Associated Cultures: Alutiiq, Koniag, Yu'pik
In September 1991, the NMNH repatriated the human remains of approximately 1000 individuals from the Uyak (KOD-145) archaeological site to the Alaska Native village of Larsen Bay, and 144 funerary objects were repatriated in January1992. The museum had received a request to repatriate these remains and artifacts in 1987, and a series of communications between the village and the Smithsonian resulted in the decision to repatriate the remains as culturally affiliated with the present day people of Larsen Bay.
The burials had been excavated by a Smithsonian curator, Ales Hrdlicka, during a series of excavations in the 1930s, and dated from around 1000 B.C. to post-contact times. No report is available, but information on the site and the repatriation may be found in the following book: Reckoning With the Dead: the Larsen Bay Repatriation and the Smithsonian Institution. Edited by Tamara L. Bray and Thomas W. Killion. Published in 1994 by the Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C.