funded by the National Science Foundation and its purpose is to preserve traditional knowledge of King Island historic events and place names, as well as knowledge of the ecology of King Island.

A few days before heading out to the island, Kingston talked with The Nome Nugget and described this year's field season.The crew of scientists , besides Kingston, consists of ecologist Dr. Jesse Ford of the Oregon State University; bird expert Kim Nelson; Bering Strait Foundation staff archeologist Matt Ganley; linguist Dr. Lawrence Kaplan with UAF; and geoarcheologist Owen Manson.
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According to Kingston, the first group of King Islanders went with a staff of about 20 to King Island on June 10.Kingston said that two weeks ago, six elders were out on the island with the scientists, and that five more were scheduled to spend last week on the island.And not only the elders were allowed to go."There were King Islanders from ages 11 through 60," Kingston said.On June 24, the last group of King Islanders and staff will be wrapping up the second and last field season.

She said researchers found out that King Island hunters had a name for a bird, but couldn't identify it as a North American bird.

Judging from last year's experience, Kingston said that there is still a lot of traditional knowledge alive among the King Island population."The main thing is to map the place names, take pictures and record stories," said Kingston.This year she hopes to get all place names recorded and matched up with GPS readings.Place names, she said, could be anything from names of specific rocks to the name of a big area."Some names are very local, others cover a bigger area.But the names reflect what happened there," she said."Some names indicate that the place was used to hunt birds, to gather eggs or different greens, or to look out for seals," Kingston explained.

Kingston said that the buildings are pretty dilapidated but that some houses are still used as summer camps.

She said that the research party found 80 burial graves and a lot of unmarked graves.Before contact, the King Islanders tended to build rock cairns to bury their dead until the priests came and didn't approve of the practice.

A Catholic mission was built in 1929 on King Island, and the last priest left the island in 1959.

"Now, the elders are out there, helping the researchers to document place names, historical events, the unique ecology, naming plants and to document everything that happened out there from people's memory," said Kingston.