Barrow, Alaska

Composed of a group of 16 mounds arranged in rows roughly parallel to the beach, this site is associated with the Birnirk and Thule cultures, both belonging to the North Alaskan branch of the Northern Maritime tradition, the earliest manifestation of the Eskimo culture in North Alaska.

Birnirk, a few miles outside Barrow, was a small village that dates back to about 500 A.D. The people here were among the earliest who lived in the same way as the modern whale and seal-hunting people of Alaska’s Arctic Coast. The lagoon, the land, and the sea near the village was a prehistoric supermarket, offering the villagers whales, walrus, seals, fish, waterfowl, and caribou. There’s still a summer hunting camp at Birnirk today.