Student archaeologists explore Alaska, Türkiye

09/09/2025

Little is known about the diet of indigenous Alaskans in the Kodiak Archipelago some 400 years ago and even less how they were affected once Russians arrived about a century and a half ago.

But an ancient indigenous village refuse pile in Old Harbor, Alaska, holds clues, and over their summer break, SUNY Cortland archaeology students Sierra Polivka-Curry and William Kennedy plumbed that question, with a bit of grizzly bear distraction thrown in.

Polivka-Curry and Kennedy explored different aspects of the site contents, once a Sugpiaq/Alutiiq village and now an active archaeological excavation site, under the direction of Hollis Miller, an assistant professor in SUNY Cortland's Sociology/Anthropology Department. Miller co-directs the Old Harbor Archaeological History Project with colleagues and their student researchers from University of Washington and Yale University.

Miller has been examining the site for the past eight years and it's only the second cohort of SUNY Cortland student interns to join her, among six total archaeology-related Cortland undergraduate researchers scattered distantly for fieldwork this summer.

"Our overarching research goal is to understand the resilience of Sugpiaq culture and communities over this period, especially in the face of Russian colonialism," Miller said.

For the past three summers, the project researchers have partnered with Nuniaq Culture Camp, which is a weeklong Native-run summer program for Sugpiaq youth. The students from Cortland excavated at the Ing'yuq Village and also mentored the Nuniaq campers and taught them about archaeological research and excavation methods.

Polivka-Curry, a senior archaeology major with an indigenous studies minor from Little Falls, N.Y., focused her work on zooarchaeology - or the study of animal bones from archaeological sites - to learn about the faunal diet of Ing'yuq residents and how it might have changed once the Russians arrived in Alaska. She will study what she collected this fall.

"Being in such an environment: you don't have a cell phone, you don't have a shower, you don't have a toilet. You're sleeping in a tent. I proved to myself that I can do something like that and really enjoy it," said Polivka-Curry, who graduates in December and wouldn't mind doing future, similar archaeological work with indigenous Americans a lot closer to home.

With smaller bears, she hopes. The researchers sighted several grizzly bears near the remote location.

Kennedy, a junior from Warrington, Pennsylvania, focused on computer mapping key aspects of the site. A geographic information systems (GIS) major who is minoring in archaeology and computer applications, he worked with the Alutiiq Museum's director of archaeology to create a plan map of Ing'yuq. In addition, Kennedy used the technology to create heat maps to track the distribution of artifacts spatially throughout the site, and within different periods of the past.

He explained that much like GIS is used to map "warm" clusters of living people, the technology will help point to "warm" concentrations of discarded food items indicating where people once lived. It will have a three dimensional aspect to track patterns of change over time.

"For example, you're going to see in this quadrant square that it's very dark and that's going to indicate that we found a lot of pottery or a lot of charcoal or some other kind of culturally relevant information that we can display to the audience," Kennedy said.

He also mapped for the Alutiiq Museum director a row of former dwellings along a beach based on their leavings, intending to help scholars figure out how the site was used by generations of ancestors in the past.

Preliminary data from the site suggests that people who lived there before Russian colonialism had a diet focused on salmon, cod and then sea mammals, Miller said.

"And then we start seeing them eating a lot more shellfish, a lot more fish that you can just kind of get, you know, off a rocky point, as opposed to mass capture," she said.

The trend matched findings pointing to a lot of deaths among Alaska Native people when the Russians first arrived because of disease, violence or forced removal.

"Our preliminary data suggests that people were really expanding their diets and eating anything that they could get their hands on in those early years," Miller said.

Both students had their travel and living expenses supported by an Undergraduate Research Summer Fellowship through SUNY Cortland's Undergraduate Research Council. Polivka-Curry's cost also was offset by a 2025-26 Faculty Research Program grant obtained by Miller.

Meanwhile, half a world away at the Çadır Höyük archeological excavations in Central Türkiye, four of their classmates were likewise building up their archaeology chops investigating the contents of an enormous mound containing humanity's leavings dating from the 12th or 13th century Byzantine era through the site's resettlement by Turkic people in the medieval period in Türkiye.

"This was a banner year for us," said SUNY Distinguished Professor Sharon Steadman, who has served as co-director of the Çadır Höyük site each summer since 2010, and previously as a field director since 1998.

Cortland students have been honing their skills alongside her for years, and this past summer she was accompanied by a record four: Gabriela Castro-Sierra '25, Anjuli Latchmansingh, Anna Tanzman and Ryan Wheeler.

Steadman previously took up to two student researchers to Türkiye. She and Miller took a combined six students into the field this summer.

"So, it was a wonderful experience for both of us as well," Steadman said.

The five who remain as Cortland undergraduates - one since graduated - will continue to work with their findings, with plans to give poster presentations at academic conferences, lectures at Cortland and contribute to future academic articles. Some of this scholarship includes Kennedy and Polivka-Curry working on a publication to share at the Society for American Archaeology Conference in the spring.

"For those students who are still around, maybe in future years, we'll switch students, and they'll get the experience of a different part of the world as well," Miller added. "They'll bring the expertise that they've already developed in their previous work on to a new project."

Here's a little about the Çadır Höyük site student researchers:

Castro-Sierra of Bronx, N.Y., who has since graduated, worked on Byzantine glass, creating a database detailing its various uses and locations. That fieldwork will help determine the activities associated with spaces and which areas had more glass - and possibly wealthier people - and which didn't.

Her research internship expenses were covered by a fellowship from the American Society of Overseas Research.

Latchmansingh of Patchogue, N.Y., a senior archaeology major who is minoring in forensic anthropology, was examining the animal bones from the latest period of occupation, 12th to 13th century CE - likely associated with the first Turkic arrivals to Çadır Höyük - in an effort to determine the type of animal husbandry present.

"Getting to know the people of the country and kind of just being absorbed in that culture was really something special," Latchmansingh said. "I also realized that I prefer to work with living animals rather than dead ones, and dead people rather than living ones."

She laughed along with classmates who were present, then explained that her special interest lies in mortuary archaeology.

"So, looking at graves or placement of the deceased, and how they are treated in death, is what sparks my interest more," she said.

Latchmansingh's fieldwork on "All That Remains at Çadır Höyük " was reported in the American Society of Overseas Research's journal ASOR. Her work and travel were underwritten by an American Society of Overseas Research, a Phi Kappa Phi travel fellowship and a 2025 Strange-Midkiff Families Fieldwork Scholarship.

Tanzman of Albany, N.Y., an archaeology major with a geology minor, specialized in archaeobotany - the study of ancient seeds - to see if climate change forced Byzantine residents to change their agricultural strategies from 900-1200 CE to cope with a more arid climate. The Dr. Suad Joseph '66 Undergraduate Research Summer Fellowship supported her work.

"Archaeobot(any) is more like the agricultural development of human civilizations," Tanzman said. "I'm also extremely interested in paleo-ethnobotany, which is more like the medicinal or ritual uses of different types of plant remains, and seed remains. … I am getting a sneak peek into what my future could potentially look like. I could see myself doing this for a long time, traveling and just loving it."

Wheeler of Ellington, Connecticut, a junior archaeology and history major with an Asia and Middle East studies minor, studied three different chemical adhesive methods to find the best one to use for mending broken Byzantine glass. He tried three different agents on the ancient glass and subjected the results to cold, then hot temperatures. His trip expenses were offset by the Nancy A. Johnson '48, M '56 Undergraduate Research Summer Fellowship.

"So, when you find this smaller glass shard, it's kind of hard to put that into a bigger picture," Wheeler explained. "Was it a window? Was it a vessel? … So that was the push for my research."

As an intern since the second semester of his first year, Wheeler has dedicated nearly six semesters to research.

"Going forward, I have an interest in the 25th dynasty of Egypt and the Kushite Kingdom," he said. "I really want to look into how national identity affects social identity in the nuclear household, regularly in the everyday lives of people, but also in the class of the elites."

Learn more about SUNY Cortland's archaeology major online or follow the Archaeology Club on Instagram to discover unique student research experiences.

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