Further information about this award is available from the AIA Website

The Nunalleq Educational Resource

Dr. Alice Watterson, John Anderson and Tom Paxton in collaboration with the Nunalleq Archaeology Project, University of Aberdeen and Qanirtuuq Native Corporation in Quinhagak, Alaska.

What was life like for Yup'ik people living on the Bering Sea coast 500 years ago? Nunalleq: Stories from the Village of Our Ancestors is a free interactive educational resource for Mac and PC which invites children to explore the story of the archaeological excavations of the Nunalleq sod house. This multi-vocal resource was co-designed by the Nunalleq Archaeology Project and local Quinhagak community. It brings together narratives from archaeologists, Elders, Alaska Native artists and young people within the village.

Downloads

Please note that the Education Resource installers are large (over 1GB) and a fast, wired broadband connection is recommended

Nunalleq: Stories from the Village of our Ancestors is an interactive educational resource for children which tells the story of the archaeological excavations of a pre-contact Yup’ik sod house in Quinhagak, Alaska. The digital resource was co-designed between the local community in Quinhagak and archaeologists from the University of Aberdeen and creatively unites science and and history with traditional Yup’ik ways of knowing and contemporary oral storytelling.

The resource will be distributed to schools in the Lower Kuskokwim School District region of southwestern Alaska on USB drives in time for the new term in fall 2019. If you would like a personal copy you can also download and install the resource on your computer or laptop for free here.

Have fun, and please let us know what you think. If you have any technical issues we will try our best to help!

To find out more about the archaeology project and keep up to date with the excavations you can visit the Nunalleq Archaeology Project Blog.

This project was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the University of Aberdeen’s Impact, Knowledge Exchange and Commercialisation fund and the University of Dundee, DJCAD.

An interior view of the sod house reconstruction with clickable artefacts and talking-heads.

An artefact viewer from the resource interface with sound-bite heads.


Publications

  • Designing Digital Engagements: Approaches to creative practice and adaptable programming for archaeological visualisation

    Watterson, A, Anderson, J & Baxter, K 2020, Designing Digital Engagements: Approaches to creative practice and adaptable programming for archaeological visualisation. In Proceedings of EVA London 2020.

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  • Nunalleq, Stories from the Village of Our Ancestors: Co-designing a multi-vocal educational resource based on an archaeological excavation

    Watterson, A. and Hillerdal, C. 2020. Nunalleq, Stories from the Village of Our Ancestors: Co-designing a multi-vocal educational resource based on an archaeological excavation. In Archaeologies Journal, Springer.

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