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Introduction

In 1976, researchers working for the North Slope Borough began to secure information on traditionally-utilized cul­tural resource sites within the Borough’s boundary. Following initial data gather­ing, and creation of a Traditional Land Use Inventory (TLUI), a program of further documentation involving site visits with local cultural resource specialists was insti­tuted. As a result, a fairly detailed description of many traditional land use sites along the north Alaskan coast and in the vicinity of Atqasuk and Anaktuvuk Pass is available (Arundale and Schneider n.d.; Hoffman, Libbey and Spearman n.d.; Ivie and Schneider 1978; Libbey 1981, 1983; Spearman 1978). Many other sites remain to be documented in these areas. Further­more, documentation teams have yet to visit large areas of the Borough where Traditional Land Use Sites are known to exist. The present study was designed to begin the documentation process in one such area--the stretch of coast between Cape Lisburne and Icy Cape in the north­western portion of the Borough (see Figure 1 and (maps in pocket-not available online)).

A cultural resource site survey along this section of coast had the potential to pro­vide important data for several reasons: (1) sites there would document the late  pre­historic and historic utilization of the land and its resources by the ancestors of the Iñupiat now living in Point Lay and Point Hope; (2) potentially, very early sites might be found in the area, as the hills there represent the first significant uplands reached by ancient peoples traversing across Beringia; (3) contrary to the situa­tion along much of the coast elsewhere in northern Alaska, the rate of coastal erosion appeared to have been relatively slight for a long time and thus the possibility existed that sites of some antiquity might be found right along the coast; (4) in recent times, this section of coast had not been the scene of resource development of intensive subsistence hunting and thus archaeological sites might have been spared the adverse human impacts that have occurred elsewhere in northern Alaska, and (5) recent fossil fuel exploration activities in the area (especially for coal south of Cape Sabine) suggested that energy development activities in the near future might put cultural resource sites at risk.
 
The proposed project, as presented to the North Slope Borough Planning Department, called for a field survey of the coast between Icy Cape and Cape Lisburne. The expertise of an archaeologist with considerable experience in northern Alaska, an ethnohistorian who had engaged in several other traditional land use site documentation surveys, and local Iñupiat elders having long familiarity with the land and its resources were to  be combined to allow the broadest and most detailed site documentation possible. As part of the preparation for analyzing the recovered data, a search was to be conducted for major archival sources on his­toric White exploration and utilization of the area. While in the field, ethnographic data collection was to focus on securing a relatively detailed life history of one or two key Point Lay elders in order to provide an historical context for the data on site use through time.

The present study presents the results of the Point Lay cultural resource site survey. Data presented in the study derive from many different sources. The view of the Point Lay area and its inhabitants as seen through the eyes of explorers and other outsiders is balanced by a brief ethno­graphic sketch based on both historical and cultural resource specialists' accounts. The recent history of the area is portrayed through a series of narrative sketches edited from taped interview with local cultural resource specialists. Correspondingly, physical descriptions of traditional land use sites are given cultural and histori­cal context by those local people who have long had ties to the land.