A Historical Framework

Abstract

The analyses presented in this book rely on the periodization established for Kodiak culture history. Developed over the past 60 years, the framework was first roughed out by Hrdlička (1944; see Heizer, 1956; de Laguna, 1946) and was further refined in the 1960s with the University of Wisconsin’s Aleut-Koniag Project and related research (Clark, 1956,1960,1966a, 1966b, 1970a, 1970b, 1974a, 1974b; Laughlin and Reeder, 1962; Workman, 1966). The framework has seen no significant changes since Clark first documented the Ocean Bay period in 1963 (Clark, 1966a; 1974b). In various publications over the past 40 years, he has refined the culture history, characterizing the material culture, subsistence economy, and geographic variability of each period and phase (Clark, 1979, 1980, 1982, 1984b, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1992a, 1992b, 1994, 1996, 1997).¹ In the past two decades, Clark and other researchers have targeted the cultural and ethnic significance of transitions between periods (Clark, 1992b, 1997; Dumond, 1988a, 1994; Jordan and Knecht, 1988; Knecht, 1995). Also, a few studies have begun to consider issues of hunter-gatherer lifeways at different times in the past (Donta, 1993, 1994; Saltonstall 1995, 1996, 1997; Simon and Steffian 1994; Steffian 1992a, 1992b, Steffian and Saltonstall 2001; Steffian et al 1998).