The Site Already Had A Name In Athabascan
Upward Sun River is an English rendering of Xaasaa Na’, a name from an Athabascan language still spoken by Alaska Native communities in the region. The land is part of their territory, so the site was never an abandoned curiosity with no interested parties. That proximity shaped the entire excavation. Potter’s team consulted local communities, who are generally protective of burial grounds and who could have simply said no. According to accounts of the work, they instead recognized what the research might reveal about their own deep history and offered help. The detail matters more than it sounds. Archaeology in North America has a long record of treating Indigenous ancestors as specimens first and relatives second, and this dig deliberately ran the other way.