How Indigenous Oral Tradition Is Guiding Archaeology and Uncovering Climate History in Alaska
In south-central Alaska a chief named Łtaxda’x (EL-tax-da) once owned “a dish hewn from the horn of a giant moose.” When he died, his brothers fought over this ceremonial platter of the Raven clan. As the legend continues, one of the brothers who lost the battle led some of the people away from their ancestral home. Aron Crowell, director of the Alaska division of the Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center, conducted scientific research revealing “that the migration story of the Tlingit ancestors is essentially true.”