Anangula Island
{{Short description|Small island in the Fox Islands group of southwestern Alaska}}
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Anangula Island ({{langx|ru|Анангула}}; also called Ananiuliak Island;{{cite GNIS|1419694|Anangula Island|January 12, 2009}}{{cite web|url=https://www.nps.gov/locations/alaska/index.htm| title=National Historic Landmarks in Alaska - Anangula Site, Ananiuliak Island, Aleutians| publisher=United States National Park Service| access-date=2009-01-12}} occasionally referred to as Kurityien Anaiuliak, Anaiuliak, Anayulyakh or Anangouliak{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_JKoPAAAAIAAJ|quote=anangula.| title=Geographic Dictionary of Alaska|author1=Baker, Marcus |author2=J. McCormick | page=[https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_JKoPAAAAIAAJ/page/n101 98]| year=1906| publisher=United States Geological Survey| access-date=2009-01-12}} {{langx|ru|Ананиулиак}}) is a small island in the Fox Islands group of the Aleutian Islands of southwestern Alaska. The {{convert|1.4|mi|km|adj=on}}-long island is separated from Umnak Island by a channel about {{convert|0.93|mi|km}} wide and consists of a mostly barren tundra landscape of volcanic ash.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=N0mzl3c6g6kC&q=anangula+island&pg=PA443| title=American Beginnings| first=Constance F. |last=West| year=1996| publisher=University of Chicago Press| isbn=978-0-226-89399-0| pages=443–444, 446| access-date=2009-01-12}}
Ancient history
{{details|Anangula Archeological District}}
During the last Pleistocene ice age, Anangula and nearby Umnak Island formed the tip of a peninsula on the southern edge of the Bering land bridge and was covered by the Cordilleran Ice Sheet that dominated the northwestern portion of North America.{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/indianheritageof0000jose|url-access=registration|quote=anangula island.| title=The Indian Heritage of America| first=Alvin M.| last= Josephy| year=1991| publisher=Houghton Mifflin Harcourt| isbn=978-0-395-57320-4| page=[https://archive.org/details/indianheritageof0000jose/page/58 58]| access-date=2009-01-12}}{{cite book|url=http://pubs.aina.ucalgary.ca/arctic/Arctic28-3-159.pdf| title=Late-Quaternary Geomorphic Processes: Effects on the Ancient Aleuts of Umnak Island| pages=161–165| first=Robert F.| last=Black| publisher=University of Connecticut| access-date=2008-01-12}} This made the area unsuitable for both animal and human habitation until the ice sheet began to recede about 10-12,000 years bp.{{cite book|jstor=1550607| title=Aleutian Island Prehistory: Living in Insular Extremes (abstract)|author1=McCartney, Allen P. |author2=Douglas W. Veltre | publisher=Taylor & Francis| year=1999}} The first human settlement on Anangula (and the oldest known evidence of human activity in the Aleutians{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_0u2y_SVnmoC&q=anangula+island&pg=PA13| title=Archaeology of Prehistoric Native America|author1=Gibbon, Guy E. |author2=Kenneth M. Ames | year=1998| publisher=Taylor & Francis| isbn=978-0-8153-0725-9| pages=12–14| access-date=2009-01-12}}), a small village and core and blade site on the southeastern end of the island, was established about 8,400 years bp.{{cite web|url=http://www.ankn.uaf.edu/ANCR/Aleut/CulturalChange/chap.1-5.html |title=Cultural Change in the Aleutian Islands: Contact with Another Culture |publisher=Alaska Native Knowledge Network |access-date=2008-01-18 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080517120522/http://ankn.uaf.edu/ANCR/Aleut/CulturalChange/chap.1-5.html |archive-date=2008-05-17 }}{{cite journal|jstor=1550607| title=Geology of Umnak Island, Eastern Aleutian Islands as Related to the Aleuts (abstract)| first=Robert F. |last=Black| year=1976| publisher=University of Colorado| volume=8| pages=7–35}} Although estimates of how long the settlement was occupied range from under 100 years to more than 1,500 years, it is generally agreed that it was abandoned after a major eruption at the Okmok volcano {{convert|70|km|mi|sp=us}} northeast on Umnak buried the area under nearly two meters of ash.{{cite book| url=https://archive.org/details/volcanicactivity0000shee/page/161| title=The Significance of Volcanism in the Prehistory of Subarctic Northwestern North America| pages=[https://archive.org/details/volcanicactivity0000shee/page/161 161–162]| first=William B.| last=Workman| year=1979| publisher=Academic Press, Inc| isbn=0-12-639120-3| access-date=2009-01-12| url-access=registration}}
Recent history
During the 1910s, Anangula was one of many Aleutian islands to be stocked with Arctic foxes by the United States government for trapping and fur trading purposes, in this case mostly by the Aleuts who lived in Nikolski, about {{convert|4.3|mi|km}} to the south on Umnak Island.{{cite web|url=http://pankov.narod.ru/pankovalaska.htm| title=New findings about Pan'kovs from Alaska| publisher=narod.ru| access-date=2008-09-23}} Later, during the 1930s, an additional population of rabbits was established on the island to serve as food for the foxes. In the late 1940s, the foxes were removed because of their detrimental effects on the native marine bird populations, though the rabbits remain to the present.
The island gained some prominence in the archaeological community with the discovery of the core and blade site by William S. Laughlin in 1938. Later expeditions by Laughlin during the 1950s and 1960s uncovered more artifacts and a series of four expeditions in 1970-1974 unearthed the village site.
References
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{{Islands in the Bering Sea}}
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