Archaeological site revealing early Yup’ik life ravaged by typhoon

Various tools, utensils and other artifacts that were recovered after the Typhoon Halong scattered them from a significant Yup’ik archaeological site, in Alaska

A fragment of a mask that was preserved for hundreds of years in permafrost sat in the muck of a low tide in the western Alaska community of Quinhagak. Wooden spoons, toys, a fishing lure and other artifacts were strewn, in some cases for miles, along the beach.

The Yup’ik community near the edge of the Bering Sea was spared the widespread devastation wrought by the remnants of Typhoon Halong on its neighbors further west earlier this month. But it suffered a different kind of blow: The lashing winds and storm surge devoured dozens of feet of shoreline, disrupting a culturally significant archaeological site and washing away possibly thousands of unearthed artifacts.

About 1,000 pieces, including wooden masks and tools, were recovered in Quinhagak after the storm ravaged parts of southwest Alaska on Oct. 11 and 12. But many more pieces — perhaps up to 100,000 — were left scattered, said Rick Knecht, an archaeologist who has worked on the Nunalleq, or old village, project for 17 years. That’s roughly the number of pieces previously recovered from the archaeological site.

Meanwhile, freezing temperatures and ice have settled into the region, stalling immediate efforts to find and recover more displaced artifacts on searches done by four-wheeler and foot.

Knecht called what happened a major loss. The site has yielded the world’s largest collection of pre-contact Yup’ik artifacts. Much of what’s known about Yup’ik life before outsiders arrived stems from the project, said Knecht, an emeritus senior lecturer in archaeology at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland.

“When there are holes or disturbances in the site, it’s like trying to read a book with holes in the pages. You’re going to miss a few things,” he said. “And the bigger those holes are, the weaker the story gets. There’s a few holes in the book right now.”

While the name of the original village isn’t known, it was attacked by another village and burned around 1650, he said. Knecht has worked with elders and others in Quinhagak to combine their traditional knowledge with the technology and techniques used by the archaeology teams to study the past together.

Quinhagak has about 800 residents, and subsistence food gathering is critically important to them.

The storm dispersed artifacts from a site long preserved by permafrost, Knecht said. A longstanding concern has been the threat that climate change — melting permafrost, coastal erosion, the potential for more frequent or stronger storms — has posed to the site, he said.

It poses risks to the community itself. Erosion threatens major infrastructure in Quinhagak, including a sewage lagoon, homes and fish camps. Thawing permafrost is also unsettling and undermining buildings, according to a 2024 report from the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium.

The excavation project itself began after artifacts began appearing on the beach around 2007. Part of the site that washed out had been excavated previously.

When he left in July, there was a roughly 30-foot buffer to the sea. The storm took out the buffer and another 30 feet of the site, he said. It also left what Knecht described as piano-sized clumps of tundra on the tidal flats. BECKY BOHRER, JUNEAU, MDT/AP