Identificaciones de akbirder243

Fantastic rib bone fishing weight artifact. Very heavy and dense bone. Beach find by Yupik friend off of Gambell on St Lawrence island. Pachyosteosclerosis is obvious when held in hand. Feels like the weight of a heavy rock when dropped or held in the hand.

It didn’t occur to me until last night to log my Steller’s Sea
Cow artifact on iNaturalist . I work on Gambell and bought this piece a couple weeks ago from my Yupik friend. This artifact has many implications because we don’t have a lot of documentation concerning native Alaskans interaction with this extinct species. Likely washed up from a long-buried community and I would like to do carbon dating. When considering recent genome studies concerning how sea level rise caused the significant reduction in this species, that led to their extinction, the mind boggles when contemplating how old this artifact could be. Stellar discovered them in the 1741 and by that time they were already almost extinct and only found around some small Russian islands( Commander Islands)

Wiki
“extinct sirenian described by Georg Wilhelm Steller in 1741. At that time, it was found only around the Commander Islands in the Bering Sea between Alaska and Russia; its range extended across the North Pacific during the Pleistocene epoch, and likely contracted to such an extreme degree due to the glacial cycle. It is possible indigenous populations interacted with the animal before Europeans. Steller first encountered it on Vitus Bering's Great Northern Expedition when the crew became shipwrecked on Bering Island. Much of what is known about its behavior comes from Steller's observations on the island, documented in his posthumous publication On the Beasts of the Sea. Within 27 years of its discovery by Europeans, the slow-moving and easily-caught mammal was hunted into extinction for its meat, fat, and hide”
Pachyosteosclerosis is obvious when held in hand.