Lauren Knasin gives a presentation in Social Justice and Sustainability

The Ancestral Alutiiq Foods Project was developed by Professor Catherine West and the Alutiiq Museum. It’s a community-focused effort to chronicle the diversity of foods people have used for thousands of years in the Kodiak archipelago in Alaska. The intent of the research on these ancient findings is to help revitalize and support Native Alaskans and their identity. Intern Lauren Knasin is participating in four aspects of the project: 1) curation and care of the museum collections; 2) the hands-on zooarchaeological analysis; 3) archival research; and 4) creation of the traditional foods list. The student intern’s contributions will be part of a poster presentation (in English and Alutiiq) to the community in Kodiak. 

“The Ancestral Alutiiq Foods Project is a collaboration between the BU Zooarchaeology Lab and the Alutiiq Museum in Kodiak, Alaska. Native Alaskan identity is closely related to traditional foodways, so our goal is to understand, revitalize, and protect Native Alaskan identity and culture by evaluating and interpreting midden samples from archaeological excavations in the Kodiak archipelago of Alaska. Middens represent food waste left behind by Alutiiq ancestors over thousands of years and contain the bones of commonly harvested foods, like marine mammals, fish, and birds, as well as shells and plants. Not only do these samples provide insight into what food Alutiiq ancestors were eating for thousands of years, but zooarchaeological analysis can tell us how food was harvested, processed, and stored. The focus of this research project is to identify the shellfish species recovered in midden samples from Chirikof Island, which is located at the southern end of the Kodiak archipelago. Shells are commonly neglected in zooarchaeological analyses, so this information will be compiled into an ancestral foods database that can be used to better understand the species utilized by the Alutiiq people.” – Lauren Knasin