Excavating Qarigi at the Qitchauvik Site

The Qitchauvik site, on the shore of Golovin Lagoon. was the location of a men’s house, or qarigi, used between about A.D. 550 and 750. Qarigi are identified in the archeological record by their large size and by the low incidence, traditionally, of tools related to women’s activities such as sewing and cooking. The appearance of the qarigi in northwestern Alaska coincides with increasingly sedentary communities, greater population densities, more elaborate burial customs, and warfare. The qarigi provided communal space for discussion and developing cooperative solutions to social and environmental challenges.

The Setting

The location of the Qitchauvik site provided its people with access to important resources. The Golovin region is one of the few places on the Seward Peninsula where the tree line descends to sea level. People could easily harvest spruce wood, roots, bark, and needles for making things and for starting fires. Driftwood from trees growing in interior Alaska that were carried to the ocean by the Yukon River littered the beaches. Driftwood was burned for light and heat, and used as a raw material for housing and household items.

The site is situated near the mouth of a small river that drains into the Golovin Lagoon. The shallow waters of the Golovin Lagoon attracted pods of beluga whales that migrated through the sound in the spring and fall. Several species of salmon and trout spawned each year. These concentrations of fish could be speared or netted, and artifacts from the site suggest that the people at the Qitchauvik site did both. Seals were also available.

The river was, at various times, trapped behind beach ridges as storms pushed sand and gravel on shore into large berms and blocked the mouth of the river. The river occasionally changed course as waters backed up behind these temporary dams. The marshes that filled former channels after the river carved out new outlets hosted migratory ducks and geese. The people hunted beaver in the marshes, and caribou on nearby hills.

Men’s Houses

According to 18th- and 19th-century European explorers, qarigis were communal men’s buildings. Visitors to Eskimo communities usually stayed in the qarigi because they were larger than domestic houses. The buildings were usually made of logs banked with earth and had a large hearth in the center of the building.

The qarigi provided shelter for large construction projects associated with repairing and building hunting and transportation equipment, ethnographically identified as men’s work. Communal space to carry out cooperative projects allowed young men to learn from older men, men raised in the community to learn from people raised elsewhere and vice versa, and promoted cohesion and integration among the men. Although women and children were not forbidden to enter or use the qarigi, most women’s work was carried out in their homes. Cooking was usually done elsewhere and food brought to the qarigi for consumption. In some communities, men actually slept in the qarigi while women and children typically did not. The qarigi also provided shelter for the whole community to come together for discussions and for celebrations.

The Qitchauvik Site

Beach Ridge #7 is a stable feature that, based on geomorphology, developed over about 400 years between A.D. 100 and 500. The climate then was characterized by stronger and more frequent storms. The wave action from these storms deposited materials that make up the beach ridge. After about A.D. 500 the climate became milder, with fewer and weaker storms. The storm surges no longer reached to Beach Ridge #7 and began building a new beach ridge closer to the ocean. The Qitchauvik qarigi was built after A.D. 550 during this period of relatively mild climate. There are no house depressions on Beach Ridge # 7, but fourteen have been identified on another beach ridge on the landward side. The households living in these houses may have built and used the qarigi.

Judging by the construction of other communal structures, the qarigi was rectangular, at least 30 feet long and at least 18 feet wide, and built of timber. The structure was semi-subterranean and, when complete, would have been covered with soil. The roof was supported by an internal structure composed of upright columns bearing a, presumably, rectangular frame of cross beams. One of the cross beams was at least 9 feet long. Roof planning sloped down from the rectangular support structure to rest on the timbered walls. This roof construction produced an internal space that was highest in the center of the qarigi, then sloped downward to the four walls.

Within this space, the qarigi exhibited a two-level floor, with one level for benches located around the walls, and a step down to the hearth area in the center. The hearth was built directly under the highest area of the roof, in the center of the room. It rested on a raised platform about 6 inches high, and 20 inches square. There is little evidence for cooking or eating around the hearth, which is consistent with ethnographic descriptions of how men’s houses functioned. It appears that the primary function of the fire was to provide heat and, maybe, light. Several stone lamp fragments were also found.

Stone tool fragments were the most common artifact found during excavations. Twelve different types of raw materials, including chert, basalt, slate, obsidian, and schist have been identified. The many varieties of raw materials suggest that the people either traveled widely or had extensive social ties or both. Identifying the sources of the different types of stone would help outline the social and/or travel networks of the people at Qitchauvik.

Many small flakes were excavated from the qarigi. Small flakes result from sharpening arrow and spear heads and knives and suggest that re-sharpening was the most common stone tool activity in the qarigi. Slate projectiles and knives were sharpened by grinding. A number of flakes resulting from re-sharpening were also utilized as cutting tools. Small knicks were visible of cutting edges, suggesting that the utilized flakes were used to cut something hard, such as bone, antler, ivory, or wood. More than 150 wooden artifacts were identified.

Spruce, the most common species in the Alaskan boreal forest, was also the most common wood identified at the site. Wooden boat and sled pieces were identified, as were kayak paddles, knife handles, and fire drill hearths. Cottonwood, tamarack, willow, and birch were also identified. Several of the pieces of wood look as though they were trimmed with metal, which was unusual for this time period, but not impossible. Indirect trade networks connected people at the Qitchauvik site with metal-producing communities in Asia.

A small number of bone, antler, and ivory objects were found. These include part of a fishing spear, a possible fishing hook, bird hunting arrowheads, various bone points, and a seal dart point. There was little non-tool bone and ivory debris. This suggests that, unlike wood, bone and ivory carving did not commonly take place inside the Qitchauvik qarigi.

The utilized flakes may have also been used to carve wooden figures and maskettes. Small human effigies, caribou figurines, and maskettes were found in the Qitchauvik qarigi. The ways that these representations were used, whether for amusement, education, curing, or ritual, is not known. Many of these were looted from the site prior to excavation and are in private collections. Because the items were not found in context, clues about their use that may have come from placement in the qarigi, or association with other artifacts have been destroyed.


Funding from the Shared Beringian Heritage Program funded the Golovin Heritage Field School, which was coordinated by the Golovin Native Corporation. The corporation controls land on the southern part of the Seward Peninsula that borders northeastern Norton Sound. The field school included high school students from Golovin and from Nove (New) Chaplino, Chukotka (Russian Federation). Students and staff from the Bering Straits Foundation, the University of Alaska, and the private sector also excavated.