A short-lived, poorly understood culture known from a single excavated site at Cape Krusenstern in northwest Alaska. Its semi-subterranean winter houses and caches of whale bone and large stone tools (dated to roughly 3,000 years ago, in the early Choris period) show evidence of organized whale exploitation earlier than any other known Arctic culture — or, per some modern scholars, opportunistic scavenging of beached whales.
The identity, origin, and fate of its people are unknown; excavator James L. Giddings called it 'an enigma in the prehistoric record of the Arctic.' No confirmed second site or clear successor tradition has been identified — its whale-bone-furniture practice does not reappear until the Thule culture around AD 800.
Written by the archaeologist who excavated the Old Whaling site and named the culture; primary account of the discovery and its puzzles.