Onion Portage: A Stratified Archaelogical Site

By Macilee MacKenzie

May 8, 2025

Onion Portage, also known as Paatitaaq (wild onions) in the Iñupiaq language, is an area located off the shore of the Kobuk River in Northwestern Alaska. It has been a fruitful site for people through thousands of years as a place for camping, fishing, hunting, and making tools, amongst other activities. Onion Portage is a particularly attractive place for caribou hunting as it lies along a caribou migration route, where they have to cross the Kobuk River. It is also a site of great archaeological importance, and for this piece, I will be focusing on the archaeological work of Dr. James Louis Giddings and Dr. Douglas D. Anderson.

Map of Northwest Alaska. Source: Onion Portage: The Archaeology of a Stratified Site from the Kobuk River, Northwest Alaska.

The first of six stages of excavations at Onion Portage began in 1940 headed by Dr. Giddings, who was conducting research and surveying along the Kobuk River. During 1961 and 1963, it was discovered that Onion Portage was a stratified site, and retesting was done to see what cultural material existed. By 1961, Giddings had expanded on the initial excavation, digging to a depth about one meter deep, until reaching permafrost. The site was further expanded in 1963 and 1964, where more extensive excavations utilized trenches to find the depth of the stratigraphy.

Giddings unexpectedly passed away in 1964, and his student Douglas Anderson took over the project. Annually from 1965 to 1968, systematic excavations took place, the first of its kind in interior Northwestern Alaska. During 1965, there was a shift in the excavation approach. The researchers now aimed to connect the multiple trenches that had been previously dug individually. This horizontal approach was implemented to get a better sense of the larger spatial environment and continued until 1970. After that through 1973, Anderson periodically conducted excavations at Onion Portage, now looking into the differing types of ways humans had used the site over time.

Onion Portage Excavation Site, July 1965.

What makes Onion Portage particularly valuable, in an archaeological sense, is that it is a stratified site, meaning that there is distinct layering of sediment. Stratified sites are rarely found by archaeologists in Arctic regions because there is usually very little soil build up over time. Typically, with Arctic archaeology, thousands of years of living is encapsulated within a thin layer of sod. Yet, at Onion Portage it is almost 5 meters (16.4 feet) deep of stratified layers of soil.

Aerial view of Onion Portage along Kobuk River, August 1964.

Paatitaaq (wild onions) nearby the excavation site.

Close-up of the stratigraphy.

In stratified formations there are distinct layers of deposits, from different periods of time, that contain archaeological remains. The stratigraphy at Onion Portage was very explicit, so archaeologists were able to easily distinguish and group layers. Defining and grouping layers involves specific terminology. Levels are particular layers where remains from human activity exist. Levels are grouped into a larger unit called a band. Bands contain a series of levels with certain similarities in proximity to each other.

Archaeological materials at Onion Portage were grouped into cultural complexes -- Arctic Woodland, Itkillik, Norton-Ipiutak, Choris, Denbign, Northern Archaic, Kobuk, and Akmak -- based on certain traits and similarities found within certain levels and bands. These cultural distinctions can't necessarily be applied in a broader context, but they are helpful for conceptualizing the groupings of artifacts.

Onion Portage, as a site, has served two differing purposes– as a winter settlement and as a non-winter campsite. How a group of people used the site is dependent on a variety of factors. The prevalence of certain activities, as evidenced by the remnant artifacts, can indicate how inhabitants used the site.

Each artifact has an associated function which is grouped into a larger activity category. About 80% of artifacts found at Onion Portage are categorized as processing tools. In Anderson’s paper, which this work is largely based on, he defines three primary activity categories – procurement, processing, and distribution. Procurement artifacts are those that are used to acquire food. This can include tools that are used while fishing, hunting, or trapping. Processing artifacts refer to tools that are used to create tools or butcher animals. Distribution artifacts consist of foreign materials, not local to the area, indicating trade.

In order to better understand the changing activities across cultures, I separated some of the subcategories within processing. Manufacturing and maintenance were originally a part of processing, but here are their own categories. Procurement still follows the same definition as Anderson, but the processing category involves tools that are used for changing raw materials into goods. Processing activities include scraping, grinding, and cutting. Manufacturing refers to items used in toolmaking. Maintenance tools are those that are used to maintain tools, such as sharpening blades or making repairs. Symbolic artifacts are those that are used in a decorative manner and don’t have a utilitarian value.

The feature, hearths, can also be used to examine and make inferences about human behavior. Hearths are the remains of a fire and are central to long- and short-term settlements; they may be lined with stone or unlined. The presence or lack of hearths and their spatial distribution can evidence certain ways of life.

The spread of hearth artifacts across different cultural complexes can offer insight into how inhabitants may have been organized and interacted with the environment. Across the Itkillik, Choris, Denbign, Northern Archaic, and Kobuk complexes, hearths are distributed across the site, with some clustering. The spatial distribution of hearths in the Norton-Ipiutak complexes is distinct from the rest, as hearths here are situated within a single, centralized cluster.

Band 2 contains two cultural complexes, Itkillik and Norton-Ipiutak, which are closely related in time, yet their distribution of hearths are very different. The close proximity in time between these complexes makes them valuable to compare.

When looking at the Itkillik complex, there are three clusters of hearths across the site, and non-hearth artifacts are concentrated around hearths. This suggests that Onion Portage may have been used as a brief campsite for seasonal hunting. The Norton-Ipiutak complexes similarly have non-hearth artifacts close to hearths, but there is also a large collection of non-hearth artifacts grouped together at a distance from the hearth area. This arrangement suggests a longer-term occupation of the site, by having an established and consistent area for hearths.

Findings from the above chart, further assert that Onion Portage was used as a long-term settlement during the Norton-Ipiutak complex through the presence of maintenance tools, suggesting more investment in sustaining, rather than manufacturing.

Onion Portage was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1978. As the environment of Onion Portage continues to evolve, the area is still used today for subsistence hunting. Global warming and climate change is affecting the migration patterns of caribou and the caribou population is in decline. The tradition of caribou hunting is maintained, but looks very different today. The excavations at Onion Portage have allowed for insight into how people in the past have relied upon and adapted to the environment, providing a lesson in resilience to draw from.

This data narrative is the final project for the course DATA 1500, taught by Professor Reuben Fischer-Baum at Brown University. Macilee MacKenzie is a senior studying computer science and has been working as a student collections technician at the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology.

Sources

Data used to create these visualizations comes from the work of Dr. J.L. Giddings and Dr. Douglas D. Anderson. The dataset is accessible from the Brown Digital Repository, provided by the Laboratory for Circumpolar Studies at the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology.

Source: Onion Portage: The Archaeology of a Stratified Site from the Kobuk River, Northwest Alaska by Dr. Douglas D. Anderson

Source: Onion Portage Archaeological District National History Landmark, National Parks Service

The source of all images on this page are from the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology.