Cape Krusenstern

The site of a national monument on the coast of the Chukchi Sea with a horizontal stratigraphy covering the whole of north Alaskan prehistory. Located on 114 ridges along ancient beach lines, the monument's remarkable archaeological sites illustrate the cultural evolution of the Arctic people, dating back some 4,000 years and continuing to modern Eskimos. There are campsites of 10 successive cultures, beginning with the Denbigh Flint Complex, followed by the Old Whaling culture, then by the Eskimo cultures known as Trails Creek-Chloris, Chloris, Norton, Near Ipiutak, Ipiutak, Birnirk, Western Thule, and late prehistoric. On the terrace behind the beaches were two more phases (Palisades I and II) which go back to c 8000 BC. The stratigraphy is visible as a sequence of strips, roughly parallel to the shoreline, with the oldest, Denbigh, being furthest from the present-day shoreline. This horizontal sequence, in combination with the vertical stratigraphy of Onion Portage, forms the most reliable chronological framework in Western Arctic prehistory.

A site with evidence of long occupation on the north Alaskan coast, at which chronological associations have been uniquely preserved. The major cultures of Arctic prehistory, spanning a period from c3000 bc to historic times, are represented here. (The Palisades complex at nearby Ingitkalik Mountain may yet extend this continuum further into the past, possibly as early as 8000 bc.) Cultural debris left from the exploitation of marine resources by successive cultures, in combination with the seaward movement of the shoreline, has produced a ‘horizontal stratigraphy’. This stratigraphy is visible as a sequence of strips, roughly parallel to the shoreline, with the oldest, Denbigh, being furthest from the present-day shoreline. Old Whaling, Choris, Norton, Ipiutak and western Thule follow in chronological order. This horizontal sequence, in combination with the vertical stratigraphy of Onion Portage, forms the most reliable chronological framework in Western Arctic prehistory.