Archaeology Magazine - September/October 2006 - 60

ing buildings that date to the period, which
ended with the sale of Alaskato the United
States in 1867. Russian folktales survivein
native oral traditions, and Slavic surnames
are stillcommon in Alaska.The most enduring contribution of the Russian presence is
a very robust and active Russian Orthodox
Church, still the largest Christian denomination in Alaska. But because Russia never
made a major commitment to settle the
New World,the storyof RussianAmerica is
in large part the story of the native peoples
who cooperated with, worked for,and often
rebelled against the Russians. Many Russians, native Siberians, and others working
for the RAC married local women, giving
rise to a new Creole class that numbered in
the thousands and whose descendants still
live in Alaska.
Archaeologists working at RussianAmerican sites have found artifacts and
structures that seem quintessential^ Russian: vodka bottles and bread ovens, for
instance, and even the remains of a dacha,
or summer cottage, at Fort Ross. But much
more intriguing is evidence showing how
Russian and native cultures interacted
and influenced one another. Relations
were never perfect- blood was spilled
on numerous occasions and the Russians
often took slaves. But the relatively small
numbers of Russians meant that they were
never able to control the natives like the
Spanish, English, and French did. They
generally developed less confrontational
relationships with the Aleut, Alutiiq, Tlingit, and other peoples they encountered in
the New World.

HAW
1784, Shelikhov established
q
one of the first Russian settleInments in dramatic Three Saints
Bay,a harbor ringed by icecapped
^
mountains on Kodiak Island. For
a brief time the capital of Russian
America, Three Saints Bay,at its
height, was occupied by about 180 Russian workers or promishlinki, most of
whom were involvedin the all-important
fur-hunting enterprises that were Russian Americas bread and butter. After
an earthquake and tidal wave damaged
the settlement in 1792, the capital was
moved to the present-day town of Kodiak
and Three Saints Bay was gradually
abandoned.
In the early 1990s,Aron Crowell, now
the director of the Smithsonian Arctic
Studies Research Center in Alaska,

Excavationsof the workers' quarters in the Three Saints Bay settlement showed that local
culture was having a significant impact on the Russians livingthere.

led an excavation at the short-lived site.
Working from period maps, he focused
on two structures, the workers' quarters,
or barracks, and the remains of the Shelikhov house, where the official in charge
of the settlement lived. The captain of a
Spanish ship that put in at Three Saints
Bay in 1788 wrote that the officials'quarters were well-appointed and noted that
the rooms were even hung with Chinese
wallpaper. In the house Crowell and his
team found remains of the wallpaper,
along with Russian ceramics, fragments of
vodka bottles, and the remains of a bread
oven. "They seemed to make a real effort
to make things as Russian as possible in
the house," says Crowell.
Its probable that the Spanish captain
didn't spend much time in the promishlinki quarters. There the archaeological
record paints a different picture, beginning with the structure itself, which
was a fascinating blend of architectural
traditions. A three-room semi-subterranean dwelling, the workers' quarters
were actually constructed in the style of
a modified Siberian house. The design
was brought to the New World by the
native Siberians who made up as much
as half the fur-hunting crews. Aleuts, who
worked with the Russians, then adapted
the style and probably introduced it to
Three Saints Bay.
Artifacts found in the house also differed dramatically from those discovered
in the officials' quarters. Ground stone
Archaeology Magazine - September/October 2006

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