BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY BULLETIN 192 PLATE Sites in the Yakutat Bay area.(For explanation, see p. 218.) SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTIONBUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGYBULLETIN 192ARCHEOLOGY OF THEYAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKABy FREDERICA DE LACUNA, FRANCIS A. RIDDELL,DONALD F. McGEEIN, KENNETH S. LANE, aud J. ARTHUR FREED,with a chapter by CAROLYN OSBORNE U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICEWASHINGTON : 1964 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing OflBceWashington, D.C., 20402 - Price $3.25 (Cloth) LETTER OF TRANSMITTALSmithsonian Institution,Bureau of American Ethnology,Washington, D.C., June 28, 1963.Sir: I have the honor to submit the accompanying manuscript,entitled "Archeology of the Yakutat Bay Area, Alaska," by Fredericade Laguna, Francis A. Riddell, Donald F. McGeein, Kenneth S. Lane,and J. Arthur Freed, with a chapter by Carolyn Osborne, and torecommend that it be published as a bulletin of the Bureau of AmericanEthnology.Very respectfully yours, Frank H. H. Roberts, Jr.,Director.Dr. Leonard Carmichael,Secretary, Smithsonian Institution. ^\tHSOA?^FEB 1 7 1955i.iBRAR\ CONTENTS PAGEForeword ixIntroduction, by Frederica de Laguna 1The problem ? 1Traditional history of the Yakutat area 3Contact with Europeans 10The Yakutat Area, by Frederica de Laguna. 13Geography 13Geological changes 15Settlements on Yakutat Bay 20Settlements in the Ankau area 23Settlements, Lost River to Italio River 24Settlements in the Dry Bay area 28Old Town, Knight Island, by Francis A. Riddell and Frederica de Laguna. 31Native traditions 31The site 33Shaman's gi-ave. Knight Island 35Excavation and mapping techniques 36Stratigraphy of the trash mounds 36Houses and Caches, by Francis A. Riddell and Frederica de Laguna 43House pits 43Smaller surface and subsurface pits 45The storage house 48House 8 51WaUs 52Roof 54Floor 54Sweat-bath rocks 54Box 55House Pit 1 58House 9 61Walls 61Roof 63Floor 63Hearth 63Intrusive features 63Test pits 64House Pit 7 65Recent houses 66Comparisons "^3Analysis of Faunal Remains From Old Town, Knight Island, by J.Arthur Freed and Kenneth S. Lane 77Artifacts, by Frederica de Laguna, Francis A. Riddell, and Donald F. McGeein. 85Introduction 85Objects of copper 87Objects of iron 88Adzes, axes, and small woodworking tools 90Splitting adzes ? 90m IV CONTENTSArtifacts, by Frederica de Laguna and Francis A. Riddell?ContinuedAdzes, axes, and small woodworking tools?Continued pageAxes 92Planing adzes 93Adz fragments 95Small woodworking tools 95Rubbing tools 99Bone burins and chisels 99Knives, scrapers, and choppers 99UIos 99Ulo with lateral handle 103Ulo-shaped bark scraper or knife 103Crooked knives (?) 104Stone scrapers 105Bone scrapers 108Hammerstones, anvils (?), and mauls 108Hammerstones 108Anvils (?) 110Unhafted hand mauls or pestles 111Hafted maul heads 112Stone saws (?), grinding slabs, whetstones, and paint 113Stone saws (?) 113Grinding slabs 114Whetstones 115Paint 116Stone lamps and fire making 117Stone lamps 117Fire making 122Weapons 122Stone club head and stone picks 122Large weapon blades 123Dagger 124Iron spear 124Bone weapon blade 125Large double-edged slate blades 125Awllike slate points I 127Barbed slate blade 129Chipped stone weapon blades 130Harpoons 131Barbed harpoon heads with tang 131Harpoon arrowheads 135Socket pieces 137Bows and arrows 138Wooden fragments 139Arrowheads 139Slate arrowheads 139Copper arrowheads 141Barbed bone arrowheads 142Barbed bird-bone points 146Barbed wooden points 146Unbarbed bone arrowheads 146Bone points, shafts, and copper pins 147Bone points 148 CONTENTS VArtifacts, by Frederica dc Laguna and Francis A. Riddell?ContinuedBone points, shafts, and copper pins?Continued ^^^^Bone shaft fragments ^^^Copper pins ^^^Devices used in fishing and trapping 149Fishhooks 150Notclied stones 1^^Barbs for gaff hooks 151Fish lures or amulets 153Gorges 154Copper wire hooks 155Ornaments 155Pendants 15'Copper beads and danglers 157Coiled copper wire beads 158Coal beads 158Bone beads 159Copper bracelets 1^0Copper rings 1^1Ornamental bodkins or pins 162Labrets 163Bone catch 164Wooden comb 164Objects of possible ritual significance 165Band of ryegrass stems 165Bird-bone tubes 167Amulets (?) 168Incised pebbles 168Carved wooden slab 172Human figurines 172Wooden vessels and bark 175Wooden vessels 175Bark 178Cordage, baskets, and textiles 178Cordage 178Twined baskets 178Matting 179Blankets 180Miscellaneous worked bone, stone, and wood 181Worked bone 181Chert cores, nodules, and chips 181Worked quartz, greenstone, and slate 183Miscellaneous wooden objects 183Canoes 184The Yaktjtat Blanket, by Carolyn Osborne 187Description 187Comparative data 192Conclusion, by Frederica de Laguna 201Age of the sites 201Cultural position of the Yakutat remains 207Bibliography 212Explanation of plates 218Index 227 vnILLUSTRATIONSPLATES(All plates except frontispiece follow p. 226)1 . Sites in the Yakutat Bay area. (Frontispiece.)2. Knight Island, Yakutat Bay.3. Lamp and petroglyph.4. Objects of iron.5. SpUtting adzes, axes, and war club.6. Planing adzes.7. Small woodworking tools like miniature adz blades.8. Small woodworking tools like chisels and burins.9. Stone scrapers and choppers.10. Rubbing tools, whetstones, and hammers.11. Stone lamps.12. Stone lamps.13. Barbed bone harpoon heads.14. Copper arrowheads, knife blades, and pins.15. Bone arrowheads and small weapon points.16. Bone chisels, awls, and small tools.17. Ornaments.18. Twined weaving.19. Fragments of Chilkat blanket from shaman's grave, Knight Island,Yakutat Bay. TEXT FIGURES PAGE1. Schematic profile of Mound B, Old Town 372. Storage House and Subsurface Pit 38 493. Plan of House 8 524. Reconstruction of House 8 535. Cross section of Trench 51, through House 8 and House Pit 1 facing 546. Cross section of Trench 53, through House Pit 1 and House 9 facing 587. Plan of House 9 608. Reconstruction of House 9 629. Cross section of Trench 33, through Mound C and House Pit 7 6510. Copper knives 10211. Knives and scrapers 10612. Profiles of stone lamps 11913. Blades and points for large weapons 12614. Ground slate blades for weapons or knives 12815. Barbed heads and wooden pin 13216. Wooden objects 14017. Barbed points and arrowheads 14418. Devices used in fishing and trapping 15219. Ornaments 15620. Decorated objects 16621. Carved and incised stone objects 17022. Wooden figurine, floor of Storage House, Old Town II (194) 17323. Box fragments and band of grass 17624. Wooden objects 18225. Diagrams of weave of Chilkat blanket from shaman's grave, KnightIsland, Yakutat Bay 190 VIII ILLUSTRATIONSMAPS PAGE1. The Gulf Coast of Alaska facing 22. The Coastal and Inland Tlingit and their neighbors 53. Sites in the Yakutat Bay-Dry Bay area 144. Sites in southeastern Yakutat Bay facing 225. Map of Knight Island, Yakutat Bay, with detail indicating the siteof Old Town 326. Map of Old Town, Knight Island, Yakutat Bay 347. Map of Mound B, Old Town, Knight Island facing 36 FOREWORDThis report deals with archeological investigations in the YakutatBay area, Alaska, which were undertaken as part of a larger programof coordinated archeological and ethnological studies of the northernTlingit. The ultimate objective of the program, as originally formu-lated, was to gather materials on the history of northern Thngitculture and to analyze as far as possible the factors and forces respon-sible for the development and decline of Thngit cultural patterns.These studies were begun in 1949, when Frederica de Laguna,senior author of the report, made an archeological and ethnologicalreconnaissance to select some area or areas for the proposed research.On this trip she was assisted by Edward Mahn and Wilham Irving,then students at the University of Washington and the University ofAlaska, respectively. As a result, the Yakutat region on the Gulfof Alaska and the territory of the Angoon Thngit in southeasternAlaska were chosen, A report on the fieldwork at Angoon in 1949 and1950 has been pubhshed by the Bureau of American Ethnology asBulletin 172.In the summer of 1952 combined archeological and ethnological .fieldwork was carried out at Yakutat. The archeological investiga-tions were continued in the summer of 1953, and the ethnologicalwork in the winter and spring of 1954. While Frederica de Lagunawas in overall charge of this research, the archeological parties wereled by Francis A. RiddeU (now State archeologist for the CaliforniaDepartment of Parks and Recreation). He was assisted in 1952 byJ. Arthur Freed, Kenneth S. Lane, and Donald F. McGeein, and in1953 by Lane, McGeein, Albert H. Olson, Jr., and Robert T. Anderson(now assistant professor of sociology and anthropology at MillsCollege), then all students at the University of California or recentgraduates from that institution. Dr. Catharine McClellan (nowassociate professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin)collaborated in the ethnological work at Yakutat in 1952, and MaryJane Downes (now Mrs. Benjamin Lenz, then fellow in anthropologyat Br3m Mawr College) served as ethnographic assistant in 1954. Inconnection with this program, a study of Eyak Hnguistics was madeIS X FOREWORDat Yakutat in 1952 by Dr. Fang-Kuei Li, Department of Far EasternStudies, University of Washington. When it became apparent thatthe ethnographic investigations should be extended to the neighborsof the Yakutat Indians, Frederica de Laguna and Catharine McClellancollaborated in studying the Atna of the Copper River during thesummers of 1954, 1958, and 1960.The field researches at Yakutat were supported by the ArcticInstitute of North America, with funds from the Office of NavalResearch, in 1949 and 1953; by the Wenner-Gren Foundation forAnthropological Research in 1949 and 1952; by the Social ScienceResearch Council and the American Philosophical Society in 1954;and by the Department of Anthropology, University of California atBerkeley, in 1952 and 1953. The University of Pennsylvania Museumand Bryn Mawr College were also sponsors. A faculty researchfellowship from the Social Science Research Council and the hospitalityof the Berkeley campus during the senior author's sabbatical leave havepermitted her to finish this report.We wish to express our gratitude to the above-named organizationsand also to acknowledge the assistance generously given by the U.S.Geological Survey, the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish andWildhfe Service, the Alaska Native Service, and the U.S. CoastGuard. We are also grateful for the valuable information furnishedby Dr. J. Louis Giddings, director of the Haffenreffer Museum,Brown University; by EUzabeth Ralph, Radiocarbon Laboratory,University of Pennsylvania; by Dr. Charles E. Borden, University ofBritish Columbia; by Dr. Wilham O. Field, of the American Geo-graphical Society; by Dr. Calvin J. Heusser of the Osborn BotanicalLaboratory at Yale University; and by George Plafker and the lateDon J. Miller, of the U.S. Geological Survey.In preparing this report, Francis A. Riddell was responsible for theoriginal descriptions of the artifacts and of the archeological featuresat the Old Town site, although his preliminary draft was later revised.Donald McGeem collaborated with Riddell and also drew all themaps, diagrams, and text figures, except a few prepared by E. F.Chapman, Mrs. Arhe Ostlie, Irene Brion, Richard A. Gould, andFrederica de Laguna. The photographs of specimens were taken bythe late Reuben Goldberg, of the University of Pennsylvania Museum,with the exception of a few by Kenneth Lane and the Campus Studiosof the University of Washington. Arthur Freed and Kenneth Laneprepared the analysis of faunal remains. We are indebted to CarolynOsborne for the description and interpretation of the Yakutat blanket.While the senior author has been responsible for the organization and FOREWORD XIediting of the report in general, her specific contributions have beenthe ethnological and comparative sections, and the historical andtheoretical speculations.For assistance in the final editorial preparation of the report forpublication, we wish to thank Mr. Edward G. Schumacher, illustratorfor the Bureau of American Ethnology, and Mrs. Eloise B. Edelen,editor for the Bureau, and her assistants.Frederica de Laguna,Bryn Mawr College;Francis A. Riddell,California Department ofParks and Recreation;Donald F. McGeein;Kenneth S. Lane;J. Arthur Freed.*******NOTEThe system used herein for transliterating native words is essen-tially that employed by Boas (1917) for Tlingit, except that digraphsare used for affricatives, and a, e, i, and u are substituted for Greekletters.The archeological specimens are deposited in the University ofPennsylvania Museum in Philadelphie , although for the most partthey are designated by their field catalog numbers (in parentheses). ARCHEOLOGY OF THE YAKUTAT BAY AREA,ALASKABy Frederica de Laguna, Francis A. Riddell,Donald F. McGeein, Kenneth S. Lane, and J. Arthur Freed,with a chapter by Carolyn OsborneINTRODUCTION 'By Frederica de LagunaTHE PROBLEMThe archeological and ethnological researches begun at Yakutatin 1949 had as their purpose to trace the development and dechne ofnorthern Tlingit culture from the earliest period that might berepresented archeologically down to the present. The aim was notsimply to describe the history of the culture, but to analyze, if possible,the dynamic processes involved.It was hoped that archeological investigations in northern Tlingitcountry might furnish evidence to test the hypothesis of ancient andlong-continued cultural exchanges between the southwestern AlaskanEsldmo and the Indians of southeastern Alaska (de Laguna, 1947,pp. 12 f.). These exchanges were believed to have begun beforethe development of specific Northwest Coast cultural patterns, andlater to have contributed to their growth, especially by supplyinginfluences from the Asiatic side of the North Pacific. It was alsosuggested that the distinctive and specialized cultures of the lateprehistoric and historic periods on the northern and central North-west Coast had been built upon a foundation culturally and chrono-logically related to the most ancient cultures in the Aleut-PacificEskimo and Coast Salish areas. This belief implied that northernThngit archeology would, therefore, not only reflect the stages ofdevelopment of classic Northwest Coast culture, even though itscenters were assumed to lie much farther south (Kroeber, 1939, pp.28 ff.), but would also indicate to what extent influences from thenorth and west may have stimulated this cultural growth. Excava-tions at Yakutat were expected to be particularly important in testingthese hypotheses, since cultural exchanges between southwestern and I note, page XI. INSTITUTION ^^^^^ 1300 2 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Boll. 192southeastern Alaska were probably made via Yakutat Bay, the onlysecure shelter for boats on the whole GuK of Alaska from ControllerBay to Cross Sound. (Map 1.)From an ethnological point of view, the Yakutat Tlingit are themost marginal participants of northern Northwest Coast culture,except for the even more remote Eyak of the Copper River Delta andthe Inland Tlingit. Unlike the latter (McClellan, 1953), who muststruggle to adapt coastal sophistication to an inhospitable interiorenvironment, the Yakutat occupy a region with an aboriginal reputa-tion for abundant food resources and with a strategic situation fortrade. From the Atna of the Copper River and the Tutchone of theAlsek River, the Yakutat people formerly obtained copper, furs, andtanned skins, which they exchanged for dentaUa, slaves, Haidacanoes, and Tsimshian carvings. At a later period they acted asmiddlemen in handling goods from the Russian posts at Nuchek inPrince William Sound and at Sitka, as well as wares procured from furtraders and the Hudson's Bay Company, and even traveled to Kodiakand to Victoria. These widespread intertribal contacts suggest thatthe Yakutat possessed more than a backward version of NorthwestCoast culture, even though many peculiarities of idiom and customwhich distinguish the Yakutat from the better known, typical, Tlingitof southeastern Alaska may well represent archaisms.The Yakutat are now greatly acculturated, but until about 1884,when the first store was established among them, they had beenlargely isolated from intensive contacts with White men, except duringthe period of Russian occupation, 1795 to 1805. Within the memoryof the old people, therefore, the Indians were living much as they had acentury before, when first visited by Europeans. The Yakutat are avery friendly people and gave us a large body of ethnographic datawhich will form the basis for a separate monograph.A number of sites near Yakutat gave promise of revealing earlyhistoric and late prehistoric phases of the culture, although no veryancient remains were found. The present report deals largely withthe archeology of a late prehistoric or early protohistoric village site,"Old Town," on Knight Island in Yakutat Bay. Native traditionsgive semilegendary histories of the founding and abandonment of anumber of settlements which we explored.Although the Yakutat are now TUngit, the earlier inhabitants ofthe area spoke Eyak, and many of the local place names are in thatlanguage. It is apparently a branch of the Na-Dene stock, but itsexact relationship to Tlingit, Haida, and Athabaskan must remainuncertain until Dr. Li has finished his linguistic analysis. Accordingto RadioV (1859), there was a Copper River and a Yakutat dialectof Eyak. UntU some time in the 18th century, Eyak was spoken from "Alaska, Map B.' 144? wa." wo?Map 1.?The Gulf coast of Alaska. Redrawn by Richard A. Gould from U.S.G.S. Topographic series, "Alaska, Map B." de Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 3Cordova on the eastern edge of Prince William Sound to the Italio River,a little over 30 miles east of Yakntat. Still farther east, the inhabitantsof the Akwe River and Dry Bay area are reported to have spokenAthabaskan (Tutchone?). Already in the 18th centmy was beingfelt that movement of Tlingit from southeastern Alaska which intro-duced Tlingit speech and culture to Yakutat Bay, and some Tlingitwere apparently even then living at Lituya and Dry Bays. TheRussians in 1788 and Malaspina in 1791 met Tlingit in Yakutat Bay;Colnett (MS., 1788) noted that the natives there spoke different languages.We do not know when Eyak was completely abandoned in favor ofTlingit. Some items of material culture, notably the hunting canoe\vith forked prow, link the Yakutat with the Eyak of the CopperRiver Delta.According to Birket-Smith (Birket-Smith and de Laguna, 1938,pp. 530 f.), Eyak culture represents a very ancient phase of northernNorthwest Coast culture, somewhat modified by more recent influencesfrom the Eskimo and the Tlingit. Although it may be impossible totrace Eyak speech southeast of the Italio River, it seems likely thatall the northern Tlingit area was occupied until relatively recentlyby small scattered populations with a simple form of NorthwestCoast culture, quite possibly one similar to that of the Eyak (deLaguna, 1953). Nowhere in northern Tlingit territory are therelarge or numerous archeological sites comparable to those of theKoniag or Chugach or to those on the southern British Columbiacoast (Drucker, 1943). Tlingit sib traditions would indicate a veryrecent expansion of population, owing in part to immigration fromthe south, perhaps under pressure from the Tsimshian and Haida,in part to immigration of Athabaskans from the interior, and in partto local population growth. This expansion probably accompaniedthe development of classic Tlingit cultural patterns. An importantfactor may have been contact with the European traders in the 18thcentury which made possible a richer life on the coast. The sameprocesses by which the coastal Tlingit of southeastern Alaska absorbedand acculturated originally non-Tlingit elements presumably operatedin the Yakutat area, where some of the events and changes areremembered in oral traditions.It was expected, therefore, that archeological research at Yakutatwould reveal a rather simple type of culture, resembling the culturereported ethnologically from the Copper River Eyak, and that themore recent sites might document the growth of Tlingit influence.TRADITIONAL HISTORY OF THE YAKUTAT AREAAccording to informants at Yakutat, their ancestors once occupiedall of the Gulf of Alaska from Cape Martin, east of the Copper River, to 4 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192Cape Fairweather between Dry Bay and Lituya Bay. The Eyak ofthe Copper River Delta farther west were not a distinct people; indeed,the inhabitants of Cape Martin were grouped with them in Yakutatthought, although the Cape Martin people are said to have beenoriginally an offshoot of those living in Controller Bay. Vaguetraditions suggest that the area between Cape Fairweather and CrossSound ma,j have been occupied by the same groups that lived at DryBay, though mixed with Tlingit of southeastern Alaskan derivation.In any case, this Lituya Bay region is now deserted, though claimedas hunting territory by a Tlingit sib of Hoonah, in southeasternAlaska. (Map 2.)All of the Gulf of Alaska Indians are said to have been divided intoexogamous matrilineal moieties (Raven and Eagle), like those of theTlingit, and the legendary history of the area is told in the form ofsib traditions. The interior Athabaskans?the Atna of the CopperRiver and the Southern Tutchone of the upper Yukon and AlsekRivers?also have a similar social organization, and the Yakutatpeople felt that they were related to them through migration andintermarriage.Excluding the Copper River Delta on the west and the Lituya Bay-Cape Spencer area on the southeast, the GuK of Alaska may bedivided into the following four districts, according to native thought:(1) Controller Bay and the shore almost to the Icy Bay area is claimedby the Qalyix-Kagwantan, an originally Eyak-speaking Eagle sibwho settled at the KaUakh River (from which the first part oftheir name is derived), after "the Flood." There is, however, strongevidence that a branch of Chugach Eskimo may have occupied, andcertainly frequented, Controller Bay during the 18th century, untilthey were driven from it by the Tlingit or THngitized Eyak from theeast. This is attested by Chugach and Copper River Eyak traditions,by Eskimo place names in Controller Bay, and by the observations ofSteller and other 18th-century explorers (Birket-Smith and de Laguna,1938, pp. 341-354; Birket-Smith, 1953, pp. 19, 20). Before theirexpansion westward, the Galyix-Kagwantan were presumably livingbetween Cape Suclding and Cape Yakataga. The distribution of theEyak language suggests, of course, that at a still earlier period theIndians lived in Controller Bay. The division into Copper River andYakutat dialects may have been caused by the subsequent intrusionof the Eskimo. Indian tradition tells of Chugach raids on the villageat the Kaliakh River, and even as far east as Yakutat Bay. Theversions of some infomiants that Yakutat Bay was originally occupiedby Eskimo may reflect Chugach occupation of Controller Bay andtheir warlike excursions into Yakutat territory, as well as the fact thatskin boats, like those of the Chugach, were once used on Yakutat Bay. de Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA t) BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192(2) Icy Bay, Yakutat Bay, and the coastal plain as far east as thesite of the Yakutat airfield, but excluding Kussell Fiord at the headof Yakutat Bay, compose the territory of the K'^ackqwan, a Raven sibwho trace their origin to the middle Copper River near Chitina.(3) The district from Lost River near the Yakutat airfield to justeast of Italio River, including the head of Russell Fiord, belongs to theTeqwedi, a Thngit Eagle sib from southeastern Alaska. The BearHouse lineage owns the western area of Lost and Situk Rivers; theDrum House lineage claims the eastern lands on Ahmldin, Dangerous,and Italio Rivers.(4) Akwe River and Dry Bay area belongs to the Thik^'axAdi, aformerly Athabaskan-speaking Raven sib, and to the Tl'ulaiaxAdi, aRaven sib from southeastern Alaska, with whom the remnants of theoriginal inhabitants have merged. Also resident in the area, althoughthey have never estabhshed full territorial claims, were the EagleTcukanedi, associated chiefly with Lituya Bay, and two other Eaglesibs from southeastern Alaska: the Kagwantan (proper) and theCAnkuqedi. The latter came via an interior route from Lynn Canal,up the Chilkat and down the Alsek, and are said to have inter-married with the Southern Tutchone Athabaskans.Although there were once many settlements in these regions, theyare now deserted, and the population of about 250 to 300 natives isnow concentrated in the modern town of Yakutat. Only a handfulof Eyak are reported to be at Cordova, and the little tribe is almostculturally and linguistically extinct. Some of the Dry Bay andLituya Bay people emigrated to Hoonah and Sitka. In 1880, therewere 170 "Thhnket" in Controller Bay, 150 near Cape Yakataga,and 500 at Yakutat and on the mainland as far south as Cape Spencer(Petroff, 1884, pp. 29, 32), making a total of 820, if Petroff's figuresare to be trusted. Although this count was taken after the disastroussmallpox epidemics, there is no reason to suppose that the Indianpopulation on the Gulf Coast was ever very large.The legendary history of Yakutat begins some "ten generations"ago, when the ancestors of the K'^ackqwan emigrated from Chitinaon the Copper River because of an intrasib quarrel. At that timethey spoke Atna Athabaskan, and are referred to as the Ginexqwanor "people of Ginex" (Bremner River, an eastern tributary of theCopper River). The emigrants are said to have ascended this riverand crossed the glaciers. Part of the group that became separatedfrom the rest eventually became the GauAxtedi Raven sib of theEyak at the mouth of the Copper River. The main party traveledacross the ice, past Mount Saint Ehas, which they now claim as acrest, and reached the coast somewhere west of Icy Bay, which was de Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 7then filled with ice. Here the Gmexqwan met and intermarried withsome Qalyix-Kagwantan who were moving eastward by canoe.The extensive icefields of Bagley and Bering (or Guyot?) Glacierswhich the emigrants had to cross, as well as mountain ridges up to5,000 feet high, might seem to present an insuperable barrier and socast doubt not only upon this tradition, but also upon the report thatcopper from the interior was carried to the coast via a "shortcut" tothe mouth of the Duktoth River at Cape Yakataga. Don J. Miller,of the U.S. Geological Survey, who knew this whole area thoroughly,assured us, however (letters of October 30 and December 6, 1957),that not only was the route possible, but that it had actually beenfollowed by prospectors in the early 1900's on the basis of the Indianlegend. The natives would have come up the Tana River (a southerntributary of the Chitina), up Granite Creek or Tana Glacier, and thenover Bagley and Bering Glaciers, and down the Duktoth River to thecoast. Miller furnished some details of the prospectors' journeys, thefijst of which were made in 1905 and 1906. Crossing the glaciers tookfrom 3 days to ahnost 3 weeks. One of the men found a piece of sphtwood, 2 feet long, on a moraine (of Bering Glacier?), apparently leftthere by the Indians (cf. also Moffit, 1918, p. 77). Miller reportsthe ice along most of the route as "relatively smooth and little cre-vassed?really good traveling, as glaciers go."Native accounts vary as to how long the Qmexqwan and theirspouses stayed near Icy Bay, but eventually they came to YakutatBay, which was then largely covered by a glacier. They crossed thebay, walking over the ice according to some informants or using skinboats according to others. The islands in the bay and the easternshore were already owned by a group or groups, variously identifiedas Chugach or as Indian. Our most knowledgeable informant calledthem the Hmyedi, a Raven sib (presumably Eyak-speaking) , althoughthere may have been other small tribes in the area. From them, theCopper River immigrants acquired by purchase the territory alongthe shores of Yakutat Bay, including the stream, K^'ack ("HumpbackSalmon" in Eyak), from which the sib takes its present name.Payment was made in copper which they had brought from theCopper River. After selling their lands, the Hmyedi are said tohave emigrated to southeastern Alaska, although we suspect thatsome of them merged with the K^'ackqwan.One group with hunting camps on Yakutat Bay and settlementsalong Lost and Situk Rivers to the east were called the Tlaxayik-("Yakutat Bay")-Teqwedi. They were an Eyak-speaking groupclosely related to, or possibly a branch of, the Galyix-Kagwantan,and w^ere responsible for the destruction of the Russian post atYakutat in 1805. Slightly prior to this, the first of the Thngit 8 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192Teqwedi from southeastern Alaska were marrying into the YakutatRavens. Shortly after 1805, the Tlaxayik-Teqwedi were nearlyexterminated by Thngit parties from Akwe River, and the survivorswere apparently absorbed by the true Teqwedi. Another group, nowextinct, were the Euxedi, also an Eagle sib, possibly a branch of theTlaxayik-Teqwedi. Their name refers to the muddy water of theSituk River, which at that time drained the ice-dammed lake atwhat is now the head of Russell Fiord.Meanwhile the Thngit had been moving up from southeasternAlaska and were established in the Dry Bay area. This is reflected inthe story of the man from the Hoonah district who taught Thngitarts to the Dry Bay Athabaskans and who became rich by tradingwith them (see Swanton, 1909, Tales 32 and 104) . The sibs that movedin at this time seem to have been the Kagwantan, Tl'uknaxAdi, andTeqwedi, although some of the Bear House hneage of the last sibwere already hving near Yakutat. The CAnkuqedi were presumablyestabhshed by that time at Dry Bay through intermarriage with thelocal inhabitants. The Drmn House branch of the Teqwedi pur-chased the Ahrnklin-Itaho district from the StaxAdi, a branch of theHmyedi, and the Bear House lineage of the Teqwedi acquired theSituk-Lost River area by preemption. The latter were probably notsecure in their holdings until the Tl'uknaxAdi from Dry Bay, eager toget the Russian loot held by the Tlaxayik-Teqwedi, made war on thelatter and nearly exterminated them.The Tl'uknaxAdi apparently did not enjoy their wealth for verylong because they became embroiled in a war with one of the ChilkatRaven sibs. One of their war parties was lost when a number oftheir canoes capsized in Lituya Bay under mysterious circumstances.This occurred about 1850, and the disheartened relatives at AkweRiver abandoned their town. Some moved to Hoonah and Sitka,and others came eventually to Yakutat.More important than the many wars and intrasib quarrels ascauses for the abandonment of settlements were the various epidemics,of which the smallpox epidemic of 1836-39 was the most disastrous.The establishment of a trading post, of the mission, and of the canneryconcentrated the scattered population at the modern town of Yakutatearly in the present century.One of the most important legendary figures in the native historyof Yakutat was Xatgawet, a Thngit Teqwedi of the Bear Househneage. He is said to have been born on the Akwe River and to havetraveled all over, even as far west as Katalla, marrying the daughtersof local chiefs and acquiring great wealth from the gifts customarilybestowed upon brothers- and sons-in-law. This is, of course, a deviceused by the Thngit to estabhsh profitable "trade" with the Atha- de Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 9baskans (Olson, 1936, p. 214). He is said to have "organized" thecoastal groups and to have given them the names of Thngit sibs, suchas QanAxtedi, Kagvvantan, and so on. He also gave the maximumnumber of eight potlatches, a feat not afterward equaled at Yakutat.All of these stories suggest that while the earher inhabitants of theGulf of Alaska may have had matrilineal sibs and moieties (perhapsrather loosely organized, hke those of the Copper River Atna), it wasthe Tlingit immigrants to Yaloitat who introduced the fully devel-oped patterns of Thngit social and ceremonial Hfe. According tosome informants, Xatgawet was also a shaman and acquired one ofhis famihar spirits from a Tsimshian colleague, a story which suggeststhe northward diffusion of shamanistic practices.Some informants say that Xatgawet bought Knight Island for hisQmexqwan wives and children, and that he assisted his brother-in-law in founding the village on that island and named it T'ukwan, orTt'Alv'^-'an "Old Town," after the famous Chilkat village (Klukwan).Our best infonnant maintains, however, that Xatgawet hved muchlater, after the Russians had been expelled. He is said to have beenthe grandfather of a woman who died shortly after 1900 and thegreat-grandfather of a woman who was bom in 1874. Furthermore,it is denied that he had anything to do with Knight Island, but hvedon Lost River. Giving him a post-Russian date would place him inthe period in which Tlingit had replaced Eyak speech at Yakutat.It is possible that the traditions are confused because there wereseveral persons with the same name. In any case, the first Thngittrade with Yakutat antedated the visits of the first European ex-plores in the last quarter of the 18th century, for it was alreadywell established at the time of the explorations of Ismailov andBocharov to Yakutat in 1788, witness the arrogant behavior of theThngit chief, Yelxak ("Ilchak"), from Chilkat (Shelikhov, 1793,pp. 228-229, 233-237; and in Coxe, 1803, pp. 324-325, 329-332).There is no doubt that the fur trade in the late 18th and early 19thcenturies stimulated the northward expansion of the Tlingit. Asso-ciated with the diffusion of Thngit trading patterns and the Tlingitlanguage, many other aspects of Thngit culture must have beenspread, probably including the style of potlatches, of peace ceremonies,and of shamanism and witchcraft. All of these would have beenreflected in such items of material culture as the large multifamilyhneage house with totemic crests on carved house posts and paintedscreens, and ceremonial regaha of all kinds. The Thngit also intro-duced the Haida-derived style in secular songs, and shamans' spiritsongs in Tsimshian. Thngit trade also brought to the Yakutatpeople large canoes of southern manufacture (Haida and Nootka),Tsimshian-made dance headdresses, dentalia, abalone, and flat-headed 10 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192 slaves, in return for which the Yakutat traded their magnificentbaskets, copper from the Copper River, and furs obtained locally orfrom their relatives in the interior or farther west along the GulfCoast. CONTACT WITH EUROPEANSAccording to the natives, their first contact with Europeans occurredsome time before the Russians established themselves at Yakutat. Aship was wrecked on the shore near Malaspina Glacier. Two menand a woman survived, but the men fell down a crevasse and onlythe woman was ahve when the Indians found the wreck. The latter,through ignorance, spoiled most of the treasures they took from theship. Thus, they put the guns into a fire and pounded up the barrelswith stones to make spears. They could work iron because theyalready knew how to shape copper. At that time an iron spear pointwas worth a slave, and so the men became rich. One of them marriedthe White wom.an, who lived to old age.From written sources we may infer that the first direct contactbetween the Gulf of Alaska Indians and the Russians was in 1783 whenPotap Zaikov led an exploring party into Prince William Sound andController Bay. Other hunting parties, consisting of several hundredAleuts and four or five Russians, apparently went down the coast,perhaps as far as Lituya Bay, but of these we have no details. LituyaBay was visited by LaPerouse in 1786, where he met natives whomay be taken as typical of the expanding northern Tlingit. TheIndians there had iron tools and beads. One of our informants toldabout the coming of the first ship to Lituya Bay, and a fuller versionwas obtained by Emmons (1911) from a chief at Douglas or Juneau.Dixon visited Yakutat in 1787, and the following year Ismailovand Bocharov explored Controller, Yakutat, and Lituya Bays, asreported by Shelikhov, and Colnett also traded with the natives inController and Yakutat Bays and in inlets farther southeast. In1788, Douglass anchored off the Ahrnklin and Dangerous Rivers,or off Dry Bay, where he traded with the natives, but he failed todiscover an anchorage in Yakutat Bay. Malaspina's more thoroughexploration of Yakutat Bay was made in 1791. Brown traded in thisarea in 1792, 1793, and 1794. In 1793 a war party from Yakutat wentto attack the Chugach in Prince Wniiam Sound, but, to their mis-fortune, fell in with Baranov and were defeated. That same year theRussians sent a party of Aleuts to Yakutat under the leadership ofShields, and in 1794 a large flotilla of bidarkas under Purtov andKulikalov. This party met Lieutenant Puget with one of Van-couver's ships (the Chatham) at Yakutat, and also the English trader,Brown, in the Jackall. de Lnguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA HThe Russian post at Yakutat (actually on a lagoon inside thesoutheast point of the bay) was begun in 1795 and fortified thefollowing year. In 1800 a second post, or blockhouse, was built onMonti Bay, near the present mission or near the entrance to thex\nkau lagoons where the first post was located. In 1802 the In-dians attacked an Aleut hunting party at Dry Bay and accused theRussians of robbing graves, a charge which is still remembered. Ourinformants also listed other grievances: the failure of the Russiansto pay for the land they occupied; closing the stream (with a fishweir?) between the Ankau lagoons and Summit Lake to the east, whichseriously interfered with the natives' supply of fish; taking childrenwith promises to educate them but actually using them as slaves;and, lastly, appropriating native women at their pleasure. As aresult, the Russian post was finally destroyed in 1805, and all but afew of the occupants were killed. The same year the Yakutat againinvaded Prince William Sound, but this war party was annihilated bythe Chugach. (For the Chugach version, see Birket-Smith, 1953, pp.141 f.)In 1806 Campbell rescued an Aleut man and his wife whom theYakutat had captured, and took two Indians to Kodiak as hostages.Our informants also told how the Ttaxayik-Teqwedi leader of theattack on the Russian fort was taken to Kodiak. It was not untilthe following year, however, that the widow and children of theRussian commander were liberated, together with a few othersurvivors.After this a period followed in which there were few close contactswith Europeans, except when trading parties went from Yakutat toNuchek in Prince William Sound, or to Sitka, or even to PrinceRupert and other distant, southern trading posts. We have fewrecords of European visitors to Yakutat until about 1880, except forthe Russian cartographers, Boolingin in 1807 and Khromchenko in1823, the British navigator, Belcher, in 1837, and the U.S. CoastSurvey in 1874. Although the ocean off the coast was a famouswhaling ground, vessels seldom put in to shore.The first American traders began to appear at Yakutat shortlybefore 1880. At that time, a White man was killed and his Indianslayer taken to Portland on a gunboat. Later, the U.S.S. Adamslanded a party of prospectors at Yakutat, and between 1883 and 1886there were goldminers working the black sands of Khantaak Islandand the ocean beach. Trading schooners began to caU regularly,and parties attempting to cUmb Mount Saint Elias stopped at Yakutatto recruit porters with almost equal regularity. A Dr. Ballou ran a 12 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192trading post where the mission is now located. Dm-ing this sameperiod, parties of Tsimshian and Tlingit from southeastern Alaskacame to hunt seals in Yakutat Bay and sea otters in Icy Bay. Themission was established in 1888, the "Old Village" at Yakutat wasfounded shortly afterward, and the cannery was built in 1904. THE YAKUTAT AREABy Frederica de LaqunaGEOGRAPHYThe region in which our archeological investigations were pursuedincludes Yakutat Bay and the coastal plain to the southeast as far asDry Bay. Yakutat Bay has its entrance between Point Manby(59? 41' N., 140? 19' W.) and Ocean Cape (59? 32' N., 139? 51' W.),where it is 16 miles wide. It extends northeastward about 33 miles,narrowing to a width of 3 miles or less, then turns southeastwardtoward the ocean for a distance of 28 miles. The coastal plainbetween Yakutat and Dry Bays is about 50 miles long, and from 5 to14 miles -wade between the open Gulf of Alaska and the snow-coveredpeaks of the Saint Elias Range.The southern shores of Yakutat Bay, including the chain of islands(Khantaak to Knight Islands) along its eastern edge, and the fore-shores northwest and southeast of the bay, are all low-lying terrain,less than 250 feet above sea level. Most of this land is composed ofalluvial gravels, sands, and silts, and is studded with lakes and swamps.The western shore of the bay is covered by the terminal moraine ofMalaspina Glacier, and similar outwash deposits are found along theopposite shore. AU of the permanent native settlements are in theselowland areas. (See numbered sites on map 3.)Steep rocky shores are encountered at Eleanor Cove, on the easternside of Yakutat Bay near Knight Island, about 15 miles above themouth of the bay, and on Bancas Point to the northwest. Here theland rises sharply to altitudes of over 4,000 feet, leaving only smallareas at the mouths of streams where the natives camp in the springwhen fishing for halibut or hunting bears and seals.Disenchantment Bay, the "heart" of Yakutat Bay, north of PointLatouche and Bancas Point, is filled with floating ice discharged fromthe glaciers that descend to tidewater from the high mountains ofthe Saint Ehas Range, here over 14,000 and 15,000 feet in elevation.These icy waters are the principal seal-hunting areas of the region,and the natives also gather sea gull eggs from the rocky cliffs ofHaenke ("Egg") Island in Disenchantment Bay.From Disenchantment Bay, Russell Fiord continues southeast forabout 10 miles, where it sends out to the west a 7-mile-long arm,Nunatak Fiord, at the head of which is another glacier. The bare13 14 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192slopes above Russell and Nunatak Fiords were formerly huntinggrounds for mountain goats. From Nunatak Fiord, Russell Fiordturns southward, extending so far that its head, "Mud Bay," protrudesinto the coastal plain only 14 miles from the ocean.The Alsek River rises in Yukon Territory close to the headwatersof the Yukon, Tanana, and Chilkat Rivers, and cuts through thehigh barrier of the Saint Elias-Fairweather Range to reach the sea atDry Bay. The mudflats at the mouth, about 10 miles wide, arecovered only at high tide. Formerly there were a number of villagesor camps on the lower Alsek and at the mouths of smaller streams andsloughs that enter Dry Bay. Until fairly recently the Dry Baypeople used to ascend the Alsek to hunt, fish, gather berries, andtrade with their interior neighbors and relatives, while the SouthernTutchone of the upper Alsek used to visit Dry Bay. Interior trailsconnected the settlements of the Southern Tutchone with those ofthe Interior Tlingit around Tagish Lake and with the villages of theChilkat Tlingit on Lynn Canal.A chain of sloughs, streams, lakes, and salt-water lagoons untilrecently provided an inland waterway for canoes going betweenYakutat and Dry Bay, although some portages were necessary. Itwas on these streams and lakes that most of the earlier settlementswere located, and here the natives obtained their supplies of salmon.Until 1875 or 1880 there were few permanent houses on Yakutat Bayitself; the most important village site was Old Town on the southernpoint of Knight Island.The eastern shore of Yakutat Bay as far north as Point Latouche,a distance of about 23 miles, is heavily timbered with spruce andhemlock. The former provided the natives mth most of the woodused for houses, boats, and implements, while the sweet inner bark ofthe hemlock was used for food. In addition, cedar drift logs weresometimes found on the ocean beach and utilized. Dense stands oftrees extend in narrow belts parallel to the ocean, but most of theplain between Yakutat Bay and Dry Bay is open country. Thenatives complain that the trees have recently been encroaching onareas where they used to gather strawberries, salmonberries, blue-berries, highbush cranberries, elderberries, Kamchatka lilies ("wild-rice"), wildcelery, wild "rhubarb," and "Indian-potatoes," as well asa variety of medicinal plants. Also there is a tradition that originallythere were no trees on the islands in Yakutat Bay, and that even aslate as 1850 or 1860 Krutoi Island was not wooded.The Ya utat area enjoys a fairly equable climate, since thethermometer rarely drops below zero or rises to 80; but there is veryheavy precipitation, averaging about 130 inches a year. Over 4 feetof snow may accumulate at one time on level ground, and mountainous Map 3.?Sites in the Yakutat Bay-Dry Bay area. Drawn by Donald F. McGeein. de Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 15drifts form in the forest in winter. Most of the offshore winds blowfrom the south and east, but on land there are often storm windsfrom the mountains to the north. The tidal range at Yakutat isabout 10 feet.The most important animals of the area that were utilized for foodor skins were: fur seal, harbor seal, sea otter, porpoise, sea lion,whale (eaten when found stranded), black bear, brown grizzly, landotter (until recently avoided as supernatm-ally dangerous), mountaingoat, wolf, fox, wolverine, beaver, muslcrat, and marmot. Moose,rabbit, and deer have come or been introduced into the area duringthe present century. The most valuable fish are the salmon?king,sockeye, humpback, and coho, to list them in the order of their runs;there are also halibut, eulachon, herring, steelhead, etc. Bird life isparticularly abundant, especially in the Ankau system of streams,lakes, and lagoons between Ocean Cape and Lost River. The mostsignificant for the natives were swans, geese, salt- and fresh-waterducks, terns, gulls, and other aquatic birds. Cockles, clams, mussels,chitons, crabs, and sea urchins were gathered in the sheltered watersalong the eastern part of the bay or in the salt lagoons of the Ankauarea. Edible seaweed was obtained on rocky points off Ocean Capeor on the outer shores of the islands.Icy Bay was an important area for himting mountain goat, seal,and sea otter, and the Qalyix-Kagwantan territory west of CapeYakataga was noted for its fur bearers, especially beaver and seaotter. GEOLOGICAL CHANGESThere have been a number of geological changes in the YakutatBay region since it was jQrst settled, and recently discovered evidenceof these changes (Plafker and Miller, 1958) have tended to confirmnative traditions (de Laguna, 1958). The whole area was probablyburied under ice during the Pleistocene, and while human occupationmay have been possible during the recession which followed theWisconsin glacial period, we have no evidence of it. After this, therewas another advance of the ice, so that Malaspina Glacier and thetwo lobes that filled Icy Bay and Yakutat Bay formed a continuousfront of ice along the sea. The coastal plain east of Yakutat Bayand west of Icy Bay was apparently unglaciated. The eastern edgeof the glacier filling Yakutat Bay ran northeastward from Ocean Cape,covering the area around Lake Redfield, and a smaller ice lobe extendedsouth from the head of Russell Fiord, although the land around Lostand Situk Rivers was not glaciated (Tarr, 1909, map p. 106; Plafkerand MiEer, 1958). The culmination of the glacial advance in IcyBay was roughly between A.D. 600 and 920 (A.D. 756 ? 160 years), 16 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192and in Yakutat Bay was between A.D. 970 and 1290 (A.D. 1127 ?160 years), according to radiocarbon dates obtained from wood inend moraines near Icy Cape and Ocean Cape (Plafker and Miller,1958). Dm-ing the subsequent recession, the ice retreated as far as oreven farther than the present glacial fronts, permitting the growth oftrees well behind the present timberline in Icy Bay, in Russell Fiord,and in Disenchantment Bay. This retreat began somewhat beforeA.D. 1400, to judge from the age of living trees near Yakutat.These geological changes are further discussed on pages 204-206.Native traditions seem to imply that this recession was in progresswhen the ancestors of the K^ackqwan came from the Copper River;in fact they are said to have caused it by throwing a dead dog downa crevasse. Icy Bay was then completely filled with ice, and theimmigrants crossed Yakutat Bay on the glacier that extended fromPoint Manby on the west to Eleanor Cove on the east. The nativename for Yakutat Bay, Tlazayik, is derived from the Eyak tla'(glacier), xa' (near), plus the Tlingit suffix -yik (place inside). Theglacier was melting back, exposing the bay, and Yakutat, yak"'dat,is supposed to be an Eyak expression meaning "a lagoon (or bay) isalready forming."It was presumably during this same recession that a village wasfounded on Guyot Bay, just inside the northwest point of Icy Bay.It was eventually overwhelmed by a readvance of the ice, whichculminated during the 18th century. Tarr and Martin (1914, pp. 46f.) quoted a version of this tradition, recorded by Topham in 1888,and believed that the glacial advance took place between 1837 whenBelcher sailed into Icy Bay and 1886 when Schwatka saw a solid wallof ice in the bay. Plafker and Miller (1958) have advanced convincingevidence that the "Icy Bay" of the explorers from Vancouver toSchwatka was really the former outlet of the Yahtse River, east ofthe present Icy Bay, and that the latter was already full of ice by1790. Malaspina Glacier probably advanced at the same time as theglaciers in Icy and Yakutat Bays. A radiocarbon date of wood fromits moraine indicates that the climax of the advance was aboutA.D. 1750 ? 150 years. The advance in the Yakutat area was muchless extreme and affected only the glaciers in Disenchantment Bayand Russell Fiord. The maximum extent of the ice in Yakutat Baymay have been to Blizhni Point and to a corresponding locality on theeastern shore, midway between Knight Island and Point Latouche(Plafker and MUler, 1958).Although the glaciers were already in retreat by 1791, Malaspinawas stopped in June of that year by ice that fiUed DisenchantmentBay as far south as Haenke Island. Tarr (1909, p. 20) beheved thatthis was only floating ice; if so, glacial conditions may not have been de Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 17very different from those of today. Even now floating ice in earlysummer may prevent travel above Haenke Island, and we have seenbergs drifting down to Knight Island. On the other hand, there has,in general, been a great retreat of glaciers near Yakutat since the 18thcentmy, and other geologists (Russell 1892, p. 172; Tarr and Martin,1914, pp. 108 f.; Plafker and Miller, 1958) believe that Malaspinaencountered a solid wall of glacial ice in the vicinity of Haenke Island.The natives told us that before they had guns (which theydid not acquire until the end of the 18th century), they were unable tocamp above Point Latouche because of the floating ice. The mainseahng camp was then 3 miles south of the point, at a place calledTlaxata, an Eyak word referring to the proximity of the glacier.In the early 19th century, after the destruction of the Russian post in1805, the natives made a fortified camp at Wuganiys, about 2^ milesabove the point. At the end of the century the sealing camps justabove Point Latouche were great centers (Grinnell, 1901, pp. 158-165).Remarks made by some informants suggest, however, that there mayhave been a period in the middle of the century when these placeswere little used because of the ice.Until the middle of the last century, Russell Fiord was blocked byglaciers which dammed up a fresh-water lake at the southern end ofthe fiord. This barrier, undoubtedly due to the 18th-century ad-vance, extended from Beasley Creek to Cape Stoss. The name forthe latter was an Eyak word, meaning "it has the glacier in its mouth."This lake was drained by the Situk River (see Tebenkov, 1852, chartVII ; Davidson, 1904, map vi). At that time it was possible to travelby canoe from the lake, through a series of lakes and streams, toYakutat Bay just below Knight Island. The ice barrier broke sometime between 1850 and 1875, according to our informants, when thedammed-up lake waters were discharged into Russell Fiord, reducingthe Situk River to a small stream. Tarr and Martin (1914, p. 230)estimate that the vegetation on the old lake beach at the head ofRussell Fiord was not over 50 years old in 1909-13. This change inthe size of the river must have affected adversely any settlements onthe upper Situk, where a fortified village had been built shortly after1805. We do not know, however, whether any attempt was made toreoccupy this site after the original owners, the Tlaxayik-Teqwedi,were massacred at their camp at WuganiyE.Native tradition also refers to a breaking of a glacier bridge acrossthe Alsek River probably about the same time or toward the end ofthe centiu-y. Prior to this, the river had flowed out under a tunnelof ice. The Tluk'^ax.vdi from Dry Bay, when making then- annualtrips to the interior, had to cany theu" canoes overland through agorge on the west side of the river in order to bypass the glacier, and 18 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 102on their retui-n downstream would paddle fearfully under the ice.The coUapse of the ice is said to have created a great flood thatdrowned many people in Dry Bay. There were also ice-dammedlakes formed at the headwaters of the Alsek River, and a SouthernTutchone informant reported that his mother had twice seen the icebreak and the water rush out in a flood, the first occurrence beingabout 1842, according to his estimate.Retreat of the Icy Bay glacier did not begin until about 1904(Plafker and Miller, 1958). Oiu- informants said that this was be-cause a dead Tsimshian sea otter hunter had been eviscerated (topreserve his body) and his entrails buried at Guyot Bay ("TsimshianBay"), just inside the northwest point of Icy Bay. This happeningwas evidently after 1890 and before the death of Yakutat ChiefGeorge in 1903.Although we have no Yakutat traditions concerning the topographyat Lituya Bay, Tarr and Martin (1914, p. 10) estimate that the glaciersadvanced about 3 to 3% miles between 1786, the time of LaPerouse'svisit, and 1906. About 1850 a flotilla of canoes, said to have comefrom the Akwe River, were overturned in Lituya Bay and all the oc-cupants drowned. Possibly this disaster was caused by giant floodwaves, evidence of which could be dated at 1853 or 1854 through aring count of trees that had sprung up on the devastated area (Miller,1960, pp. 67 f.).Still farther south, the ice in Glacier Bay on the north shore ofCross Sound has retreated about 55 miles since the latter part of the18th century. Prior to that, there was a long period of recession whenthe glaciers were even smaller than they are now (Field, 1932, p. 371).The advance of the ice which destroyed a Tlingit town in this arearecorded in one story by Swanton (1909, pp. 337 f.) may be the move-ment of the ice to its maximum extension in the 18th century.A very important recent geological event was the Yakutat earth-quake, which lasted for 3 weeks dm-ing September 1899. Althoughthe center of this disturbance was 15 to 30 miles up the bay, waveswashed away the native graveyard at Point Turner on KhantaakIsland and threatened the mission at Yakutat. Avalanches fell allalong the shore between EJiight Island and Point Latouche, and giantwaves in this area destroyed forests over 40 feet above sea level. Theearthquake also produced considerable changes in sea level, althoughapparently not at Yakutat itseK or on the foreland to the east. Atthe extreme western end of Phipps Peninsula there was subsidence of7 feet, and some stretches of shore north of Knight Island weresimilarly depressed. Other areas along the eastern shore were raisedfrom 1 to 7 feet; Haenke Island rose 17 to 19 feet, and the west side ofDisenchantment Bay reached a maximum elevation of 47 feet. The de Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 19axis of tilting ran directly through the village site of Old Town onKnight Island, but fortunately the main portion of the site was notdamaged. The effects of the earthquake are described by Tarr andMartin (1906).Tarr and Martin (1906, pp. 52 ff.) believe that there had beenprevious changes of sea level, and they cite raised beaches now coveredwith forests on Krutoi and Otmeloi Islands, and an elevated beachsouth of Point Latouche (and Tlaxata) with trees only 75 years old in1906. We observed similar old beach lines on the south point ofKnight Island. In fact, according to Don J. Miller (letter of October9, 1957), there is evidence of very recent emergence of land areas,from beneath both the sea and the ice, all the way from Copper Riverto Icy Point beyond Lituya Bay.The earthquake of 1899 is credited with shaking down so muchsnow on the glaciers in the Yakutat area that the latter were stimu-lated to renewed activit}^ between 1905 and 1910 (Tarr and Martin,1914, p. 37). Since then most of them have been in retreat, exceptthat we observed that Turner Glacier in Disenchantment Bay hadrecently advanced farther south and east of the position shown on theU.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey chart No. 8455 (1945, 5th ed., chart of1901). This observation was confirmed by the natives, who saidthat they no longer dare to camp on Osier Island nearby because of thedanger of waves from calving bergs.Other recent changes in the Yakutat Bay area have been the dryingup or shallowing of the sloughs connecting the Ankau lagoons withLost and Situk Rivers, and shifts in the sandbars at the mouths of theSituk and Ahrnklin Rivers that have resulted in some disturbancesof the salmon runs.On July 9, 1958, Yakutat again felt the effects of a severe earth-quake, when waves drowned three persons on Khantaak Island. Thesouthwest end of the island near Point Turner was, according toreports, "lifted forty to fifty feet in the air[!]" and then submerged(New York Times, July 10, 1958). My local correspondents do notmake clear whether the old village site on the island was affected. Atthe same time, a landslide in Lituya Bay raised giant waves whichdenuded the mountain slope near the head of the bay to the prodigiousheight of 1,720 feet. AH the shores of the bay were lashed by wavesthat stripped them of vegetation and that overrode the three habi-tation sites near the mouth visited by LaPerouse in 1786. Trim linesin the forest growth indicate that similar giant waves, but of lesserextent, had previously devastated the shores of the bay: in late 1853or early 1854 (although no major earthquake was reported), about1874, in 1899 (probably associated with the Yakutat quake), and in1936 (caused by a landshde) (Miller, 1960). Native traditions re- 20 BUREAU OF AliIERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192count the complete obliteration of a village near the mouth of the bay,from which the only survivors were the men who had been out huntingsea otters and a lone woman who had been picking berries on the hills(Williams, 1952, p. 137). Possibly it was this village, and not that onthe Akwe near Dry Bay, which our informants should have associatedwith the Lituya Bay drownings, since the mourning song commemorat-ing the tragedy is supposed to have been composed by a woman whoactually saw her relatives drown. Probably the Akwe village,occupied by the same or related sibs, was deserted about the same time,leading to an association of the two events. Although there had beenno great waves in the bay for some time prior to 1786, in the opinionof Miller (1960, p. 56), who studied these phenomena, the Tlingitwere well acquainted with the treacherous character of the bay, asevidenced by the traditions recorded by Emmons (1911). The dangersthey feared were probably something more than ordinary storms ortide rips at the entrance.The whole southern part of Alaska is subject to seismic activity,and there were probably other earth movements which may haveaffected former village sites, but of which we have no direct or clearevidence. SETTLEMENTS ON YAKUTAT BAYA number of former villages or camps within the Yakutat Bay areawere reported by our informants, but we were able to investigate onlya few of these sites. The available information about them is sum-marized below. Unfortunately the early explorers are not verydefinite or specific about the location or nature of the native habita-tions they saw. Probably Colnett (MS., 1788) was correct when heestimated that the 200 natives he met at "Foggy Harbour," or PortMulgrave, had their homes to the southeast and came to YakutatBay only to hunt, fish, or trade. He beUeved the huts he saw wereonly temporary summer dwellings. It is to be noted also that Beres-ford with Dixon in 1787 (1789, p. 169) noted "several huts scatteredhere and there in various parts of the sound." Malaspina in 1791seems to have found a village on or near Port Mulgrave, that isKhantaak Island, but does not indicate its location on his chart(1802; 1885, p. 156), although the latter shows the cemetery insideAnkau Creek, on the north shore, near the site of the present AlaskaNative Brotherhood Cemetery.1. On Ankau Creek, in the vicinity of the cemetery mentionedabove, there was evidently a village, according to Dixon's chart of1787. The grave monuments which he and Malaspina describeevidently stood nearby. Vancouver in 1794 (1801, vol. 5, p. 396)also noted a village about 2 miles "within cape Phipps." This site de Lagiina] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 21was only half remembered by one of our informants. We searchedfor it without success. (For sites 1-6, 14-17, cf. map 4.)2. The village on Port Mulgrave, Khantaak Island, was calledSu^kA. The modern village, remembered by our informants fromthe 1880's, was perhaps founded in 1875-80 to take advantage of thevisits of trading schooners, but was located at the same spot indicatedon Dixon's map of 1787. This village was abandoned by 1893. Exca-vation is impossible because the whole site is covered by a graveyard.3. The "Old Village" of Yakutat, about three-fourths of a milenorth of the cannery, was founded about 1889 when the mission wasbuilt nearby. It is still occupied, although most families moved to thepresent town of Yakutat in 1919 to build permanent homes near thecannery that had been estabhshed in 1904. Part of the lowland wherethe original houses stood at the Old Village has been washed away.4. Sites were reported on both sides of Canoe Pass, a channel leadingeast from Johnstone Passage, but we were able to find only a verysmall shell heap on the island forming the north side of the pass. Thedeposit consisted of 3 inches of humus, 12 inches of stones, ash, andshells, and 7 inches of concentrated shells (clam, cockle, mussel, andsea urchin) at the bottom, forming a total depth of 22 inches. Onlya cut bird bone (C/3), a rectangular slab whetstone of shale (C/2),and a quartzite hammerstone (C/1) were found, which gave no clueto the age of the site,5. Although a former village site was reported on the east side ofDolgoi Island, we were unable to locate it. However, a site wasdiscovered near the mouth of a small stream on the south end of theisland, about 100 feet from the beach. The site is perhaps 300 feetlong and 100 feet wide. Where tested, the deposit consisted of stickyblack soil and fire-cracked rocks, only 6 to 10 inches deep, and con-tained a cobble hammerstone (D/2) and a ground slate tool (D/1).That the site may be of considerable age is the fact that a huge tree,fallen in 1952, once grew on the cultural deposit.6. Various former camping places were reported on the north endof Khantaak Island, on "Crab Island" nearby, on Krutoi Island, and atthe mouth of Humpback Salmon Creek opposite Kratoi Island. Some ofthese camps were mentioned in stories of Chugach raids, but the siteat the stream was said to have been occupied by the Hinyedi, the orig-inal owners of the area. An unsuccessful search was made for it.We also failed to locate the settlement on the north end of KhantaakIsland, although it is marked on Dixon's chart near the locationof a White man's home whicli we visited.7. The important site Tl'Ak^'-'an or "Old Town," on the southerntip of Knight Island, was reported to have been originally settledbefore the Russians came, but informants differed as to whether 22 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bnr,i.. 192it was first a Hinyedi or a Chugach camp, or a K^'ackqwan village.There is also uncertainty as to why or when it was abandoned. In1791, Maiaspina (1S85, p. 164) noted grave monuments here or inthe vicinity, similar to those at Ankau Creek. Since Russian daysit has been used as a camping place, and a White man has a cabinnearby. It was here that our archeological work was concentrated;a full discussion and description of the site is given later.8. Another site was reported at the mouth of a stream about halfa mile east of Old Town on the south shore of Knight Island. AWhite man and his native wife now live here. We could find no traceof the site. (Numbers for sites 7 and 8 are transposed on map 3.)9. The small rocky island close to the mainland east of KnightIsland is called "Little Fort" in Thngit (pi. 1, a). It is supposed tohave been fortified ''in the days of Xatgawet" as a protection againstChugach raids. In the clearing on top of the island the outlines ofthe fort walls are preserved, and they confirm native traditions thatthe foundations of fortifications were often of stone. The walls ofrough cobblestones can be traced for a distance of about 70 feet alongthe east side, and seem to enclose a rectangular area, 112 by 225 feet,within which shelters of some kind were presumably built. In a 6-inch cultural deposit of dark-brown rocky soil, outside the east wall,a piece of copper, probably a Imife (ulo) blade, was found (F/1). Theisland would now be hard to defend, but it had more precipitoussides before it was elevated about 12}^ feet during the earthquakeof 1899.10. A former Chugach (?) camp was reported at the mouth ofthe stream opposite the north end of Knight Island, but was notvisited. The land here rose about 5K feet during the earthquake.11. The old sealing camp, Tlaxata, is said to be back in the woodson the north bank of the large stream about Sji miles below PointLatouche. We were unable to land there. Maiaspina (1885, pp.162-164) found natives camped here in early July 1791.12. Three sealing camps used in post-Russian times, and describedby Grinnell (1901, pp. 158-165), were at the mouths of streamsapproximately 1%, 2}^, and 3)4 miles above Point Latouche. Theywere called, respectively, "Burned Down" (in Eyak), WuganiyE(meaning the same in Thngit), and "Big Valley" (in Tlingit).WuganiyE was said to have been surrounded by a stone wall withloopholes for guns, but the Tiaxayik-Teqwedi defenders were mas-sacred by the Thngit Ti'uknaxAdi from Dry Bay. Although thisplace was visited in M&j 1954, the snow was too deep to permitexploration. The three camps were visited by the Harriman AlaskaExpedition in the spring of 1899, when they were occupied by 300 to400 natives from Yakutat, Sitka, and Juneau. During the earth- PT CARREW 141 de Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 23quake that fall, the shore was elevated from 7K to 12 feet. Modemcamping places are on the south shore of Haenke Island where a flatwas raised above sea level by the quake, and on the mainland opposite.13. The Tlaxayik-Teqwedi are said to have had a camp on highground near Bancas Point on the west side of the Bay.SETTLEMENTS IN THE ANKAU AREAThe Ankau lagoon system of Phipps Peninsula is entered fromMonti Bay via Ankau Creek, and consists of several salt-water lagoonsand lakes. These are connected by streams with Rocky Lake, AkaLake, and Summit Lake to the southeast. From Summit Lake,near the U.S. Coast Guard Loran Station, Lost River flows southeast-ward to enter the ocean about 11 miles from Ocean Cape.14. The site of the Russian post. Nova Rossiysk, ("New Russia")(1796-1805), was on the narrowest part of the barrier beach betweenthe ocean and the largest of the Ankau lagoons ("Russian Lake").It is supposed to have contained "seven buildings defended by astockade, and five others outside" (Dall and Baker, 1883, p. 207;see also Tebenkov's map vii, 1852). Although we visited this spotseveral times with native guides, we were unable to find any traceof the fort. An Indian had a fishing camp and smokehouse at thisspot; the ocean has evidently washed away much of the land. Thenatives also reported that the Russians fortified a small island in thelagoon and erected a "gate" (fish weir?) across the stream, T'awal,that drains Aka and Rocky Lakes into the lagoon.In 1948, on or near this stream, a Yakutat native, since dead, founda limestone rock, carved in typical Northwest Coast style to representa bear (pi. 3, b). We were unable to discover just where it had beenfound, and although this is the only known petroglyph in the Yakutatarea, the natives believed that it commemorated the defeat of theRussians by the Tlaxayik-Teqwedi. The rock was taken to Yakutat,where we saw it, but it later disappeared.15. There was a former K"^ackqwan village, "On the Lake," atthe middle of the ocean side of Aka Lake. The occupants died in thesmallpox epidemic of 1836-39. The site was afterward used as afish camp until fairly recently. It is now a clearing, but our briefexploration revealed nothing more than broken crockery and scrapsof iron.16. The stream connecting Aka and Summit Lakes was said tohave been a canal, "dug by slaves," which probably means that theydeepened or widened it at some point. Moser (1901, p. 383, map onpi. XLViii, Yakutat to Dry Bay) reports that: "The rocks and boul-ders have been removed from the bed,and piled along the side, forminga shallow channel up which canoes are tracked at low water, but may 24 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192be poled at high water." He locates this area on the lower stretchof the creek, just above the lagoon. A village at the junction of thestream and Aka Lake was occupied by Eyak-speaking Indians whowere killed by the Tlingit Teqwedi. We were not able to visit thissite.17. Summit Lake drains both into the Ankau system and intoLost River. On the ocean side of the outlet toward Lost River thereis said to have been a village, called in Tlingit, "Town on the Hill,"because of its situation on a sandhill. It was occupied first by Eyak-speakers and later by the K'^ackqwan, who aU died in the smallpoxepidemic of 1836-39. We did not explore this locahty.SETTLEMENTS, LOST RIVER TO ITALIO RIVERThe stream which flows southeast from Summit Lake is erroneouslydesignated as "Tawah Creek" (U.S.C. and G.S. chart No. 8402), or as"Ankau Creek" (U.S.G.S. topographic sheet, "Yakutat"). Thenatives call it "Lost River," and give the same name to the lowerpart of the stream which it joins, referring to the upper part of thesame stream as "Little Lost River." We shall use the term "LostRiver" to refer to the lower part of the stream; designate the streamfrom Summit Lake as its western branch; and retain the native name "Little Lost River" for the small northern branch.18. Before the Russians came, there was a small settlement on thewestern branch, approximately opposite the "Number Two" runwayof the Yakutat airfield. When the Russians were expelled, thisbecame the principal village of the K'^ackqwan, with at least fourlarge Hneage houses and other smaller homes. The inhabitants werevirtually wiped out by smallpox. Later the surviving K^ackqwanmoved to Khantaak Island, and the site was used as a fish camp(only?). It is called Nessudat. Moser in 1901 (p. 384) noted threehouses and some fish racks at this locahty.The site occupies a fairly large clearing on the ocean side of thestream and is marked by at least three house pits and several cachepits, although none of the former could be identified as the ruins ofany of the particular houses mentioned by our informants. We madetest excavations along the cut bank of the stream, in the culturaldeposit at the western end of the clearing, and in a house pit at theeastern end; but found only objects suggesting recent occupation.The house pit measured about 18 feet square, with postholes andremains of the corner posts some 5 inches beyond the end walls. Thecultural deposits in the midden and in the house pit consisted of hght-brown or gray sandy soil, containing ashes, flecks of charcoal, andoccasional fire-cracked rocks. Maximum depths were about 24 inchesin the midden, and 38 inches within the house pit, where cache (?) de Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 25pits were encountered below the floor level. The clearing extendsabout 300 feet along the stream and is about 160 feet wide. Unfortu-nately, it was onty as we were leaving that we noticed what appearedto be a much older house pit in the dense wood west of the clearing.Material from Nessudat included: A cylindrical beach cobble usedas a pestle (pi. 10, k), a hammerstone (N/10), a fragmentary siltstonewhetstone (N/2), a small iron ball, 2.7 cm. in diameter (N/1), an ironspike and an iron nail (N/5), some small green, small white, and largewhite glass beads (N/6), and some fragments of English soft pasteporcelain. These all came from the test hole in the house pit. Fromthe midden on the riverbank were: a fragment of copper sheeting(N/14), a broad flat piece of iron, possibly from a can, folded andshaped into a loiife or scraper (N/20), and an iron knife blade (pi. 4, i).Other items from the midden were : a clear glass liquor bottle, remainsof a tm can, a large white bead (N/7), a blue glass bead (N/8), andan iron spike.On the ocean beach near Nessudat was found an iron spearheadwhich we were able to borrow from the finder for sketching (see fig.13, d).19. On the ocean side of the west branch, one-fourth of a mile aboveits confluence with Little Lost River, is the site of Diyaguna'Et, anEyak word meaning "Salt water comes in here" (pi. 1,6). It origi-nally belonged to the L'uxedi or Muddy Water People, and afterchanging hands several tunes, was finally acquired by the Bear Houselineage of the Tlingit Teqwedi. It became their principal villageunder l^atgawet, although the latter is reported to have lived in hisown house farther upstream at a place called ''Strawberry Leaf" inEyak. The village was visited by smallpox in 1836-39, but a numberof inhabitants survived. During Teqwedi occupation, the villageis supposed to have consisted of three or more houses, surrounded bya pahsade. We were told the names of seven houses, but since onehneage house might have several names, we do not know how manyactual buildings were imphed. The village was inhabited up to about100 years ago. One of the houses apparently had a carved bearfigure above the door, or on a post that served as the doorway.The site is on a sandbank about 100 yards long, 50 yards wide,and 20 feet high, which is now being undercut by the stream. Themidden deposit of humus, charcoal, and fire-cracked rocks is from4 to 18 inches deep in most places, but in one spot the bank has cavedaway to expose an old house pit containing a cultural deposit about48 inches deep. In this fill were found a broken barbed slate blade(see fig. 14, ^) and a fragment of a slate ulo or scraper (49-25-108), atdepths of 24 and 30 inches.On top of the bank were three house pits, measuring 32 by 32 feet 26 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192and 5 feet deep, 30 by 20 feet and 4 feet deep, and 30 by 20 feet and2 feet deep. Two other rectangular depressions and a circular de-pression, about 20 feet in diameter, may also be house pits. Twoother circular pits, 12 and 8 feet in diameter and 5 and 3 feet in depth,respectively, were probably for caches.None of these surface house remains appears to be very old. Arotted post was found in the corner of one of the smaller pits, and testexcavations in the largest house pit uncovered one of the rotted roofbeams and a piece of commercial copper sheeting with nail holes.The slumped bank and the bed of the river are littered with fire-cracked roclis, pieces of commercial copper, iron nails, frag-mentsof china, and scraps of burned bone. Some of the china (49-25-114)has been identified by Arnold R. PilHng, then a graduate student atthe University of CaHfornia, as probably of English manufacturebetween 1830 and 1875. Other pieces are of true Chinese porcelain,later than Canton ware, but similar to that introduced into Californiaabout 1850.The following objects of native manufacture were found on thebank of the river: a planing adz blade (pi. 6, d), a sandstone slabpossibly used as a saw to cut stone (49-25-109), a hammerstone(-1 10), a piece of worked greenstone (-111), and half of a round sandstonelamp like a complete specimen previously found here by one of theYakutat natives (pi. 3, a). The same man also found two stoneblades for splitting adzes. There was also a small whetstone (pi. 10, d)a scraper made of copper (see fig. 11,/), and an iron dagger (see fig.13, b).This material indicates habitation in both prehistoric and moderntimes.20. A small site on the west side of Little Lost River, about one-half mile above its confluence with the western branch of LostRiver, is called "Shallow Water Town" (in THngit?), and is supposedto have been the oldest village of the L'uxedi. It was acquired by theTlingit Teqwedi, and finally given by a Teqwedi chief to his K'^ack-qwan brother-in-law, who planted native tobacco here. The siteis a clearing about 200 feet long, about 75 feet wide, and some 20 feetabove the streambed. There are no cultural deposits in the cutbank. An indefinite depression, about 20 by 20 feet, may be a housepit. Our two test holes indicated cultural deposits to depths of 10andj20 inches, consisting of humus, ash, charcoal, and a few fire-cracked roclvs. Three blue glass beads of the kind seen by CaptainCook in Prince WiUiam Sound in 1778 (S/2), an iron arrowhead (S/l),and a lump of red ocher were found. These may date from lateprotohistoric times, but fail to corroborate the native claim for greatantiquity. dc Lapuna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 2721. Several houses and tent frames mark the modern Indian fishcamp on the west side of the mouth of Lost River. Two native houseson the east bank of the river, at the end of an abandoned railway spurfrom the cannery at Yakutat, opposite tlie mouth of the west branch,were built in 1919 but are no longer occupied. One house at the endof the railway was formerly ornamented by two carved wooden brownbear paws, from which it derived its name, but these were stolen inthe summer of 1952.22. Situk Village was on the east bank of Situk River, and extendedbetween the railway trestle and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Servicestation. It was founded by the Teqwedi about 1875-80, and wasabandoned about 1916 (?). The site is marked by a few graves andthe remains of collapsed framehouses. In the clearing opposite theFish and Wildlife station there are some cache pits, about 3 feet indiameter and 8 inches deep. Those explored contained only ashes,rocks, and an iron bolt. In the river above the Government weir,men at the station found a grooved maul head, carved to represent ananimal (see fig. 21, d). We were unable to discover any trace of anearlier site, although there may have been one.23. "Eagle Fort," reported to consist of four houses connected bytunnels and surrounded by a palisade, was built by the Tlaxayik-Teqwedi shortly after 1805 because they feared Russian retahation.Here they repulsed an attack by the Tl'ulmaxAdi from Akwe River,but were defeated the next spring at WuganiyE (site 12) in YakutatBay. We were unable to visit the site of this fort. The name forthe locality is known by both Eyak and THngit words.24. A single Tl'uknaxAdi house was built about the middle of thelast century on Johnstone Slough, about 1^ miles above the end ofthe railway from Yakutat. The fish camp at the mouth of JohnstoneSlough and Situk River is modern.25. The main village of the Drum House branch of the TlingitTeqwedi was reported on the Ahrnldin River, about 2 miles above themouth, apparently near the confluence of the two main branches.The village and also the river were named "Big Town of the Animals"(Tlingit), referring to the rich hunting in the area. There were saidto have been four houses there, and the river, now undercutting thesite, exposes charcoal to a depth of 4 feet. The village was abandonedwhen most of the inhabitants died, either in a feud or from smallpox.A Teqwedi settlement on the Alirnklin, called "Wolf Cave," may bethe same place, or possibly a lineage house at this town.There are said to have been no villages on Dangerous River, but theTeqwedi are supposed to have Uved on Itaho River before they pur-chased the Ahrnklin area from the StaxAdi. There were some 28 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192fishing cabins on the Itaho in 1909 (Robson, 1910, photograph onp. 171). SETTLEMENTS IN THE DRY BAY AREAOur information about former settlements in the Dry Bay area isunsatisfactory, owing in part to the shifting stream channels whichrender available maps inaccurate or confusing to our infonnants andin part to the great difficulties of travel encountered by Riddell andLane in 1953.Just west of Dry Bay, the Akwe and Ustay (Akse) Rivers have acommon mouth. The Akwe or western stream drains the lake atthe foot of Chamberlain Glacier and also ponds and swamps near theItalio River. The Ustay (Us-tay of Moser, and Akse of Tebenkov)is formed of two tributaries, the one draining the lake at the foot ofRodman Glacier to the west, and the Tanis, draining Tanis Lake tothe east. Near the confluence of these two branches, the Ustay putsout distributaries draining eastward and southeastward into DryBay: Gines ("William") Creek to the north, and farther down theUstay, the Kakanhini ("Muddy") Creek and the much smallerStuhinuk ("Stickleback," or "Cannery Creek"), both of which enterDry Bay near the mouth of the Alsek.According to Tebenkov's map (1852, map vii; cf. also Davidson,1904, map vi), there were villages on both the Akwe and "Akse" Rivers,designated, respectively as "Nearer" and "Farther Village to the Mili-tary Post" (at Yakutat). The Coast Pilot of 1869 (Davidson, 1869, p.136), relying on Russian sources, reports in roughly this locality(59?14' N., 138 ?45' W.) the common mouth of two streams, eachwith a village on it, some 6 to 12 miles (by winding channel?) fromtheir confluence.26. The westernmost of these two villages was probably theprincipal town of the Tl'uknaxAdi, called Gusex. This was reportedto have been on the Akwe River, apparently at the confluence of themain or northern with the western branch. Tebenkov's "NearerVillage" is west of the river and north of a large slough. Accordingto the Coast Pilot of 1883 (Dall and Baker, 1883, p. 206), about1870 (or earfier?), one of the several villages between Yakutat and DryBay was visited by the captain of a whaler anchored at Yakutat.He reported this as "the largest, finest and most clean Indian villagehe had seen in all his experience on the coast. The population waslarge, the houses well built, solid, and adorned with paintings andcarvings of wood, and expressly adapted for defense." It was per-manently inhabited, parties leaving to trade or to hunt seals inDisenchantment Bay. The description would fit what was toldfofGusex. Unfortunately, the chart (ibid., opp. p. 204) shows a village (le Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 29at what would appear to be the confluence of the Ustay and a westerntributary, but it is so inaccurate that no rehancc can be pkced upon it.According to our informants, Gusex had originally been an Atlia-baskan Tluk'^axAdi settlement before the THngit Tl'uknaxAdi builthouses here. The names of five houses were mentioned, and the postsof one were said to have been visible 40 or 50 years ago. It was fromthis town that the Tl'uknaxAdi sent war parties against the Tlaxayik-Teqwedi on Situk River and Yakutat Bay, and to it they brought theRussian cannon and other treasures taken from their defeated enemies.The town was abandoned about the middle of the last century, aftermany of the men from it were drowned in Lituya Bay when goingto make war on the Chilkat.According to one native infonnant, this site was located about 4miles (on a direct hne) from the coast (see above) ; another placed itat the entrance to a former channel some distance down the Akwe andabout 2 miles (on a direct line) from the shore. The latter describedthis place as having four or five house pits and one earth-covered house.The only site which it was possible for Riddell and Lane to reach wasstill farther downstream.27. This was a site in a clearing on the west bank of the Akwe,opposite its (present) confluence with the Ustay River. There areseveral pits which may indicate former houses or caches, but diggingfailed to expose any cultural deposits.Tebenkov's "Farther Village," is located farther upstream, on thewest bank near the junction of the Tanis and Gines. Natives re-ported a site on Gines ("Williams") Creek.28. A modern settlement was near the mouth of Stuhinuk Creekon the west side of Dry Bay. Here were native houses, some builtas recently as 1909 or 1910, and the remains of a cannery, built andabandoned between 1901 and 1912. Moser's map (1901, pi. xliii)indicates a village here in 1901.About half a mile northeast of Kakanhini Creek and 2 miles north-w^est of Dry Bay, aerial photographs indicate an almost circularpattern in the heavy forest growth, according to Don J. Miller (letter,Oct. 30, 1957). "The photographs give the impression that treeswere cut down around the circumference of a circle about 1, 200 feetin diameter, but were left untouched or only partly thinned outwithin the circle." Miller did not visit this locahty, nor did ourparty, so we do not know what this might be, although it is suggestiveof a fortified town.29. Other sites reported in the Dry Bay area are on the north shoreof the bay on the west bank of the Alsek, and a town farther down-stream caUed "It repeatedl}^ shakes" (Tlingit). There were alsosettlements on Easting River, or possibly on Dohn River, streams 30 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192that cross the flats of Dry Bay east of the main, western, mouth of theAlsek. The first two settlements are said to have belonged to theTluk'^axAdi, but it was hnpossible to secure any clear informationabout their location or the period when they were inhabited. OLD TOWN, KNIGHT ISLANDBy Francis A. Riddell and Frederica de LacunaNATIVE TRADITIONSKnight Island (map 5) is roughly 3 miles in diameter and Hes closeto the eastern side of Yakutat Bay, about 13 miles northeast of thetown of Yakutat. The island is low lying, composed of sands, silts,and boulder clay. It is heavily timbered, and studded with smalllakes, swamps, and creeks, none of which has salmon runs.The native name for the island, Gauawas, is not Thngit, and wesuspect it to be an Eyak word, although some informants think it isAtna or even Chugach. The island was the first piece of territoryacquired by the ancestors of the K^'ackqwan when they came toYakutat Bay from Copper River. At that time there were no treeson the island, and it was covered with strawberries. The ownerscaught a K^ackqwan girl picking berries here and cut the basketfrom her back. Her father, a Galyix-Kagwantan chief, then boughtthe island for her and her people. Shortly afterward, a similar inci-dent involving the fishing rights at the Humpback Salmon Stream,K'^ack (see No. 6 on map 3), induced the K'^ackqwan chief topurchase territory on the mainland, thereby acquiring the presentname for the sib and title to all the lands around Yakutat Bay.Some informants say that the original owners of Yakutat Bay andKnight Island were Indians (Hmyedi, Ysnyedi, or Qusqedi) ; otherscall them "Aleuts" (Chugach Eskimo), but agree that they had nopermanent settlement on the island. The site which we excavatedis usually described as a K'^ackqwan town, founded and abandonedbefore the Russians came. Its correct name is said to be "RavenFalling Down" (yel ada qutciyE), because smoke from the manyhouses would asphyxiate any raven attempting to fly across. Thesame name has also been apphed to the reported site (No. 7) on thecove about half a mile farther east. A few informants said that thevillage was founded by a K'^ackqwan chief who built the first Hneagehouse here, "Fort House," and that his THngit brother-in-law, thefamous Xatgawet, built "Bear House" and named the village "OldTown" (Ti'Ak^'-'an), after the famous town (Klukwan) on the ChilkatRiver, to suggest that this also was the home of high-class people.While it is tempting to associate this tradition with the oldest housepit at the site, we must remember that our most reliable informant31 32 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192 Map S.?Map of Knight Island, Yakutat Bay, with detail indicating the site of Old Town.Drawn by Donald F. McGeein.insisted that Xatgawet was a post-Russian chief associated with LostRiver, and that the KJaight Island site was pre-Russian. Furthermore,we found no clear evidence of post-contact occupation of the site.Although no definite tradition explains the abandonment of the site,some informants suggest that it may have been due to smallpox.This is not unreasonable, since the epidemic of 1775 is reported by de Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 33some inforniants to have spread to Yakutat from southeastern Alaskabefore the arrival of the fu'st Europeans.After Old Town was abandoned, the main K^'ackqwan village wasat Nessudat on Lost River, and Knight Island was used only as acamping place for hunting parties.There are also confused stories of raids on Knight Island by theChugach and by the mixed Athabaskan-Tiingit Indians from DryBay. It was unpossible to secure details, and while some raids wereapparently prehistoric, others were later, but we do not Imow whetherOld Town was involved in any of them. In these stories, Teqwediare mentioned as living or camping on Knight Island, and as havingfortified the rocky islet, "Little Fort," nearby, but it is not clearwhether Tlingit Teqwedi or Eyak-speaking Tlaxayik-Teqwedi aremeant. THE SITEThe site of Old Town (map 6), on the southernmost point of KnightIsland, consists of four trash mounds, seven house pits, and numeroussmaller pits (for caches, bathhouses, etc.), scattered over an area of3 or 4 acres. A small stream that presumably supphed drinkingwater to the inhabitants flows along the northeastern border of thesite and enters a httle cove 500 feet to the east. The major portion ofthe site is an open grassy flat, bordered by a spruce-hemlock forest.In the clearing, besides ryegrass, there is a luxuriant growth of sphag-num moss, wildcelery, sahiionberry and elderberry bushes, short grass,and patches of nettles. In historic times the area is said to have beencovered with wild strawberries, but the forest has encroached withinthe memory of the older natives and there are now many young treesin the clearing. Part of the site (Mounds C and D, and House Pit 7)lies within a matureforest growth apparently several hundred years old.The underlying soil is composed of banded beach sands, evidentlyelevated above sea level within relatively recent geologic times.Several low sand ridges that traverse the site from southwest tonortheast, or that lie southeast of it, seem to represent former beachlines. The most prominent of these, just southeast of the site, wasprobably the shoreline at the time of habitation, and seems to havebeen raised during the earthquake of 1899. The axis of tilting randirectly through the site, so that the shore to the east of datum B(map 6) was elevated, while the land immediately to the west wasdepressed. A maximum elevation of 7 feet was noted by Tarr andMartin (1914, p. 106) at the cove three-fourths of a mile east of thesite, and there was a subsidence of 5 feet on the south shore about anequal distance to the west. Fortunately the quake and the wavesthat accompanied it did no serious damage to the archeological re-mains, except at the southwestern edge where an indistinct depression 34 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192 "L10 50fT-O Piia Excavated area(Elevations in feet abovemean lower low water] ab de Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 35(House Pit 3) has been partly washed away and filled with beachgravel. Beyond this is a low, swampy area with a few dead trees,evidently killed by salt water after the subsidence (pi. 2, 6). Theearthquake may also have affected the course of the little stream, forjust north of the site there is a depression that suggests a formerchannel.In the woods northeast of the site is the cabin owned by a Whiteresident of Yakutat, Gil Sensmeier.SHAMAN'S GRAVE, KNIGHT ISLANDOn the north bank of the stream, about 400 yards above its mouthand a quarter of a mile north of the site, a grave under an overhangingboulder was found just prior to our first visit in 1949. The followingdescription is based upon the account given by the discoverer andmembers of his family and upon oiu* own observations in 1949 and1952.Although the skull had been removed by the finder, and a numberof other bones were missing when we saw the grave, the vertebralcolumn, the ribs, the bones of the legs and of the upper arms werestill in position. The skeleton, that of an adult male, was lying onthe back, head to the west. The body had evidently been placed in acofSn, but the latter was not interred. Although almost entirelydisintegrated, fragments of wood indicated that the cofSn had beenoriginally 72 inches long and 30 to 32 inches wide, made of 1-inchplanks put together with square-headed nails. With the skeletonwere the remains of a blanket of mountain goat wool (pis. 18, b; 19;see pp. 187-1 92), and also a number of little blue and white glass beads(49-25-59). The latter are similar to those found with early historic(late 18th century or early 19th century) burials on Glacier Island inPrince William Sound (de Laguna, 1956, p. 211). A tiny iron pot, apainted shell, and disk-shaped shell beads are also said to have beenfound in the grave.Although one informant denied that the grave could have beenthat of a shaman because the beads were not the kind worn by shamans,it seems more probable that it was a medicine man who was buriedhere, for all ordinary persons were cremated at Yakutat until afterthe mission was founded in 1888. One informant believed that thegrave was that of Daxodzu, sister of the principal K^ackqwan chief,a female shaman who foretold the arrival of the Russians. Anothersaid that it was the grave of a Tlaxayik-Teqwedi shaman, uncle ofthe man who led the successful attack on the Russian fort. Onereason for this attack was because the Russians accused the nativesof having stolen the nails used to make this coffin. It is perhapssignificant that both of these traditions associate the burial with a 36 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192shaman who died during the Kussian occupation. There is, however,no reason to connect this late 18th- or early 19th-century burial withthe occupation of Old Town, for shamans were often taken a long wayfrom the nearest inhabited village for burial.EXCAVATION AND MAPPING TECHNIQUESIn 1949 a rough sketch map was made of the site and some of thehouse pits were measured. Test excavations in Mounds A and Band in House Pit 1 indicated that the site would repay intensiveinvestigation.Before beginning excavation in 1952, the entire site was laid outin 5-foot grids or squares from an arbitrary point (datum A) beyondthe southwest corner of the occupied area (map 6). All horizontaldistances were measured north and east of datum A, additionaldatum points were established for convenience in mapping, andcompass bearings on prominent landmarks were taken from datum B.Elevations were determined for the corners of the 5-foot squares,measuring from mean lower low water, and these were translatedinto a contom- map of Mound B (map 7).Most of the intensive excavations were concentrated in MoundB and the adjacent House Pit 1, because this mound appeared to bethe largest and deepest midden deposit on the site, and because itwas hoped that the house pit would yield information on house con-struction. In addition, tests were made in Moimds A, C, and D,with one end of a trench running into House Pit 7. Small test holeswere made at various places in the site to determine the extent andcomposition of the deposits.These excavations explored a number of pits, visible on the surfaceor biu-ied beneath it, and also uncovered the remains of a storagehouse, and of two additional houses, 8 and 9, the existence of whichhad not previously been suspected. With few exceptions, profilesof the midden deposits were drawn for the walls of each square ex-cavated (see figs. 5, 6, and 9).Identifiable animal bones and samples of shell were kept for each6-inch level of each square excavated. Most of the shells and un-modified bones were identified and recorded in the field, and thendiscarded. Those which could not readily be identified were retainedfor further study in the laboratory. A more careful analysis wasmade of faunal remains from certain test areas in each of the trashmounds (pp. 77-84).STRATIGRAPHY OF THE TRASH MOUNDSFigure 1 is a schematic profile of a typical portion of Mound B,in which the following squares are shown from left to right: 48-57 I 61 I 62 I 63 I 64 I 65 I 66 I 67 I 68d F. McGeein. 64 I 65 [ 66 I 67 I 45 MOUND B ^2 I 43 I 44 I 45 I 46 I 47 I 48 I 49 I 50 I 51 I 52 I 53 I 54 I 55 I 56 I 57 I 58 I 59 I 60 I 61 1 62 I 63Map 7.?Map of Mound B, Old Town, Knight Island. Surveyed by Francis A. Riddell and Donald F. McGeein. 4565 I 66 1 67 de Lagiina] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 37 38 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192(south and west faces), 47-58 (south and west faces), and 46-58(south face). Figui-e 5 is the actual profile along the south faces ofSquares 61-51 to 47-51, as exposed in a trench which passed throughthe middle of House 8 and the southern edge of House Pit 1 (see map7, a-e). Figure 6 shows both faces (f-f^ and g-g^) of Trench 53, whichran through House Pit 1 and House 9. Figure 9 gives profiles ofTrench 33 through Mound C and into House Pit 7.The maximum depth of Mound B was 90 inches. However, inareas where no pits had been dug into the underlying sterile sand,the deposits were between 24 and 36 inches thick. The entire trashmound was covered with a dense layer of moss, turf, and plants,about 2 inches thick, which has not been recorded on the profiles.The only stratum generally distributed over the mound is the blackmidden layer with fire-cracked rocks (see Blk. RM below), whichoccurs immediately under the turf. A similar black rocky layer wasfound in the upper part of Mounds A and D. In the deeper sectionsof Mound B, strata of shell midden are predominant. Most of thelayers are of sandy midden, ranging in color from tan or light gray tobrown and black, depending upon the amount of organic materialscontained.Because of the complex nature of the stratigraphy, owing in partto the aboriginal digging and subsequent filling of pits, and to vari-ations in the thickness of the various layers, the depths below thesurface at which artifacts were found do not necessarily indicatetheir relative ages. Although horizontal and vertical position withinthe square was recorded for each artifact found, a relative chronologyfor these specimens had to be based upon their association with upper(later) or with lower (earlier) strata of Mound B. In general, exceptwhen specunens were found at the bottom of deep pits, there was atendency for artifacts to be concentrated in the upper layers.The following types of deposit were distinguished in excavatingMound B, and similar materials were found in the other mounds.Black rocky midden (Blk. RM) composed of many thermal-fracturedrocks, charcoal fragments, and black stained sand. Larger rocks,8 to 10 inches long, predominate. Mammal bone was scarce and sopoorly preserved that it resembled wet, mushy cardboard.Black sandy midden (Blk. SM) is medium-fine beach sand, stainedby decomposed organic material and considerable quantities of char-coal. This usually contains some very fine fragments of shell, andsome fire-cracked rock.Gray sandy midden (OSM) is found in two distinct shades, lightgray (Lt. OSAI) and dark gray (Dk. OSM), but they are identical incomposition. These consist almost exclusively of medium-finebeach sand, stained by organic material and charcoal, and often de Lagnna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 39contain small flakes of mussel shell. Mammal bones and fire-crackedrocks are relatively scarce.Brown sandy midden (Bm. SAI) consists of beach sand, stainedlight brown. A darker phase of the same midden (JDk.Bm. SM) wasalso recognized. It contains occasional flecks of shell, small charcoalfragments, and a few fire-cracked rocks.Tan sandy midden (TSM) is light tan in color, and contains onlyan occasional speck of charcoal or sheU.Shell midden (SM) of ahnost pure shell: mussel (Mytilus) by farthe most common, with clam (Saxidomus), cockle (Protothaca) , andsea urchin (Strongylocentrotus purpuratus) also common. Theselayers contain a high percentage of animal bones, mostly well pre-served, and also a good deal of thermal-fractured rock and charcoal.Considerable amounts of rotted bark were also found, often at thebottom of the layer. The shell midden is distinctive in lacking sand.Orange-hrown midden {OBAd) is almost exclusively associated withburned wooden structures such as houses and storehouses. It ismade up of minute fragments of calcined shell, with occasional flecksof charcoal mixed with ash and sand.Clean sand {CS) occurs in lenses or layers of unstained beach sand,ranging from light gray to light tan in color. It is similar to thesterile sand which underlies the midden deposits.The maximum depth of Mound A is 40 inches. It is capped bythe same type of black rocky midden that covers Mound B. Nopredominantly shelly strata were encountered, and the stratigraphyis not as complex as that of Mound B. While an upper and a lowerlayer could be distinguished, there was no evidence to suggest thatthis indicated different periods of cultural importance. AU of MoundA would appear to be of the same age as the upper part of Mound B.The maximum depth of Mound C is 32 inches. The deposit is notcapped by black rocky midden, and there are no prominent shelllayers, although occasional shell lenses occur. The second layerfrom the top is composed of black rocky midden, but this does notextend into the adjacent House Pit 7 (see fig. 9) except in one partof the fiU. This layer contains a lower percentage of fire-crackedrocks than that overlying Mound B, and is much less extensive.Mound D has a maximum depth of 30 inches. There is some blackrocky midden in the top levels, and it also contains shell strata,so that in most respects it resembles Mound B, although it lacksthe intrusive pits so characteristic of the latter.Upper and lower levels could be distinguished in both MoundsC and D, but there appeared to be no cultural differences betweenthem. Together with the fill in House Pit 7, they probably representthe oldest part of the site. 40 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Boll. 192On the whole, the trash mounds at Old Town are not unhke theTlingit middens of the Angoon area in southeastern Alaska (deLaguna, 1960), or the larger middens explored by Drucker (1943)in British Columbia. They differ, however, from middens in thePacific Eskimo-Aleut area in containing far more earth or sand, andfar less sheU. The proportion of artifacts in all middens of theNorthwest Coast is also much lower than in sites within Chugach,Koniag, and Aleut territory. This last may be due in part to thegreater use of perishable wood for artifacts on the Northwest Coastand also to the fact that bone rots quickly in the more acid, lesssheUy deposits. Other differences may be due to cultural factors,such as greater rehance on fish and less on sheMsh on the NorthwestCoast, less carelessness in losing and discarding possessions (a traitfor which the Eskimo are noted), or greater neatness in disposing ofrubbish at village sites. Such care does not seem to have been takenat temporary camps or forts of the Tlingit (de Laguna, 1953, p. 55).Although our informants doubtless exaggerate the neatness of aborig-inal housekeeping, the custom of frequently replacing the sand orgravel on the floor around the fireplace, which had to be done in anycase before a shamanistic seance, might account for the high proportionof sand in the middens.The concentration of fire-cracked rocks in the upper layers of thedeposits, in contrast to their relative scarcity in the lower layersand in Mounds C and D, is paralleled at sites on Prince WilhamSound, Cook Inlet, and Kodiak Island. This has been interpreted(de Laguna, 1934, p. 162; Hrdhcka, 1944, pp. 30, 133, 394; Heizer,1956, pp. 23 f.; de Laguna, 1956, pp. 49, 266) as indicating the rela-tively late appearance among the Pacific Eskimo of the steam bath.This type of bath has a more limited distribution and so is presumablymore recent than sweat bathing in heated air without steam. Italso necessitates far greater use of hot rocks than does stone boilingof food. The steam bath seems to be older on Prince William Soundthan on Cook Inlet and Kodiak Island, w^hich suggests diffusion fromthe Chugach or the Northwest Coast Indians.No clear proof of this hypothesis has yet been established. ThusDrucker (1943) noted no great concentration of fire-cracked rocksin the Tsimshian and Kwakiutl middens he explored, although suchrocks were common and appear to have been fairly evenly distributedthrough the middens. We do not know, however, if there wereso many as to suggest the steam bath. Ethnologically, sweat houseson the Northwest Coast are confined to the Tsimshian, Haida, andThngit, although the steam bath was also taken by the northernKwakiutl (Drucker, 1950, Traits 375 and 667). Fire-cracked rocksare common in Thngit sites in the Angoon area. Although Birket- dc Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 41Smith (Birket-Smith and de Laguna, 1938, pp. 369 f.) has raised thequestion whether the steam bath may not have been introduced bythe Russians, the evidence would indicate that it is preliistoric,although probably not very ancient.The fire-cracked rocks in Mounds C and D would suggest that thesweat bath with steam was already known to the oldest inhabitantsat Old Town, while House 8 in the lowest layers of Mound B appearsto have been a bathhouse. However, the concentrations of fire-cracked rocks in the upper levels of Mounds A and B may indicateincreased popularity of the steam bath in later times. HOUSES AND CACHESBy Francis A. Riddell and Frederica de LagunaHOUSE PITSThere were seven large rectangular depressions at Old Town thatseem to have been the remams of houses. In addition, three morehouses were found and excavated: House 8 and the Storage House,buried under the debris of Mound B, and House 9 which had beenerected inside House Pit 1.The houses seem to have been scattered over the site withoutreference to any regular plan or alinement, except that the ends,where presumably the doors were located, faced the beach. Exceptfor the two largest pits, the dimensions of the others are similarto house pits at Nessudat and Diyaguna'Et on Lost River, althoughthe latter are on the whole deeper.House Pit 1 is one of the largest at the site (pi. 2, a), with maximummeasurements of 50 feet by 50 feet, not including what appears tobe the entranceway toward the southeast. It was dug when MoundB was about half its present height, and some of the excavated sandwas thrown back onto the mound, covering the stratified depositsabove House 8, a structure already abandoned and filled with middenwhen House Pit 1 was excavated. (See Tan Sandy Midden in theprofile of Trench 51, fig. 5.)After the abandonment of House Pit 1 and the structiu'e which itpresumably contained, a much smaller building. House 9, was erectedin the southeastern (front?) end. Still later, after House 9 hadbeen destroyed by fire, a third structure was built over the ruins.This last house evidently contained a place for sweat bathing. Thesethree buildings in House Pit 1 (see figs. 6-8) may have been thelast permanent houses to be erected at the site. What is known aboutthem is described in later sections.House Pit 2, about 50 feet southwest of House Pit 1, was about30 feet long (northeast-southwest), 25 feet wide, and 2 feet deep.A smaU test excavation in the bottom revealed no trace of timbersor floor planks. These had probably rotted.House Pits 3 and 4, lying close to the present beach and from 220to 230 feet southwest of House Pit 1, are completely overgrown bya stand of small spruce trees (the grove in the center of pi. 2, h).House Pit 4 is about 30 feet long (northeast-southwest), 28 feet43 44 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192wide, and from 1 to 2 feet deep. House Pit 3, a rather irregulardepression on the southeast side of House Pit 4, is about 18 feet long,15 feet wide, and is somewhat deeper. It may have been a store-house, smokehouse, or bathhouse associated with a dwelling in HousePit 4, but since no excavations were made in either pit, their functionsare unknown.House Pit 5 lies between House Pits 1 and 4. It is about 20 feetlong (northeast-southwest), 10 feet wide, and 2 feet deep. Thesmall mound southwest of the house may be sand removed in ex-cavating the pit. Neither the house pit nor the mound was excavated.House Pit 6 is an indistinct depression about 240 feet west ofHouse Pit 1. It is roughly 30 feet long (northeast-southwest), 18feet wide, and less than 1 foot deep. The slight elevation aroundthe pit may be earth removed from it and refuse from the house builtin it. A test hole in the mound revealed only very shallow midden.House Pit 7 lies in the forest about 180 feet north of House Pit 1.It is a shallow, indistinct depression, about 50 feet square, borderedon the south and west by Mounds C and D. Test excavationsmade in Mound C and the house pit (fig. 9), indicate that the latterwas dug through the lower levels of the mound. Mound D wasabruptly cut off as if it had lain against the wall of the house, althoughno trace of timbers was found.Mound A probably represents the debris from House Pits 3, 4,and 5. Mound B presumably contains the rubbish from Houses 1, 2,and 9, and from House 8 within it, and probably from other housesnot yet discovered. Mound C antedates in part the digging of HousePit 7, although the fill of that pit also forms the upper levels of themound. Mound D seems to represent the trash from House 7.Although House Pits 1 and 7 are of approximately the same size,and are the largest at the site, the latter is probably the older. Thus,large trees are growing in it and on Mound C. The artifacts removedfrom this area, including Mound D, were not very different in typefrom those found in other parts of the site, except that no specimensof iron were present, although pieces of iron were recovered fromMounds A and B, and from the houses associated with the latter.It is reasonable to assume that the rubbish in Mounds C and D andHouse Pit 7 came from that house or from other dwellings in thevicinity, rather than from houses nearer the beach, and that thismaterial is the oldest recovered at Old Town.The Storage House and the sweat-bath house (House 8), describedbelow, were probably later. They were contemporaneous and werethe oldest buildings discovered in Mound B. Since both of thesewere excavated through the lowest layers of the mound, it is evidentthat these accumulations of rubbish must have been derived from (le Lagiina] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 45some dwellinc: which we did not discover. Both the Storage Houseand House 8 were destroyed by ftre, probably at the same time, andit is tempting to suppose that this may have been set by a raidingparty. The fill in both belongs to the lower levels of Mound B.At a considerably later period, when Mound B had accumulatedover the ruins and was about half its present height. House Pit 1was dug, presmnably for a large house. Still later, after the destruc-tion or abandonment of the latter, a small dwelling (House 9) waserected at one end of the large pit. Finally, after this in turn wasburned, another more substantial structure, which seems to have in-cluded a room or place for sweat bathing, was built in House Pit 1,over the remains of House 9. The fill in House Pit 1 and House 9(and over the third structure) is apparently contemporaneous with theupper levels of the midden in Mound B, and probably also with all ofthe deposits forming Mound A.Unfortunately, the relative ages of the other structures at the sitecould not be determined, although there was nothing to suggest along period of occupation of the site as a whole. House Pit 5 wouldindicate a structure about the size of House 9; House Pits 2, 4, and6 were probably for larger buildings, but smaller than those for whichHouse Pits 1 and 7 were presumably intended. House Pit 3 mayhave been a bathhouse like House 8. This evidence, as well as thehouse pits at Nessudat and Diyaguna'st, suggest that in the lateprehistoric and early historic period most Yakutat houses were in-tended for occupancy by not more than four families, that some muchlarger multifamily dwellings were built, as well as small housessuitable for only one or two couples and their children.SMALLER SURFACE AND SUBSURFACE PITSIn addition to the larger house pits, a number of depressions, about5 to 12 feet in diameter and from 6 to 18 inches deep, were scatteredover the site (see map 7). These were called "Surface Pits," onlybecause they were visible before excavation, not because they hadbeen originally dug from the present surface. Thus, Surface Pit 1was excavated when the top of Mound B was about 2 feet below itspresent level; Sm-face Pit 6 when it was VA feet lower; and SurfacePit 7 when it was about 1 foot lower. Some of these surface pits hadevidently been dug through earlier pits that were already filled withrubbish, perhaps because this facilitated digging. In turn, they be-came partially filled with midden material, generally the black rockymidden, and also ^vith some gray sandy midden, together with scat-tered lenses of shell, charcoal, and rocks. Unbroken strata over thetops of most of these surface pits indicate that these were older thanthe last period of occupation of the site. Some pits contained 46 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192materials belonging to both the lower and upper levels of Mound B.About 40 completely buried pits were also discovered (see fig. 6).These had been dug into the sterile sand at the bottom of Mound B,when the top of the mound was much lower than it is at present.Subsequently they became filled with trash, mostly from the lowerlevels, so that no surface indications of their presence were visible.They were therefore called "Subsurface Pits," although they differ inno respects from the "Surface Pits,"Some pits were rectangular, ranging from boxlike holes, 3 by 1%feet, to larger structm-es over 12 feet long and 6 feet ^yide. Theremust have been some kind of support for the walls, probably a liningof planks or bark, since there was usually no sign that the sand ormidden had slumped in. In most pits no trace of such lining re-mained, but in several cases planks were preserved by carbonization.Probably there was also a wooden superstructure over the pit. Thesestructures seem to have been underground or partially undergroundcaches, like the Storage House described below.Surface Pit 3 was marked by a depression 11 feet in diameter and18 inches deep. When excavated, it proved to have been originallya rectangular pit, about 10 feet long and 8 feet wide. It containedsome burned and unburned fragments of planking, probably theremains of the lining.There were also bowl-shaped and basin-shaped pits, generally cir-cular in plan, less often oval, and differing from each other chiefly indepth relative to the diameter. Both forms differed greatly in size,ranging from 16 inches to over 5 feet in diameter. A number of bothkinds had bark linings. The fill ranged from relativel}^ clean sand tolayers of shell and rock with strata of pure shell and bone, apparentlyrepresenting the refuse of individual meals. Some pits containedartifacts (see below); others did not. The functions of these pitsare hard to determine. Those covered v/ith bark or wood may havebeen caches, or pits where food was buried to become slightly rotten,as required for some native recipes; others may have served as bath-houses. Uncovered pits may have been ovens for roasting food orfor heating rocks; some may have been dug simply to hold refuse.Special mention should be made of Subsurface Pit 38 (see fig. 2),a bowl-shaped depression, 2 feet in diameter and 15 inches deep,under the south end of the Storage House. Since it may have beena cellar of the latter, it will be described with it (see pp. 48-51).There were also depressions or pits in the floor of House Pit 1and House 9, and a box in the floor of House 8. Such features, aswell as fireplaces and pits with sweat-bath rocks, will be discussedin the detailed descriptions of the houses with which they wereassociated. de Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 47The articles recovered from the various surface and subsurfacepits are listed below (field catalog Nos. are in parentheses). As maybe gathered, most of these holes contained nothing other than middenfill. In each case, it is indicated whether the material belongs tothe upper or lower levels of Mound B.Surface Pit 1 (upper levels) : Broken head for sea otter harpoon arrow, pi. 13, /Chipped green chert (29)Surface Pit S (upper levels)Copper fragment (17)Surface Pit 6:Upper levels:Small woodworking tool, pi. 8, ISchist drill (?) (14)Rubbing tool, pi. 10, hCopper ulo blade, fig. 10, d2 rectangular stone scrapers, fig. 11, c (and 83)Broken double-edged slate blade, fig. 11, ^Green chert fiake (92)Slate fragment (85)3 hammerstones (75, 76, 77)Loioer levels:2 hammerstones (104, 122)2 hammerstone-abraders, one with red paint (36, 103)Beaver tooth chisel, pi. 16, bBone gorge (51)Surface Pit 8:Level unknown, probably lower:Bird bone awl, pi. 16, mTooth pendant, pi. 17, ^Lower levels:2 small woodworking tools (114, 121)Broken lamp (138)Broken harpoon head, pi. 13, iSea otter harpoon arrowhead, pi. 13, dBarbed bird bone point, pi. 15, kBone gorge, fig. 18, 6Tooth pendant, pi. 17, hCut bone (214)Cut wood (213)Subsurface Pit 9 (loiver levels):Whetstone (9)Subsurface Pit 11:Upper levels:Small woodworking tool (15)Lower levels:Fragment of bone point (36)Subsurface Pit 14, containing traces of fire (lower levels):Broken splitting adz (40)Small woodworking tool, pi. 7, jBroken barbed bone arrowhead, fig. 17, eCut bone (48) 48 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192Subsurface Pit 15?see Storage House (below)Subsurface Pit 23 {lower levels) : Broken bird bone point (211)Subsurface Pit 24?see House 8 (below)Subsurface Pit 31 (lower levels)Tooth chisel, pi. 16, cSubsurface Pit 32 {lower levels) :Drift iron adz or scraper blade, pi. 4, kSubsurface Pit 36 {small cache house) {loioer levels) :Small woodworking tool, pi. 7, m2 whetstones, pi. 10, e (and 377)Unbarbed bone arrowhead, pi. 15, vBone shaft fragment (398)Cut wood (385)Subsurface Pit 37 (lower levels) :Hammerstone-abrader, pi. 10, /Toy lamp (394)Subsurface Pit 39 (lower levels)Cut wood (692) THE STORAGE HOUSEOne of the oldest plank-lined cache pits uncovered during the exca-vation of Mound B was a structure in the southwestern portion ofthe mound (see fig, 2). It was probably a storage house that had beenburned down by a fire that started at its southern end and which con-sumed all but the floor planks and the lower ends of the wall planks.The Storage House (originally designated as "Subsurface Pit 15")was 7 feet 9 inches long and 4 feet 6 inches wide. It had been builtin a pit, sunk about 18 inches into the sterile sand below the midden.The floor level was between 3K and 4K feet below the present unevensurface of the mound. Above the remains of the house were about2K feet of undisturbed stratified deposit, consisting of black rockymidden, shell midden, and gray sandy midden belonging to the upperlevels of Mound B. The fill inside the house, belonging to the lowerlevels, consisted of a fairly homogeneous deposit of stained sand, char-coal fragments including remains of the wall and roof, fire-crackedrocks, ash, and bits of charred bone. There were small lenses of cleansand in the fill, and about 3 inches above the floor planks was a thinlayer of light-gray sand. Below the floor planks were 1 to 3 inches ofmidden that had probably sifted under and between the boards; atthe south end this deposit deepened into the fill of Subsurface Pit 38.The latter contained brown midden, rotted bark, bits of charcoal,bone, shell, and fire-cracked rocks. This stratigraphy may suggestthat the pit was older than the Storage House, but it may be simplya cellar.The waUs of the house were of roughly split planks, 4 to 22 incheswide and about 1 inch thick, which with two exceptions were set verti-cally in the sand at the bottom of the pit to an average depth of 10 de Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 49PLAN OF STORAGE HOUSEExcavatedReconstructionObscured FROM VIEW? PoU _?^ PLANK LASHING TECHNIQUE:Bottom -View CROSS SFCTIONSu bsurrace Pit 38PLAN VIEW DarK brown r-'-'''-:'l Sandy middenIMoJGrau sanduE3 Red- brown ashyH? 4 Carbonmed^lanKS ^\.v^'^'i? Figure 2.?Storage House and Subsurface Pit 38. Drawn by Donald F. McGeeln.inches. The entrance was at the south end where a horizontal plank(A), 40 inches long and 13 inches wide, formed a sill some 7 incheshigh. Two posts and the small vertical planks (5,5), 5K inches wide,20 inches long, and K inch thick, formed the sides of the doorway. Oneof the wall planks (CO, 48 inches long and 15 inches wide, was set onedge.The three floor planks, 81 inches long and 11 to 25 inches wide,rested directly on the sandy bottom of the pit. They had probablybeen inserted after the walls were erected, since the westernmostplank overlapped the central one and had not been trimmed to fit the 50 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bvi^u 192floor space. The eastern and central planks were fastened togetherat the ends near the doorway. Here a rectangular area had beenchiseled into their lower surfaces, into which was fitted a flat woodencrossbar. The latter was secured by a lashing of split spruce rootthat passed between a pair of holes in each plank. This arrangementmay have been intended to facilitate lifting the floor planks in orderto reach the pit below.The structure was probably roofed, but of this we have no directevidence because fire had destroyed all of the upper part of the house.The quantities of carbonized moss and grass, found between the floorplanks, between these and the waUs, and under fragments of charredwood fallen on the floor, suggest that the Storage House had beenchinked at floor, walls, and roof (?), presumably to prevent the con-tents from freezing.Identification of this structure as a cache was based partly on thefollowing artifacts found in it and in the pit below.In Subsurface Pit 38:Point of a large double-edged slate blade, another fragment of whichwas found in the lower levels of Mound B above the Storage House,fig. 14, b2 barbed bone points for arrows (or leisters), fig. 17, b, IBone barb for gaff or fish spear, fig. IS, gBelow floor of Storage House:Bird bone tube (422)Bone shaft fragment (420)Wooden spatula, fig. 24, cWooden blade, fig. 24, 6On floor of Storage House:Ulo with wooden handle and copper blade, fig. 10, aWhetstone, pi. 10, cBear canine, pi. 16, iWooden comb, fig. 20, cWooden figurine, fig. 22Fragments of 2 wooden boxes or dishes, fig. 2.3, a, b, b'Wooden rod scarfed at both ends, fig. 16, d2 spatulate wooden objects, fig. 24, a (and 416)Fragment of bidarka rib (?), fig. 24, eFragments of twined grass or bark matting (418)Fragments of carbonized two-ply cord (195, 196, 254, 365)Band of strung ryegrass stems, fig. 23, d, d'Calcined bone fragments (428)2 fragments of cut wood (199, 284)Just above floor of Storage House:Stone ax, pi. 5, iCobblestone anvil (392)Small stone lamp (412)Slate blade for arrow or knife, fig. 14, a (associated with basketry fragments,pi. 18, a)Broken barbed point for arrow (?) (288) do LnRuna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 51Bone shaft fragment (205)Fused bone (411)Slag (200)Copper fragment (287)2 drift iron blade fragments, pi. 4, e (and 201)5 scraps of drift iron (258)Barbed wooden spear point, fig. 16, aWooden box fragment (413)Wooden pin, fig. 24, d12 fragments of worked wood (181, 182, 224, 257, 285, 286, 364, 366, 378,386, 415, 425)Fragment of two-ply cord (208)Knotted spruce root (?) (226)Fragments of twined basketry: some with false embroidery, pi. 18, a(and 232/233) ; some plain, pi. 18, o (and associated with slate blade,fig. 14, a, and with salmonberry seeds)Fill of Storage House {i.e., lower levels of Mound B)2 sea otter harpoon arrowheads, pi. 13, c, eBroken barbed bone arrowhead, fig. 17, A;2 beaver tooth chisels (381, 409)Broken bone knife or scraper (302)Bone awl (?) (406)Fragment of bone shaft (407)Notched cobblestone (295)Cut bone (197)Bone figurine worn as pendant, fig. 20, a11 pieces of worked wood (87, 120, 171, 173, 175, 176, 178, 180, 183, 186,187)Fragment of two-ply cord (431)2 teeth of wooden comb (?) (179, 184)The perishable materials?wood, cordage, and basketry?werepreserved because they were charred, probably in the fire that de-stroyed the Storage House. The baskets may have been used tostore food and other objects, or to gather berries, as is suggested by theassociation of salmonberry seeds with one group of undecoratedbasketry fragments. HOUSE 8The biu-ned remains of a small house (figs. 3 and 4) were discoveredat the bottom of the midden near the southern edge of Mound B(see map 7 and fig. 5). The house (first called "Subsurface Pit 24")was almost 18 feet square, and had been built inside a pit about 20feet square, dug into the sterile sand for a depth of 30 inches. Thefloor of this pit was level. Vertical wall planks were driven into thesand to a depth of 1 foot, leaving a space about 1 foot wide betweenthe walls and the edges of the pit. Later this space was filled withsandy midden to brace the walls, and the floor planks were laid.Eventually the house was destroyed by a fire that evidently startedinside it and consumed all but the floor and the waUs to about 15 52 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Boll. 192 nag. ^Figure 3.?Plan of House 8. Drawn by Donald F. McGeein.inches above the floor. These charred remams were eventuallyburied under midden deposits 2 to 4 feet deep. The stratigraphy ofthe mound (see X-Y on the profile of the south face of Trench 51, fig.5) shows that the house had been built during the early history ofthis part of the site; the unbroken layers above the fill attest itsrelatively great age. WALLSThe walls of House 8 were of planks spht from straight-grained woodthat was free of knots, probably spruce. They were not smoothed onthe surfaces. They varied in width from 1 to 2% feet and in thicknessfrom about )^ to over IJ^ inches. When the house was burned, theupper parts of the walls fell into the house; no wall fragments werefound outside.The plan (fig. 3) shows that a number of wall planks were missing.Possibly these had been salvaged after the fire. The gap in the de Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 53 693-818?64 5 54 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192otherwise complete line of planks along the southwest wall suggestsan entrance, although a very narrow one. However, since the floorwas 2 to 2K feet below the surface, this gap would have allowed sandto spill into the house in the absence of some Idnd of sill or ramp, noevidence of which was found. Probably the wall planks in this areahad simply been removed, and the doorway was a hole cut throughthe wall at or above ground level, with a step inside the entrance.ROOFIn the center of the northwest wall was a post that had been burneddown to about 19 inches above the floor. The bottom was 40 inchesbelow floor level. The post was originally 10 inches in diameter,and had been placed in an oval hole, 20 by 16 inches and 42 inchesdeep, partly filled with rocks to anchor the post. Three spHt plankswere set around it, making a small alcovelike bulge in the wall. About5 inches of the post below floor level showed charring, indicating thatit had been exposed to this depth. The side of the post facing outsidethe house was relatively unburned as compared to that on the inside.When found, the post leaned several degrees toward the center of thehouse, its lower end well outside the floor area.Although no other posts of the same type or size were found,this post probably supported one end of a ridgepole, the other end ofwhich presumably rested on top of the large plank in the oppositewall (beyond the container of fire-cracked rocks). The roof waspartly or completely covered with sheets of bark, carbonized remainsof which were found on the floor. It is reasonable to assume that theroof was gabled. If the eaves were too low at the sides to permitentry, the doorway would have been at one of the gabled ends.FLOORThe floor of the house was entirely covered with planks exceptat the sunken box in the center and the portions fiUed with fire-cracked rocks, as indicated on the plan (fig. 3). There were from29 to 33 such planks, ranging in thickness from K to slightly over1 inch. Their sizes varied, the maximum lengths being 8 feet and themaximum widths 3 feet. Their upper surfaces and edges had allbeen smoothed. All were charred in the fire.SWEAT-BATH ROCKSA container of fire-cracked rocks in the middle of the southeastwall was not a hearth for cooking but seems to have been a receptaclefor sweat-bath rocks. It was 5 feet long and 3 feet wide, made ofseveral large stone slabs, about 2 inches thick and set on edge 51-51 IHOUSE PIT I HOUSE PIT 155-51 I 54-51 TRENCH 51(IN PART)South Rce[I3Gr,xv.l. ,moll,,bl,l?. sanJCl?n, unstained s.njllUnku-ncJ Uiooj.Bu-ne f>7 d,J, 9, ^)- These are all of greenstone, except for one of hardgreen schist and another of fine-grained metamorphic rock. Tenspecimens are from Old Town III, three (plus two uncertain fragments)from Old Town IT, but only one from Old Town I. In addition, aresident of Yakutat has two sphtting adz blades that are said to havebeen found at Diyaguna'Et. This sample, though small, suggeststhat the sphtting adz was gaining in popularity during the periodof occupation of Old Town.This type of adz was intended for heavy work, especially for cuttingdown trees by spHtting out pieces of the trunk, and it was appro-priately called "stone wedge" in THngit, to distinguish it from theplaning adz or "chopper" used to finish planks, to shape canoes, andfor other fight work. Keithahn (1962, pp. 66 ff., fig. 1, d, J, g) dis-tinguishes, on the basis of experiments, three varieties of what I havetermed sphtting adz: "char adz," "feUing adz," and "sphtting adz,"but there is no evidence that the Thngit themselves made suchdistinctions.Complete specimens range in length from 18 to 30 cm., in height(thickness) from 4 to about 7.8 cm., and in width from 3.2 to 5 cm.They were shaped by pecking and grinding; some seem to have beenpohshed over the entire surface, while others are roughly finished.These blades were obviously intended to be lashed to a T-shapedhandle (cf. Niblack, 1890, pi. xiii, figs. 87, 90, 91), since all but themost fragmentary exhibit lashing grooves across the rear half of the de Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 91head. The only exception is one specimen from Diya^na'Et whichnow lacks a groove, but which appears to have been refinished forfurther use after the original butt was broken. The other blade fromDiyaguna'Et and the single specimen from Old Town I have onlya single lashing groove, while heads from Old Town II and III havetwo to four grooves, and often, in addition, two or three knobs orridges to hold the lashings. The butts of four specimens, representingaU parts of the site, have been narrowed by grinding or chipping toform a crest or axlike blade at the butt. Ahnost every specimenhas been damaged at cutting edge or rear end, and some have evenbeen split in two, by hard usageA number of the broken specimens were reshaped for further use.Thus, two blades (pi. 5, b, d) found cached under a grinding slab inthe fill of House Pit 1 had been freshly sharpened, although the buttend of one was broken off. A fragment (pi. 5, h) from Old Town IIIis chipped and battered along one edge and across the ends as if ithad been partially reshaped as a planing adz blade. A broken offfore-end (pi. 5, g) from Old Town III had been used as a hammer, orpossibly as a wedge. A similar fragment, found in Subsm-face Pit 14in Old Town II, may also have been reworked. In addition, twopieces of greenstone from Old Town II may have been fragments ofsplitting adzes. One has been reground as if for a planing adz, butis unfinished; the other has been partially shaped as a miniature ax.The signs of re-use on these specimens suggest that the owners wereloath to discard even the fragments of splitting adzes. This accordswith the statement made by an informant that the owner would feelso badly if one were broken that he might kiU a slave! Adzeswere traditionally made of greenstone imported from Icy Bay. Thisrock, like the fine-grained shale or siltstone used for whetstones, hadto be taken by stealth, "stolen from the glacier," or else a gift wasleft in order to ward off a dangerous storm. Furthermore, magicalrestrictions were observed to prevent the adz from breaking. Thus,men should start to chop in the early dawn before the raven calls,and their wives should not eat until the men had finished their work.These were precautions observed for all dangerous or supernaturallyrisky undertakings.The Yakutat splitting adzes probably represent what Drucker(1943, p. 45) has termed type III (with narrow axlike butt) andtype VI (long, slender, with rectangular cross section and grooves nearthe butt end). Our specimens are, however, characterized especiallyby the various combinations of ridges and grooves to hold thelashings. Although similar arrangements are occasionally encounteredon the Northwest Coast (Niblack, 1890, pi. xx, fig. 79, d; de Laguna,1960, pi. 5, a, 6), most adzes from this area have only a single groove. 92 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Boll. 192as on the specimen from Old Town I and the other from Diyaguna'st.(However, cf. Keithahn, 1962, fig. 1, d, f, g.) Chugach adzes aresimilar in style to those of Yakut at, for they include many withseveral grooves, knobs, or ridges for lashing. There are also severalwith narrowed butts, and a number of grooveless specimens like theone from Diyaguna'Et (de Laguna, 1956, pp. 111-117). Bladeswith one or two grooves and with one to three ridges, as well as somelarge grooveless forms (large planing adz blades?), are also knownfrom Kodiak (Hrdlicka, 1944, pp. 333, 343, fig. 113; Heizer, 1956,p. 44). In general. Pacific Eskimo splitting adzes have the haftinggroove or grooves placed near the center of the blade, and this isalso true of the Tena specimens from the Yukon (de Laguna, 1947,pi. x). The blades from Yakutat and most of those from the North-west Coast, including those from Angoon (de Laguna, 1960, pi. 5,a, 6), have the grooves nearer to the butt. This is also the style ofspecimens from southwestern Yukon Territory (Southern Tutchone?)(MacNeish, 1960, pi. vi, figs. 1-3). Drucker (1943, p. 120) hascommented on the poor finish on Tlingit specimens, an observationwhich would apply equally well to Chugach blades and to most ofthose from Yakutat.On the Northwest Coast, the splitting adz seems to be virtuallyconfined to the Tlingit, Tsimshian, and Haida, despite two specimensfrom the Bella Coola and two fragments from northern Kwakiutlterritory (Drucker, 1943, p. 120). It was not reported ethnologicallysouth of the northernmost Kwakiutl, although Drucker (1950, Trait419, p. 255) feels that "its southern limit is not certain." In south-western Alaska it appeared first in the early prehistoric period inPrince William Sound, but evidently became more numerous in latertimes. It was not found until late Kachemak Bay III on Cook Inletand is probably restricted to the late upper (Koniag) levels on Kodiak,and was never adopted by the Aleut. While not uncommon in theTanana and Yukon valleys, it occiu-s only sporadically among theEskimo north of the Alaska Peninsula (de Laguna, 1947, p. 154; 1956,pp. 263 ff.; Heizer, 1956, p. 44). Birket-Smith (1953, p. 220)cautiously concurs in the opinion that the grooved splitting adz isa relatively late specialization from a heavy but ungi-ooved planingadz, a development which probably took place on the northernNorthwest Coast. AXESThere are two stone ax blades (pi. 5, e, i), grooved like splittingadz blades, but with the cutting edge in a plane parallel to the handle.One was found in Old Town III, the other just above the floor of theStorage House in Old Town II. The first appears to have been de Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 93reshaped Iroin another implement, possibly a splittinjj; adz, and hasa single broad groove. The cutting edge is broken, and the specimenwas originally about 19 cm. long, 5.5 cm. high, and 4.5 cm. wide.The second specimen has two hafting grooves, is 16.4 cm. long, 5.5 cm.high, and 2.8 cm. thick, and was probably made from an asymmetricplaning adz blade.In addition, a celt (pi. 6, i) from the fill of House Pit 1, Old TownIII, was probably a planing adz blade, although the asymmetricshape of the butt suggests that it may have been hafted like an ax.There is a similar uncertainty about the blade of a small woodworkingtool (pi. 7, i) from the fill of House 9 in Old Town III.Grooved ax blades are very rare and are known only from the CopperRiver Eyak, the Chugachs, and the Koniag, with a possible Tlingitexception (Keithahn, 1962, p. 69). The specimens seem to be unusualvariants of the splitting adz, appearing sometimes as double-bitted im-plements such as an "adz-ax" or an "ax-pick." They are few in nmnberand not known before the early prehistoric period in Prince WilliamSound and the upper (Koniag) levels on Kodiak. Crude ungroovedstone ax blades, lashed to the side of the handle, have been reportedfrom the Eyak, the Ingalik Tena, and the northern Eskimo (forchopping frozen meat) (Bu-ket-Smith and de Laguna, 1938, pp. 73 f.;de Laguna, 1947, pp. 117, 162; 1956, p. 121; Heizer, 1956, p. 44).The ax blades of the Ingalik have one rounded corner (Osgood, 1940,pp. 96-98), a feature noticed on one small woodworking tool fromYakutat, probably hafted as an ax blade.PLANING ADZESThere are 13 planing adz blades (pi. 6). These are ungrooved stonecelts that are wider than they are thick, in contrast to the splittingadz blades that are thicker (higher) than they are wide. One sm-faceis more convex than the other, and they were evidently hafted bylashing the flatter side against an (inverted) L-shaped handle, likemodern steel planing adz blades from Yakutat (cf. Niblack, 1890,pi. XX, fig. 79, g; pi. xxiii, fig. 94). The archeological specimensare made of greenstone or hard, fine-gTained rock, and show variousdegrees of finish. Some are made of a naturally shaped stone, or asection (boulder chip) broken from a cobble, with only a sharpenededge; others have been neatly shaped by pecking, flaking, and prob-ably by sawing, although none is polished at the butt. They areroughly rectangular in outline, usually narrowing at the butt, althoughtwo specimens from Old Town II and one from Old Town I arenaiTOwer at the cutting edge. An kon blade (pi. 4, I) from OldTown III, probably for a planing adz. has already been described(p. 83). 94 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192The planing adz blades fall into two groups on the basis of size.The five larger (pi. 6, a, c, d,j, i) are about 9 to 16 cm. long, 5.6 to 8cm. wide, and about 1.7 to 2.3 cm. thick. One of these (pi. 6, i)is narrowed at the butt on one edge as if it might have been haftedlike an ax. A sixth blade (pi. 6, g) is 17.4 cm. long, but as narrowas the smaller specimens, measuring only 3.2 cm. in width, and mayhave been intended for a chisel.There are seven smaller blades (pi. 6, h, e), some of which may befragmentary or unfinished, and which may have been used for scrapersrather than for adzes. They range in length from about 6 to 8.3 cm.,in width from 3.2 to 5.1 cm., and in thickness from 0.6 to 2 cm.The provenience of these blades is: one large from Diyaguna'st;three large from Old Town III, including the long slender specimen;two large and one small from Old Town II; six small from Old Town I,In addition, there are seven large specimens that appear to beunfinished (pi. 6, h, j). They range in length from 11.6 to 17.6 cm.,and several are probably reshaped fragments of splitting adzes. Oneis from Old Town III, one from Old Town II, and five from OldTown I.There is little to distinguish the Yakutat planing adz blades fromthose of the Eskimo and the Indians of the Northwest Coast and theinterior. They correspond to types described by Drucker (1943,pp. 46 f., 121), although he does not recognize as a special form thosethat taper toward the cutting edge.Of more interest than the form of the planing adz blade is therelative frequency of this type as compared to the splitting adz.Although our samples are small, they suggest that the planing adzlost in popularity at Old Town as the splitting adz became morecommon. The same trend is more clearly apparent on Prince WUliamSound, while at the early historic Tlingit site of Daxatkanada in theAngoon area, the planing adz is poorly represented in comparisonto the splitting adz (de Laguna, 1956, p. 118; 1960, pp. 99-101).There is no evidence that the Yakutat people used bone or antlerheads for hafting the smaller adz blades, and such heads are notencountered in archeological or ethnological collections from theNorthwest Coast until one reaches Coast SaUsh territory (Drucker,1943, pp. 122, 124; de Laguna, 1947, pp. 157-159; King, 1950, pp. 49,58). Bone or antler adz heads are known from Kachemak Bay III,Kodiak Island (upper and lower levels), Port MoUer on the AlaskaPeninsula, but not from Prince WiUiam Sound (de Laguna, 1956,p. 117; Heizer, 1956, pp. 73 f.). In general, such hafting devices aremuch rarer in southwestern Alaska than among the Eskimo farthernorth, who seldom attach adz blades directly to the handle, althoughthis was commonly done by the Pacific Eskimo, expecially in hafting de Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 95larger blades. While I have suggested (de Laguna, 1947, p. 159) arelationship between the archeological adz hafts from Comox, Marpole(Eburne), and Cattle Point in Coast Salish territory (and the eth-nological specimens of the Coast Salish) and one type of haft of theOld Bering Sea Eskimo, any connecting hnks between these mustantedate known material from the intervening areas. On the otherhand, documented methods of hafting planing adz blades are sharedby the Chugach, Yakutat, northern and central Northwest Coastgroups. ADZ FRAGMENTSThere are finally 13 small pieces of worked greenstone, green chert,green schist, and other hard rocks, that are apparently fragmentsfrom the polished surfaces of adzes, although the pieces are too smallfor classification. Of these, four are from Old Town III, eight fromOld Town II, and one from Old Town, provenience unknown.SMALL WOODWORKING TOOLSIn addition to the larger adz blades, there are 76 small artifacts,chiefly of slate and schist, the majority of which evidently served astools for working wood, bone, and possibly copper. While a fewspecimens of greenstone or hard metamorphic rock are weU made,the greater number, of softer shales and slates, are carelessly shaped,being Uttle more than pebbles or flakes with a sharpened end. Lackof concern in the selection of material and in workmanship suggeststhat these tools were expendable. Perhaps the majority were madeonly for some particular task, after which they were discarded.Since many are broken and some are evidently unfinished, identifica-tion of function is difficult.Nineteen specimens are shaped like miniature splitting adz blades(pi. 7, /-A, j-o), from 7.6 to 13.7 cm. long. The average are about9 to 10 cm. in length, 3 cm. high, and 1.2 cm. thick. These toolswere presumably hafted like small adzes. There is one specimenwith two grooves (pi. 7, j), and five with a single groove for lashing(pi. 7,/, g, k, m). Although the remaining specimens are grooveless(pi. 7, 1, n, o), most have irregularities on the top edge that could haveheld lashings, and on one (pi. 7, h) the marks of cords can be seen.Sixteen of these tools came from Old Town III, and three from OldTown II.In addition, there is an ungrooved specimen (pi. 7, i) from OldTown III which is almost square in cross section, and which mighthave been hafted Hke a miniature ax, to judge by the wear on thecorner of the bit. There also appears to be an unfinished tool ofthe same kind from Old Town III. 96 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192Twenty-four complete or fragmentary blades are shaped like theminiatm'e splitting adzes except that they are usually smaller in alldimensions (pi. 8, h-p) ; in particular, they are much thinner, beingonly 0.3 to 0.8 cm. thick. Some may have been hafted like adzes;others probably served as burins or as gouges. They range in propor-tion from slender tools resembling drills, to wide leaf-shaped ortriangular pieces of slate and schist. Since most are unfinishedexcept for grinding at the edges near the point or bit, it is difficultto tell whether the irregularities on the edges were intended to holdlashings. Only one specimen (pi. 8, n) has a clearly shaped groove,although seven others were probably attached to handles. Seventeen"burin-chisel" tools of this kind are from Old Town III, six fromOld Town II, and one fragment from Old Town II or III.Still smaller, are nine thin scraps or splinters of schist or slate, onwhich the edges near the point have been ground flat to meet at asharp angle that was apparently used as a burin (pi. 8, e, g). On onespecimen (pi. 8,/) the opposite end has been ground on both surfacesto produce a faceted point like that on a sharp knife. These tinyimplements are about 5 cm. long and 1 to 2 cm. wide. Two are fromOld Town III, two and a fragment from Old Town II, and fourfragments from Old Town I. Identification of the broken specimensis very uncertain.Four or five implements are shaped like tiny planing adz blades(pi. 7, a-e) and may have been hafted for use as small adzes or aschisels. They are about 6 to 9.5 cm. long, and about 2 cm. wide.Only their smaller size distinguishes them from the little specimensalready described under planing adz blades (p. 94). One completeand two broken specimens are from Old Town III, and two fromOld Town I.In addition, there are five much narrower and thinner tools (pi. 8,a, b), shaped like tiny chisels, which could have been used as knivesor even as drill points, since they are about 1 cm. wide and only 0.3to 0.8 cm. thick. Two are from Old Town III, one from Old Town II,one from Old Town I, and one from Old Town II or III.One of our informants suggested that some of the implements mayhave been drills (pi. 8, c, d). This identification would best fit twospecimens from Old Town III and one from Old Town II that haveoval or rectangular sections, not over 1.3 cm. wide. Two broken andthree unfinished specimens, of which one is from Dolgoi Island, threeare from Old Town III, and one is from Old Town I, may perhaps beclassed here also.Of uncertain function are four thin leaf-shaped slate flakes thatare ground flat and duU along the edges, although these meet to forma sharp point. They may be unfinished (?) arrowheads, or were de Lagunu] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 97perhaps very thin burinlike blades for small knives. They are about5 to 6 cm. long, 1.2 to 1.9 cm. wide, and 0.3 to 0.4 cm. thick. One(fig. 14, a) was found with basketry fragments (pi. 18, a) just abovethe floor of the Storage House in Old Town II. Another is from OldTown III, and two are from Old Town I.These small implements came preponderantly from the youngestportions of the site. Excluding the 4 leaf-shaped flakes and 3 otherspecimens of uncertain provenience, 45 of the remaining 69 imple-ments, or 65.3 percent, come from Old Town III, a section whichyielded 53.4 percent of the total number of stone artifacts of knownproveniences.While some of the adzlike tools with grooves or constrictions wereundoubtedly hafted to L-shaped handles and used for chopping,many of the more delicate specimens were probably held in thehand to serve as burins for cutting gi'ooves in bone and wood. Infact, several pieces of bone appear to have been cut with such tools.Other specimens may have been hafted in short wooden handles andused as chisels, and the battered butts on a few others suggest thatthey had served as chisels without hafts. Drucker (1943, pp. 46 ff.)includes both hafted and unhafted chisels under the designation of "celts." A hafted chisel with a celt for a blade is illustrated byNiblack (1890, fig. 78) mth no other provenience than the North-west Coast. Two "primitive Tlingit stone knives, %vith hornhandles . . . [and] blades of jade" (Niblack, 1890, fig. 98, a, b, p.280), apparently for whittling and splitting, suggest another formthat some of our specimens may have taken. One informant identi-fied some of the tools as "chisels," or in Tlingit as "something withwhich to patch," implying that they were used to cut pieces of woodthat were intended to fit snugly, and he pointed out that one specimenwas broken as if it had been struck on the butt with a wooden hammer.He also said that these implements might have been used to cut copper,a suggestion which is supported by the appearance of some of thecopper artifacts. Another informant suggested that these toolswere for gouging holes. We may surmise that they were used formany kinds of delicate and exact carving.The closest paraUels to these Yakutat tools are undoubtedly thestone chiseUike implements from Prince WiUiam Sound. Some ofthe latter are like miniature splitting adzes, occasionally grooved;others are like tiny planing adzes with knifelike blades. There isalso a larger stone chisel with battered butt, and several small bladesof slate and schist for adzes or scrapers. All of these tools seem toappear only in late prehistoric Chugach sites (de Laguna, 1956, pp.118, 121 f.). Somewhat sunilar adzHke scraper(?) blades are knownfrom all periods on Kachemak Bay. They also occur on Kodiak, as 98 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192do small blades for chisels or planing adzes (Hrdlidka, 1944, pi. 69,pp. 333, 343; Heizer, 1956, pi. 47, I, y, z, a'; pi. 31, k, I, n, o). TenTena chisels, although crude (de Laguna, 1947, pi. xi, 8, 9), may berelated to the Eskimo and Yakutat specimens.The relatively late development or late popularity of these smalltools in Prince William Sound and at Yakutat is paralleled by thegrowth in importance of the splitting adz in these areas, and suggeststhe development of skilled woodworking. As less exclusive reliancecame to be placed on the ordinary large planing adz blade, a general-ized tool, there came to be increased use of the more specializedsplitting adz and of the various forms of small adzes, chisels, and im-plements like burins. Presumably greater skills were developed asheavy and delicate tasks became differentiated.It is uncertain whether we have any close parallels to these smalltools on the Northwest Coast south of Yakutat, except for thespecimens cited in Niblack, and the celtlike chisel blades of theNootka, Salish, and Quileut (de Laguna, 1947, p. 168; Barnett, 1939,Traits 583 and 585). While Drucker (1950, Trait 414) records stonechisels from the coastal Tsimshian, Bella Coola, Kwakiutl, andNootka, his Haida and Tlingit informants denied their use. This isin striking contrast to the ethnological information obtained atYakutat.Keithahn (1962, p. 68) mentions occasional finds in southeasternAlaska of very small blades of greenstone and other hard rocks, whichhe calls "micro bits" for adzes. A typical example from Mole Harboron Admiralty Island is only 3.8 cm. long. These may well correspondto some of the small woodworking tools from Yakutat.Further comparisons of such smaU tools, as well as of chisels andadz blades, must await the publication in fuU of Borden's materialfrom the Fraser Kiver area. Here, small chisels and wedges arepresent through the series of sites on the delta. Nephrite adz blades,neatly sawed out and finished, are common at Beach Grove, an un-dated site which may be as old as or older than the famous site ofMarpole (Eburne). They are abundant at the latter site, but rareat Locarno Beach I. They again become common at Whalen FarmII, and at historic Stselax. At Whalen I, adz blades of Californiamussel shell were used. Radiocarbon dates from most of these sitestake us back with assurance to the middle of the first millennium B.C.,and perhaps further. Marpole (Eburne) has dates ranging from943 B.C. ?170 years up to A.D. 179 ?60 years (Borden, personalcommunication). Unfortunately, we do not know how these datesmay be related to the material excavated at this site at various times,and we have no dates from Cattle Point on San Juan Island. de Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 99RUBBING TOOLSIn addition to the small tools used for cutting, there are three fromOld Town III which were apparently used for rubbing (pi. 10, a, h).These are amorphous pebbles of limestone, slate, and greenstone,6.4 to 11.6 cm. long, rubbed at the ends as if they had been used forpolishing grooves or carved surfaces.These three specimens are not unlike the numerous rubbing toolsfrom the early historic Tlingit site of Daxatkanada near Angoon(de Laguna, 1960, pp. 106-108, pi. 7, a-o). The latter exhibit arange of shapes comparable to those of the Yakutat cutting tools,although they were evidently used more for rubbing or grinding thanfor gouging, chopping, or cutting. Most are rubbed flat on one side,a feature absent from the Yakutat rubbing tools. Eight "polishingtools" of hard rock, from Uyak Bay, Kodiak, appear to be somewhatsimilar (Heizer, 1956, p. 47, pi. 35, t, u).BONE BURINS AND CHISELSBone also seems to have been used to make woodworking tools.Thus, we have four pieces of heavy bone (mammal leg bone?) shapedlike burins for gouging grooves (pi. 16, d, e, f). Three are fromOld Town III, and one from an unknown level in Mound B. In addi-tion, there is a smaller, more slender bone tool (pi. 16, Z), unfortunatelybroken, from Old Town II. These are very similar to some of thesmall slate tools described above.Another broken bone implement from Old Town III and two fromOld Town II may have been used as chisels.KNIVES, SCRAPERS, AND CHOPPERSThe natives at Yakutat distinguish between several kinds of laiivesand scrapers. These include the ulo, a similar but smaller knife orscraper with cupped blade, a straight-edged man's knife, a crookedknife for carving, a large dagger, a two-handed beaming tool (now anordinary butcher's knife with the point wrapped in cloth to makea second grip), and a long-handled flesher. AU these are now made ofiron or steel, or have iron blades, except for some beaming tools ofdeer leg bone with sharpened edge. Presumably the bones of someother animal were used before the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service im-ported deer from southeastern Alaska. Ulos are stiU used by the older Yakutat women for flensing seals,and, with dulled blades, as scrapers for cleaning sealskins. A typicalmodern example had an iron blade 12.8 cm. long and something over 100 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 1923.5 cm. wide. The wooden handle was 14 cm. by 8.5 cm., withrounded back and straight grooved edge into which the blade was set.There was a crescentic hole in the handle to accommodate the indexand middle fingers. Our informants claimed that such handles withholes were not used in southeastern Alaska, but were peculiar toYakutat, where the ordinary oval or plain unperforated handle wasalso used. Although the true ulo with flat blade is still called by itsEyak name, and the smaller knife or scraper with slightly cuppedblade is called in Tlingit "mussel shell," after the material of whichit was formerly made, it is sometimes almost impossible to distinguishbetween these two implements when dealing with metal specimens.Grinnell (1901, p. 161) describes and illustrates how the Yakutatwomen use the ulo on sealskins.At Old Town two complete ulos with copper blades and plainwooden handles were found. The first (fig. 10, e), from Old Town III,has a narrow handle, 22.5 cm. long, straight along the back, butwidening in the middle to 3 cm. Fragments of copper blade can stillbe seen in the groove along the curved edge. The illustration showsthe appearance of the Imife as reconstructed.The second specimen (fig. 10, a) was found in the Storage House inOld Town 11. The handle, 8.5 cm. long and 2 cm. wide, has a slightdepression on the back and on one side, probably to accommodate thefingers. The curved copper blade is only 7.5 cm. long and just over2 cm. wide in the middle. There are also three complete (fig. 10, b;pi. 14, m) and four broken blades (pi. 14, k, I) for ulos or ulo-shapedscrapers. Of tliese, two complete and three fragmentary blades arefrom Old Town III, a complete and a broken blade from Old To^vq II,and one broken specimen from Little Fort Island near Knight Island.These blades are all rather narroAV (1.1 to 1.9 cm. wide) and also verythin (0.1 to 0.2 cm. thick), with the thinnest part at the back whichwas set into the grooved handle. Three complete blades are 15.6,12.2, and 8 cm. long, the first two crescentic in outline, while thethird is almost straight and appears to be unfinished. One of thebroken blades (pi. 14, k) was probably about 10 cm. long when com-plete. Identification of the other three broken specimens as ulo bladesis uncertain, since they may have been used for small knives ofother types, possibly crooked knives.A somewhat similar fragment of an iron blade (pi. 4, e), 1.8 cm. wideand (4.8) cm. long, is from the floor of the Storage House. Six otherfragments of iron from Old Town III (pi. 4, a, c,f, h,) and four fromOld Town II (pi. 4, d, j) appear to be derived from nails or spikes.Possibly some were used as knife blades, although they are now toocorroded to permit identification.The ulo is an ancient and widely distributed type of knife in both the de Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 101New and Old Worlds (Birket-Smith, 1953, p. 187; de Laguna, 1947,p. 182). However, iilo blades of ground slate date back to KachemakBay I (for which Rainey and Ralph, 1959, p. 371, have assigned aradiocarbon date of 748 B.C. ?118 years, based on a single sample),to Okvik-Old Bering Sea (dated by Giddings, 1960, p. 124, as 300 B.C.and earlier), to Norton, 500 B.C. to A.D. 400 (Giddings, 1960, p. 125),and to Choris, 1500 to 500 B.C. (Giddings, 1960, p. 127). Exceptfor Okvik and Old Bering Sea, none of these early Eskimo cultures inAlaska has a well-developed ground slate industry; ground slate uloblades are lacking in the Dorset, "Paleo-Aleut," and Ipiutak. Inthese, and in a number of earlier cultures, chipped blades presumablytake the place of the ground slate ulo. Slate ulo blades (Drucker'stypes I to III, 1943, pp. 51 f., 123 f.; 1950, Trait 108, "stone fish cuttingIvuives"; Barnett, 1939, Trait 349) are of wide distribution on theNorthwest Coast, although they are not common except in theCoast Salish area. At both Angoon (de Laguna, 1960, pp. 109 f.)and Yakutat sites, ground slate ulo blades were represented only bydoubtful fragments, in striking contrast to the quantities from thePacific Eskimo and Eraser River regions. Moreover, in both theseareas the slate ulo appears in sites of the greatest age. This is partic-ularly true at Locarno Beach I, on the Eraser Delta, for which a radio-carbon age of 476 B.C. ? 160 years is given. The related Whalen Isite has yielded a slightly older date, and for Marpole (Eburne)dates from 943 B.C. to A.D. 179 are claimed (Borden, 1950, pp. 14 ff.,20; 1962). Too little is still known about the oldest periods of PacificEskimo culture to prove or disprove Borden's (1962) thesis that groundslate was diffused to the Eskimo from southern British Columbia.Byers (1962) has discussed the great age of slate ulos in the Northeast.In any case, on the central and northern Northwest Coast the slateulo was not as popular as Imives of other materials, chiefly shell, butwe need clearer archeological evidence on this point. Modern uloswith metal blades are illustrated from the Tlingit and Haida byNiblack (1890, pi. xxiv, figs. 95, 96).Nowhere on the Northwest Coast except at Yalmtat and amongthe Chilkat was native copper abundant enough to have been thepreferred material for ulos. Blades like those from Old Town are alsoknown from Kachemak Bay IV (de Laguna, 1934, pi. 49, 14, 15). Asmall copper blade for a man's knife like an ulo was found in a lateprehistoric horizon on Prince Wdliam Sound (de Laguna, 1956, pi.27, 3), and the Chugach may also have had copper ulos, since the 18th-century explorers frequently mentioned tlieir copper knives, weapons,and ornaments. Although Druckcr (1950, Trait 108a, pp. 240 f.)reported the "copper fish knife" from the Chilkat Tlingit, he wasdoubtful of his informants' accuracy. The latters' testimony is, how-693-818?64 8 102 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull, 192 W o de Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 103ever, supported by the Yakutat and Kachemak Bay specimens.Copper River Atna informants (1954) also reported copper "fishknives."Although the two ulo handles from Old Town were plain, there isno reason to doubt that the type with fingerhole, common at Yakutattoday, was also used in the past. Chugach ulos were identical withthose of Yakutat (Birket-Smith, 1953, p. 75), and Copper RiverEyak ulos were described as like those of the Chugach (Birket-Smithand de Laguna, 1938, p. 74), so presumably also had the hole. TheYukon Tena used both the plain and pierced types (de Laguna, 1947,p. 126). The ulo handle with fingerhole is one of the characteristicEskimo forms, even though some of the Coast Salish ulos had a holefor the thumb or finger cut through the slate blade below the handle(Barnett, 1939, Trait 351, p. 281).ULO WITH LATERAL HANDLEA small semilunar knife of copper (pi. 14, h) has a tang at the side,and comes from Old Town I. The blade is now (4,2) cm. long and(3.5) cm. wide, but was probably once larger. The tang has beenwrapped with gi^ass, probably to make it fit into a handle. A hair,as yet unidentified, was found adhering to the blade.The small knife is like some of the larger ulos with lateral handleknown from the Bristol Bay-Yukon Eskimo (de Laguna, 1947,p. 186). A single slate blade may represent this form on Kodiak(Heizer, 1956, pi. 40, a).ULO-SHAPED BARK SCRAPER OR KNIFEA Imife or scraper shaped like an ulo with rounded edge was foundat Diyaguna'Et (fig. 11, /). It is of commercial (?) sheet copper.It is 10.5 cm. long and 4.5 cm. wide, and is unhafted, although a griphas been formed by folding over the metal along the back. Thiswas identified by our informants as a type of knife or scraper called"mussel shell," used especially for shaving ofl' the sweet inner bark ofthe hemlock. The blade was cupped so that it would scoop, not cut.The same implement was also said to be used to split spruce roots forbaskets and to scrape skins. Formerly such a knife was made of theshell of the large California mussel. Modern specimens are made ofFigure 10.?Copper knives. Drawn by Donald F. McGeein. a, Ulo with wooden handleand copper blade, from between floor and wall of Storage House, Old Town II (No. 193);b, blade for ulo, from Mound B, upper levels, Old Town III (No. 584); c, small knife blade,from Mound B, upper levels, Old Town III (No. 606); d, small knife blade, from SurfacePit 6, Mound B, upper levels. Old Town III (No. 84); f, ulo with wooden handle and cop-per blade, from Mound B, upper levels, Old Town III (No. 273), restored. 104 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192cupped, semilunar pieces of iron, with or without a wooden handle.An iron blade of this kind was found at Nessudat.This small shell knife or scraper, later (?) copied in metal, seems tohave been more important on the northern and central NorthwestCoast than the ordinary ulo \vith larger, flat blade. Thus, mussel-shell knives for cutting meat and fish are recorded ethnologicallyfrom the Tlingit, and were found archeologically at Daxatkanada(de Laguna, 1960, p. 110, pi. 9, n). They are known from the Haida,Tsimshian, Kwaldutl, Bella Coola, Nootka, and Coast Sahsh (Drucker,1950, Traits 106, 176; Barnett, 1939, Traits 266, 248, 348). Themussel-shell scraper for bark and skins is known from the Tlingit,Haida, Tsimshian, and Kwakiutl (Drucker, 1950, Traits 262 and778). The Coast Sahsh used it for sldns but preferred clamshellsfor bark, and also used shell scrapers for fibers (Barnett, 1939, Traits274, 543, and 762). Mussel-shell knives and scrapers appear at somesites in Coast Salish territory: Cattle Point (especially the MaritimePhase), Locarno Beach I, and especially at Whalen Farm I (King,1950, p. 59; Borden, 1950, pp. 15, 20, 24).The Copper Kiver Eyak used clamshells as knives and as scrapersfor dehairing skins (Birket-Smith and de Laguna, 1938, pp. 75, 90).The Chugach used mussel shells for dehairing hides and clamshellsfor scraping bark (Birket-Smith, 1953, fig. 17, c, pp. 74 f.). TheChugach, Eyak, and Yakutat presumably share in the use of theseshell implements because of their close contacts with the NorthwestCoast Indians. If we can trust the implications of Tlingit Hnguisticusage which apphes the word "mussel shell" to true ulos as weU asto similarly shaped knives and scrapers, regardless of their material,these tools must have been made of shell for a long time. The scrapersare particularly associated with securing the sweet edible inner barkof the hemlock and spruce, and it is interesting that of the groupson the Northwest Coast and southwestern Alaska who had access tosuch bark, the Nootka are almost unique in making no use of itfor food. CROOKED KNIVES (?)It is reasonable to suppose that some of the broken copper and ironknife blades from Old Town II and III were for crooked knives, sincethis type of carving knife has been recently very popular at Yakutat,as well as among other Northwest Coast peoples, the Alaskan Eskimo,and interior Indians. For example, the Chugach reported that theyformerly made a crooked knife with copper blade. While the truecrooked knife required a curved blade of metal, it probably developedfrom a prototype made with a stone blade set at or near the end of along curved handle. A type of crooked knife was also made from de Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 105a curved tooth (de Laguna, 1947, pp. 179 f.; Birket-Smith, 1953,pp. 186 f., 221).We also found 11 beaver incisors that had been used as chisels orknives for fine woodwork or as blades for engraving tools (pi. 16, a,6). Four of these are from Old Town III, five from Old Town II,and two from deposits of unknown age. In addition, a similar imple-ment of marmot or porcupine tooth comes from Old Town II (pi.16, c), while a bone tool from Old Towti III (pi. 16, g) is similarly-shaped. Such knives or engraving tools made of the teeth of beaverand other rodents appear sporadically among the Eskimo, being knownfrom the Ipiutak of Point Hope, Nukleet I at Denbigh on NortonSound, and from Kodiak and Prince William Sound (Heizer, 1956,p. 82; de Laguna, 1947, p. 180; 1956, p. 192; Giddings, 1960, p. 125).Thngit examples were found at the historic site of Daxatkanada (deLaguna, 1960, p. 118, pi. 9, o-q), and the tool is reported ethnologicallyfrom the Eyak, Tsimshian, Kwaldutl, and some Coast Salish tribes(Birket-Smith and de Laguna, 1938, p. 74; Drucker, 1950, Trait 432;Barnett, 1939, Trait 614). They also appear at such southern BritishColumbia sites as Whalen Farm II, Comox, Cattle Point (MaritimePhase), and Marpole (Eburne) (Borden, 1950, p. 20; 1962; King, 1950,pp. 51, 58). Beaver-tooth tools are, however, much more extensivelyused by the Indians of the northwest interior than on the coast.STONE SCRAPERSSix flat ovoid boulder chips, or flakes struck from hard beachcobbles, were apparently used as knives or scrapers or choppers.Use retouch can be seen along the sharp edge of some flakes (pi. 9,e, g), and two have been thinned by percussion flaking along one edge(pi. 9, d,f). One of these was identified by an elderly woman as askin scraper. These boulder chips range from about 8 to 15.5 cm.in length, 8.5 to 13 cm. in width, and 1.5 to 4.3 cm. in thickness.Two specimens are from Old Town III, one from Old Town II, andthree from Old Town I.There are five paddle-shaped scrapers of flaked slate or schist (fig.11, e, i, j). They apparently have or had a rounded working edgeand a wide tang, somewhat constricted laterally as if for hafting.Somewhat similar blades of iron are now fastened to handles from 3to 4 feet long for use as fleshers in cleaning and softening sealskinswhile they are being stretched and dried in a frame. The iron bladefrom Old Town II (pi. 4, k) may have been for a scraper of this kind.The stone specimens are 5.8 to 8.5 cm. long, and 3.6 to 6.4 cm. vnde ator near the working edge. Three are from Old Town III, and one eachfrom Old Town II and I. There is also an oval end scraper blade ofslaty schist from Old Town III which could have been used as a flesher. 106 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192 de Lagunn] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 107Five stone blades could have I)eeii used for ulos or for ulo-shapedscrapers. The only example of a ground slate blade of this kind is afragment from the lower part of the midden at Diyaguna'Et. Agreenstone blade from Old Town III (pi. 9, c), 11.6 by 7.4 cm., iswell worn along the curved edge and on the surfaces as if it had beenused to soften skins. Two specimens of green slate with chipped edges(pi, 9, a) are obviously unfinished. They are about 18 cm. long and9.7 cm. wide, and come from Old Town II and I. An oval scraperfrom Old Town II, measures 13.2 by 6.4 cm. A partially workedsemilunar piece of shale (pi. 9, h) from Old Town II may also be anunfinished scraper.The two ulo-shaped chipped slate blades resemble chipped slatespecimens from Prince William Sound, Kachemak Bay, and Kodiak,chiefly from the earlier periods, which may have been for a specialkind of ulo or a scraper, or may have been simply unfinished (deLaguna, 1956, p. 151; Heizer, 1956, pp. 48 f.).Lastly, there are five rather narrow, rectangular chipped stone slabsor flakes (fig. 11, c, d, h), which appear to have been used as scrapers,or perhaps as knives. One long edge, showing signs of use, is slightlycurved, suggesting that these specimens might have been classedwith the ulo-shaped scrapers. Two are from Old Town III, one fromOld Town II, and two from Old Town I. The last (fig. 11, c), fromOld Town III, may have been used as a saw to cut stone or hard bone.Several fragments of worked greenstone, chert, and other rock,which might have been used as scrapers, are too uncertain to be listedhere.The paddle-shaped scrapers from Old Town are paralleled by speci-mens from both early and late prehistoric Chugach sites, althoughthe latter have longer and more slender tangs (de Laguna, 1956, pp.131-135). There are some similar scrapers from Kachemak Bay III,although these are of ground slate (de Laguna, 1934, pi. 34, 5, 9).While chipped paddle-shaped slate blades come from Kodiak, es-pecially from the lower levels at Uyak Bay, they are much larger, andFigure 11.?Knives and scrapers. Drawn by Donald F. McGeein. a, Knife or weaponblade, chipped chert, from Mound B, lower levels. Old Town II (No. 315); b, knife orweapon blade, chipped slate, from Mound B, upper levels, Old Town III (No. 96); c,rectangular scraper or saw, sandy schist, from Surface Pit 6, Mound B, upper levels. OldTown III (No. 11); d, rectangular scraper, igneous rock, from Mound D, upper levels,Old Town I (No. 889); e, paddle-shaped scraper, slate, from Mound B, lower levels, OldTown II (No. 325);/, copper scraper for hemlock bark, from Diyaguna'Et (No. Dy/2);g, double-edged knife blade, schist, from Surface Pit 6, Mound B, upper levels. Old TownIII (No. 82); h, rectangular scraper, slate, from Mound B, lower levels. Old Town II(No. 359); i, paddle-shaped scraper, slate, from Mound B, upper levels, Old Town III(No. 231); y, paddle-shaped scraper, schist, from fill of House Pit 1, Old Town III (No.520). 108 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192are classed by Heizer (1956, pi. 49, d-j, p. 51) among the flensingknives. Probably the chipped paddle-shaped scraper is a local formof the Yakutat and Pacific Eskimo, although, of course, long-handledfleshing tools have a much wider distribution.The boulder chip (cobble flake) scrapers or knives were obviouslynot common at Old Town, and were also rare at Chugach sites, instriking contrast to Kachemak Bay, where such implements werenumerous in all horizons (de Laguna, 1956, p. 131). They also occuron Kodiak ("Teshoa flakes," Heizer, 1956, p. 43). Four examplesfrom Daxatkanada (de Laguna, 1960, p. 110) show that the earlyhistoric Tlingit of Angoon also used this type of tool although it hasusually escaped the museum collector. Cobble flakes were, and stillare, one of the common forms of ulo-shaped scrapers used by theYukon, Tanana, and Copper River Athabaskans for finishing softtanned skins of caribou and moose (de Laguna, 1947, pp. 127 ff., 187ff.; field notes, Atna). Drucker (1950, Trait 788) records a "sidescraper," for making buckskin, from the southern Tlingit and Kwakiutl,but without further information. The cobble flake scraper appearsto be associated with the tanning of large animal hides, and may thusbe considered a tool characteristic of the mainland, and especially ofthe interior, where skin dressing was most highly developed. (Thesescrapers are sometimes called "Chi-Tho," cf. Townsend andTownsend, 1961, p. 42.)Other Yakutat chipped knives or scrapers are irregular and not verydistinctive, although Chugach specimens exhibit the same range oftypes. In both areas, roughly shaped scrapers are almost the onlyform of chipped stone artifact.BONE SCRAPERSA broken scraper made of an animal scapula was found in OldTown II, as was a small piece of bu'd bone with one sharp edge whichmay have been a scraper or smaU knife (pi. 16, k). From Old TownIII is a trough-shaped piece of whalebone, 11.2 cm. long and 5 cm.wide, which has been sharpened across one end for use as a scraper orgouge. These specimens are too fragmentary and indefinite in char-acter to permit comparisons. Bone scrapers were evidently unim-portant at Yakutat, as they were on the Northwest Coast and PrinceWilliam Sound, in contrast to Kachemak Bay and Kodiak (de Laguna,1956, p. 193).HAMMERSTONES, ANVILS (?), AND MAULSHAMMERSTONESOrdinary hammerstones are more numerous than any other typeof tool in the archeological collections from the Yakutat area. They de Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 109arc unshapcd beach cobbles of tough hard rock, largely metamorphic,and of convenient size to grasp. They range in length from 6.4 to13.8 cm., in width from 2.4 to 11.4 cm., and in thickness from 1.3 to6.9 cm. Weights range from 60 to 888 gm., the mode being about300 gm. A few hammerstoncs, lighter than 150 or heavier than 600gm., were perhaps used for special purposes. Variations in shape donot seem to have any chronological significance. Thus, 43 hammer-stones are ovoid, 47 have snoutlike protuberances, 29 are ratherangular, 10 are roughly elongated or cylindrical (approaching the speci-mens described below as hand mauls), while the rest are fragmentary orunclassifiable.About 20 have faceted ends, indicating that they must have beenused with a slanting motion; the rest were used to strike vertical blows,as is shown by their flattened or slightly rounded ends. Some havebeen worn almost flat and smooth by light hammering, while othersare heavily battered. Some show marks of abrasion on the sides(pi. 10, i) as if they had been used as anvils or manos. One specimenhas traces of red paint on the surface.The proveniences are: Dolgoi Island, 1; Canoe Pass, 1; house pitat Nessudat, l;01d Town III, 68; Old Town II, 24; Old Town I, 28;and Old Town II or III, 8.An additional 29 specimens may be called hammerstone-abraders(pi. 10,/) because the clear signs of rubbing on the ends, edges, andsides show that they were used for pounding and later for grindingwith a back-and-forth motion, so that the facets made by hammeringwere worn smooth. Seven were evidently used to crush hematite forred paint. The proveniences are: Diyaguna'Et, 1; Old Town III,19; Old Town II, 5; and Old Town I, 5.In addition, two pitted hammerstoncs (pi. 10, g) from Old Town IIIhave depressions pecked in both sides for finger grips. The edges havebeen battered against something hard and angular. One specimenmay also have been used as an anvil.Plain cobble hammerstoncs are so universally present in sites of thePacific Northwest that they lack regional or chronological diagnosticvalue. However, a problem is raised by the great numbers found atOld Town, where ordinary hammerstoncs represent about 24 percentof the total number of stone artifacts from the youngest part of thesite, about 15 percent from Old Town II, and about 21 percent fromOld Town I. The proportions would be still higher if the 29 hammer-stone-abraders and the few additional miscellaneous specimens wereincluded. These figures contrast strongly with the proportions ofhammerstoncs from the nearest comparable sites: Daxatkanada,a historic Tlingit fort and campsite near Angoon in southeasternAlaska, and at Palugvik, a prehistoric Chugach village site in Prince 110 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192William Sound, the youngest levels of which may be contemporaneouswith Old Town I. At Daxatkanada only about 4.4 percent of the 228stone specimens were hammerstones, and at Palugvik only 4.7 percentof the 444 stone artifacts (de Laguna, 1960, p. 102; 1956, pp. 110,137 ff.). These differences are hard to explain, yet may reflect thevarious uses to which hammerstones were put.Experiments showed that signs of wear identical with those on thehammerstones and hammerstone-abraders were produced when hardcobbles were used to pound and grind limestone boulders like thosefrom which most of the lamps at Old Town had been made. Thesite yielded 34 such lamps (pis. 11 and 12), not counting 12 doubtfulor unfinished specimens (see pp. 117-120). Daxatkanada, how ever,contained but four crude stone vessels, one of which might have beena lamp, and Palugvik, though a permanent village, yielded only fivelamps. The great number of hammerstones and hammerstone-abraders at Old Town may, therefore, be connected \\ath the manu-facture of lamps. These tools may also have been used to worknative copper and drift iron, in which Old Town was also particularlyrich.Hammerstones undoubtedly served to shape stone tools such asadzes, scrapers, and knives, and it is obvious that some were used toprepare red paint. The Yakutat natives also suggested their use aspestles to grind or pound native tobacco and such foods as driedseaweed, half-dried fish eggs, and roots ("native potatoes"). Ham-merstones were probably employed to crush the calcined shells thatwere mixed with salmon eggs or seal brains to make a waterproofpaste for calking the seams of wooden boxes. Most pestles used tocrush and grind food are said to have been of wood.Pitted hammerstones are very rare in Alaska. Thus, Drucker(1943, p. 50) does not mention them in his classification of NorthwestCoast artifacts. They are, in fact, represented by only 4 doubtfulspecimens from Prince William Sound, 7 from Kodiak, 1 from a historicsite on Lake Iliamna, and by 13 pitted stones from all but the earliestlevels at Cattle Point on San Juan Island (de Laguna, 1956, pp. 136,146; Heizer, 1956, pp. 53 f.; Townsend and Townsend, 1961, p. 45;King, 1950, p. 38). These specimens may, however, have been smallanvils. ANVILS (?)A flat cobble from Old Town II, 14.3 by 9.6 cm. in diameter,is battered on one side as if it had served as an anvU. The oppositeside is stained with a dark pigment (carbon?), across which are faintpolish lines suggesting use in mixing black paint. A similar specimenfrom Old Town III was evidently used both as an anvil and as apalette for mixing red paint. de Laguua] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 111UNHAFTED HAND MAULS OR PESTLESFive elongated subcylindrical cobblestones, ranging in length from14.5 to 24 cm., and in diameter from 3 by 4.6 to 4.7 by 8.4 cm., appearto have been used as pestles or hand mauls (pi. 10, k). They comefrom the house pit at Nessudat; Old Town III, three (including onepartially shaped granite bar); Old Town II, one; and Old Town II orIII, one.It is curious that no carefuUy shaped implement of this type wasfound, unless a stone figurine (fig. 21, h), from just under the turf ofMound B (Old Town III), was intended for a pestle. This is aroughly cylindrical piece of sandstone, 10.8 cm. long, 5.9 by 4.1 cm.in diameter, and has been pecked to resemble the head of an animal,perhaps a frog. The base (below the animal's neck) is flat, and showsno signs of use. It may represent a break. Wide shallow groovesform the mouth, outline the protruding eyes and run back along thetop of the head. The carving is similar in style to that of a maulhead from the Situk River (fig. 21, d, described below). Althoughmuch less elaborately decorated and in a cruder form of NorthwestCoast art style, the Old Town specimen resembles a stone pestle,representing a raven, used by the Angoon ("Hoodsinoo") Tlingit inpreparing native tobacco (Niblack, 1890, pi. lxiii, fig. 338). Ourspecimen may have been intended for a similar function, for thecultivation of native tobacco was reported at Yakutat, and ethno-logical examples of wooden snuff mortars were seen.It was perhaps only accidental that we found no clear exampleof a carefully made pestle or hand maul, since the cylindrical pestle-shaped form with nipple top and the stirrup-shaped type with "handlelike a flatiron" are both known from Yakutat (H. I. Smith, 1899,figs. 12, c, 13, /, p. 365), and are common on the Northwest Coast(Drucker, 1943, fig. 13, types IBI and II). Well-made cylindricalpestles or hand mauls come from Chugach sites (de Laguna, 1956,pis. 21, 8, 22, 1), and such implements may also have been used bythe nearby Eyak (Birket-Smith and de Laguna, 1938, p. 76). Thehand mauls from Uyak Bay, Kodiak Island, are of a somewhatdifferent style, with finger pits around the middle of the cylindricalhandle, and one is like a paddle with lateral handle. None has theusual pestle shape (Heizer, 1956, p. 46).Shaped hand mauls and pestles are common on the NorthwestCoast from the Tlingit (Keithahn, 1962, fig. 3) to the Fraser RiverDelta, although the more elaborate types are replaced by simplerectanguloid or pear-shaped forms, or by cobblestones, in the Milbank-Queen Charlotte Sound area (Drucker, 1943, p. 124; 1950, Trait 417).In Coast Salish territory, the cylindrical pestle or hand maul reappears 112 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Boll. 192in such sites as Beach Grove, Marpole (Eburne), Whalen Farm II,and Musqueam (with nipple top, as distinguished from the flat-topped hand mauls of late prehistoric and historic times). HereBorden (1950, passim; 1951, p. 45; 1962; and personal communication)is incKned to interpret it as the old food pounder of the interiorwhich has been brought to the forested coast and adapted to drivingwedges for a heavy woodworldng industry. It should be noted thatthe diagnostic feature distinguishing Northwest Coast pestles fromhand mauls is that the former have rather rounded bases, the latterconcave striking surfaces. On both the coast and the interior plateauthe range of forms is considerable, and the direction of diffusion verydifficult to judge (Osborne, Caldwell, Crabtree, 1956, p. 123). Itshould be noted that the pestle or hand maul does not occur in othersites in the Coast Salish area such as Cattle Point, Whalen Farm I,Locarno Beach, and Point Gray, although some of these are otherwisesimilar in contents and age to Marpole (Ebm-ne) (Borden, 1950,pp. 13 f., 15 f., 20; 1962). However, neither presence nor absenceof such tools?nor of bone nor antler wedges, for that matter?canindicate the development of woodworking skills, since among theNorthwest Coast Indians, the Yakutat, and the Chugach, mostwedges were of wood and were usually driven with boulders or woodenmauls, none of which are likely to be preserved in archeological sites.HAFTED MAUL HEADSA limestone maul head (pi. 10, j), with a shallow hafting grooveextending three quarters of the way around the circumference, camefrom Old Town III. It is 16.3 cm. long and 9.4 cm. in diameter atthe damaged poll or butt. It narrows rather abruptly to a diameterof 6.5 cm. at the smooth, slightly convex striking end, which is setoff by a small shoulder.In 1949 we saw a limestone head for a hammer or maul which hadbeen found in the bed of the Situk Kiver sHghtly above the Govern-ment weir and the remains of the historic village (see fig. 21, d).It is about 18 cm. long, 12 cm. in diameter, and flat on the under orhafting sm'face, wdth a broad groove around the convex sides and top.In style it resembles the stone head from Old Town III and may alsorepresent a frog. Large oval eyes and a broad mouth are indicatedby shallow grooves; at the other end, flexed hind legs or haunches aresimilarly suggested.Grooved stone heads for mauls or hammers have a wide distributionamong the Eskimo, adjacent Athabaskans, and northern NorthwestCoast Indians (Birket-Smith, 1953, pp. 220 ff.; Drucker, 1943, type I,p. 123; 1950, Trait 426; Heizer, 1956, p. 46; de Laguna, 1947, p. 165;1956, pp. 139 ff.; Townsend and Townsend, 1961, pi. 3, 5;Keithahn, de Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 1131962, fig, 2). They are known from the Canadian Thule culture,from Punuk times (?) on the Kobuk River, and from protohistoricnorthern Alaskan Eskimo and Tena sites. They occur among thePacific Esldmo: at Kodiak (earlier periods especially, contempo-raneous with Kachemak Bay III?), on Kachemak Bay (period un-known), and Chugach sites (late prehistoric only?). They have notbeen reported from the Copper River Eyak. Drucker finds themespecially characteristic of the Tlingit, Tsimshian, and Haida, butrecords no examples south of the Bella Coola and the northernKwaldutl. Although found among the Interior Salish, they areunknown from the Coast Salish or from sites in their territory. Indistribution and in method of hafting, these grooved maul headssuggest a relationship to the heavy splitting adz, although they havea wider distribution than the latter, especially in the north. Whileparticularly characteristic of the Pacific Eskimo and northern North-west Coast, the grooved maul head seems to make a relatively lateappearance and to remain less important than the ordinary cobblehammerstone. According to Yakutat and Angoon Tlingit inform-ants, most mauls (for driving wedges^ stakes for fishtraps, etc.)were of hardwood, and this may always have been so, even thoughDrucker (1950, Trait 427, p, 256) suggests that the "wooden maulof trunk and branch" used by the Haida, Tsimshian, and Tlingit,may not be aboriginal,STONE SAWS(?), GRINDING SLABS, WHETSTONES, AND PAINTSTONE SAWS (?)Although fragments of sawed slate were found, no clearly identifiablestone saws were recovered. A specimen of sandy schist from OldTown II, listed among the irregular rectangular scrapers, showswear suggestive of use as a saw. From Diyaguna'Et is a flat rec-tangular slab of sandstone, 11.8 by 5.6 by 0.9 cm., with thin edgesand rounded corners, but it is too badly weathered for certain identi-fication. Keithahn (1962, p. 72) lists nine saws from Yakutat in theAlaska Historical Museum at Juneau.Stone saws were found at sites on the Kobuk River (Giddings,1944, p. 119), and at Tena sites on the Yukon. They appear inKachemak Bay III, and are numerous on Cook Inlet and PrinceWilliam Sound, rare on Kodiak and the Aleutians (de Laguna, 1943,pp. 62, 175 ff,; 1947, pp. 123, 150, 169 ff.; Birket-Smith, 1953, p.212; Heizer, 1956, p. 46). Tlingit examples were found in the Angoonarea, although not recognized by the natives (de Laguna, 1960, pi.7, q, r, p. 105), and they may have been used by the Nootka. Stonesaws also occur at sites in Coast Salish and Interior Salish country. 114 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192but are otherwise not documented from the Northwest Coast. Inthe Fraser Delta and San Juan Island area they are found as earlyas the Locarno Beach Phase and the Developmental and MaritimePhases on Cattle Point (Borden, 1962; King, 1950, p. 39).Chugach saws (de Laguna, 1956, pp. 127-130) were very numerous,and seemed to be used especially in making long slender slate weaponpoints and in cutting out the blades for planing adzes from green-stones and other hard rocks. Stone saws declined slightly in numberduring the later prehistoric period on Prince William Sound, perhapsbecause of the lessened importance of the planing adz. An extensionof this trend may explain why only two very doubtful specimenswere found at Yakutat. However, the Yakutat may have cut stoneby means of wood or bone tools and sand. This apparently simplemethod has a wider distribution than has the stone saw, and it isto be inferred where sawed stone is present but the stone saw hasnot been found. GRINDING SLABSThere are relatively heavy slabs (four of sandstone, two of micro-crystalline rock, one of granite), ranging in size from 25 by 18 cm.to over 37 by 20 cm., and in thickness from 5.5 to 15 cm. One orboth surfaces have been ground flat or even concave from use. Somehad obviously been used to sharpen and polish stone and bone imple-ments, and two had been used to grind red paint. Our informantssaid that edible roots and medicinal plants were ground on suchslabs. No handstones (manos) were found, unless the hammerstone-abraders served such a function.In the fill of House Pit 1, two freshly sharpened splitting adzes(pi. 5, b, d) were found cached under one grinding slab on which theyhad probably been sharpened. A grinding slab from a cache belowthis house pit is smeared with red ocher, and is made of such extremelyhard rock that it would have served better as a mortar than as agrindstone.The proveniences of the specimens are: five from Old Town III(including two from the fill of House Pit 1, and one from the pitbelow it), two from Old Town II (on and below the floor of House8). These locations, and the weight of most of the specimens, suggestthat the grinding slabs were used at or near the places where theywere found.A few grinding slabs are known from sites on Prince William Sound,Kachemak Bay, Lake Iliamna, and the Aleutians. In the last areathey are restricted to the preparation of paint, while lamps on Kodiakwere sometimes used for the same purpose. Manos or hand stonesfor use with grinding slabs occur on Kachemak Bay, Lake Iliamna, de Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 115and the Aleutians (probably also on Kodiak), although they werenot identified at Chugach sites (Hrdh6ka, 1944, pp. 328, 341; Heizer1956, pp. 53 f.; de Laguna, 1956, pp. 124 f., 267, Townsend andTownsend, 1961, pi. 3, 1-7). Grinding slabs are not common amongEskimo outside of Alaska. Drucker (1950, Trait 949, p. 269) reportsmortarlike "paint grinding pans of stone" from the central and north-ern Northwest Coast tribes (among whom the Tlingit should beincluded), but these were evidently used without handstones. Asidefrom these specimens, large grinding slabs are rare or absent on theNorthwest Coast, and we have to go to northern California before themetate and mano become chai'acteristic tools. The grinding slabsat Old Town suggest, therefore, affihations with the Aleut and PacificEskimo, rather than with the Northwest Coast, and such ties wouldbe closer if any of the hammerstone-abraders or abraded cobblestoneshad been used as manos with the grinding slabs.WHETSTONESWhetstones of three distinguishable shapes were found: bar-shaped,brick-shaped, and double-concave, as well as miscellaneous and frag-mentary specimens. They total 28, and, with one exception, are ofabrasive materials, ranging from fine siltstone to sandstone.The seven bar whetstones (pi. 10, c, e) are from 8.7 to 14.8 cm.long, 1.4 to 4.3 cm. wdde, and 1.1 to 1.8 cm. thick. Most are carefullymade. All come from the older parts of the site: four from OldTown II (including a specimen of hard, fine-grained metamorphicrock), and three from Old Town I.There are five brick-shaped whetstones. Except for one of shalefrom Canoe Pass, the rest are of sandstone, coarser in grain than thatused for the bar whetstones and less suited than the latter for delicategrinding and polishing. They range in length from 8.4 to (14.3) cm.,in width from 4.7 to 7.4 cm., and in thickness from 2.3 to 3.2 cm.One comes from Old Town III, two each from Old Town II and I.There are also four broken sandstone whetstones, with both surfacesground concave. When complete, they may have been oval orcircular, and up to 20 cm. in diameter. Perhaps they should be classed^vith the grinding slabs. Proveniences are: one from Old Town III,two from Old Town II, and one from Old Town II or III.Lastly, there are 3 cobblestones with marks of abrasion (whetstonesor manos?) and 14 whetstones, chiefly broken slabs of sandstone orsiltstone, too irregular or varied in shape to be classified (pi. 10, d, h).Proveniences are: 1 from Nessudat, 1 from Diyaguna'Et, 9 from OldTown III, 2 from Old Town II, 2 from Old Town I, and 1 from OldTown II or III.Whetstones of the same types have been found at Kodiak, Kachemak 116 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192Bay, and Prince William Sound, and at various Tlingit sites in theAngoon area (Heizer, 1956, pi. 35; Hrdlicka, 1944, fig. 141 ; de Laguna,1934, p. 62; 1956, pp. 124 ff.; 1960, pp. 105 f.). The fine-grainedsandstone whetstones of the Copper River Eyak, used for sharpeningcopper knives, and their bar whetstones for shaping spoons of moun-tain goat horn (Bu'ket-Smith and de Laguna, 1938, pp. 75, 88 ff.)were probably similar to the Yakutat bars of fine siitstone. Whet-stones of this material are especially characteristic of the Tlingitwho designate them by a special word. The Yakutat natives believedthat to get siitstone caused bad weather (because they had to be"stolen from the glacier"?). Drucker (1943, p. 57) notes that smallwhetstones from the Northwest Coast "vary from neatly finishedflat, rectangular blocks to irregular shaped fragments with a centraldepression produced by grinding. The former can be set off as awell defined type, while the latter form a rather loose and hetero-geneous group." PAINTThere are 31 artifacts or unworked stones that have been used tocrush and mix red pigment, or are smeared with red ocher. Theseinclude 1 hammerstone, 7 hammerstone-abraders, and 2 grindingslabs, already mentioned, while the rest are unworked cobblestonesboulders, or slabs. The proveniences of these are: 22 from OldTown III, of which 10 are associated with House Pit 1 or House 9;5 from Old Town II; 1 from Old Town I; and 3 from Old Town II orIII.There are also 11 small lumps of red ocher (hematite), showingmarks of gouging or rubbing, which have obviously been used forpaint (pi. 17, cc-ee). Some of these were clay stones that had beenbaked to increase theu- red color; others were simply natm-al hematitelumps. Eight examples of red paint come from Old Town III,two from Old Town II, and one from Shallow Water Town on LittleLost River.According to the natives, red ocher was obtained from depositsbetween Turner and Hubbard Glaciers at the head of Disenchant-ment Bay. It was crushed and mixed with mountain goat tallowand used to paint artifacts and to decorate the face. Face paint waskept in a little skin bag and was applied with the fingers to makelines and dots, or with a wooden stamp carved in the totemic crest ofthe sib.Natives did not refer to the burning of iron oxides to increase theirredness, as was apparently practiced at Old Town and also by theAngoon Tlingit (de Laguna, 1960, p. 104). The burning of clay tomake red paint was fairly common on the central and southern de Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 117Northwest Coast, naturally (and artificially?) baked red and yellowshales were used in Kachemak Bay III (de Laguna, 1934, p. 117;1947, p. 220), but the Chugach seem to have found hematite thatneeded no further preparation than the addition of fat or oil. Thiswas probably true of most Yakutat paint.Another type of reddish paint, worn by women to protect theirfaces from the sun, was made from the bark of the red cedar (?), piecesof which sometimes float ashore on the ocean beach. This was groundto powder on a rough whetstone, and mixed with pitch and tallow.A broken sandstone slab from Old Town II has one surface smearedwith a fibrous red pigment, apparently of this type.Such protective paint corresponds to that described by Niblack(1890, p. 259) for the northern Northwest Coast, which was brownish-black in color and was made from charred fungus and grease. Somekind of paint worn on the hands and face to protect them againstsunburn and mosquitoes was universal on the Northwest Coast(Drucker, 1950, Trait 649). Chugach women also prized a lightcomplexion, preserved by such means (Birket-Smith, 1953, p. 71).In general, Tlingit face paint, worn against the sun or for mourning,is described as black.At Yakutat, white powder for whitening skins, and also whitepaint (?), was made from white clay found near the head of Dis-enchantment Bay. Black paint was presumably soot mixed withfat, although our informants had little to say about it.Unfortunately, we have no archeological examples of painteddesigns. Presumably, implements and utensils were painted inNorthwest Coast style in the past, as they were until recently, butthat these designs may have been simpler is suggested by the carvedarcheological specimens. Painting in Northwest Coast style waspracticed by the Copper River Eyak, Chugach, and Koniag, althoughwe do not know the antiquity of this style in southwestern Alaska,nor, for that matter, where it actually originated. One Chugachpictograph (de Laguna, 1956, fig. 22, c), in which the eye is reminiscentof this style, suggests that it was practiced on Prince William Soundin prehistoric times. No pictographs were seen or reported in theYakutat area, although they occur among the Tlingit, and are notuncommon on Prince William Sound and Cook Inlet (de Laguna,1934, pp. 149-154; 1956, pp. 102-109; 1960, fig. 7, pp. 73 ff.).STONE LAMPS AND FIRE MAKINGSTONE LAMPSIn the collections there are 35 lamps, 12 unfinished specimens, and4 specimens that may be toys. The regular lamps faU into two693-818?64 9 118 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bdll. 192categories: (1) well made and (2) crude, and the latter may be furthersubdivided on the basis of size. Lamps were most often made byhollowing out easily worked beach cobbles of limestone. Some ofthe more carefully finished lamps, shaped inside and out, were ofhard rocks such as schist, basalt, and metamorphosed sediments.Within the memory of living informants, stone lamps were usedfor light, either in the main room of the old-fashioned house or in thesmall sleeping rooms. Seal oil was used for fuel and the wick wasa twisted rag or a bunch of beach grass. When shown pictures oflamps from Cook Inlet, one informant recognized these and specifiedthat the lip at the narrower end was to keep the wick from slippinginto the oil and becoming extinguished if the lamp were moved. Shealso said that the groove in the bottom of the bowl was to retain oilafter the rest of the reservoir went dry. Yakutat lamps also hadsuch features, she said, although we suspect that her report of alamp in her father's house with four wick lips may be exaggerated,or else she referred simply to the use of four wicks in one plain lamp.Ten carefully shaped lamps were found: six from Old Town III,three from Old Town II, and one from Diyaguna'Et. An additionalfine lamp from the last site was seen in the house of one of our friends.These lamps were circular, or nearly so, and measured from 10 to 24cm. in diameter, from 4.0 to 8 cm. in height, with reservoir depthsof only 0.8 to 2.5 cm. Three lamps have a groove or ledge runningaround the inside of the bowl (pi. 11, e, and fig. 12, 6; fig. 12, c).The rest lack this feature, although four, at least, have a smalldepression in the bottom of the reservoir (pi. 11, a, and fig. 12, a;pi. 11, d,^\. 12, c).Of the six lamps from Old Town III, one (fig. 12, c) has a broadgroove on the flaring rim and another just inside, both probablyornamental rather than utilitarian. In the bottom of the reservoiris a broad, shallow V-shaped depression, like the groove in the bottomof many Pacific Esldmo lamps to direct the flow of oil to the wick.Another lamp has a single broad groove inside the rim (pi. 11, e, andfig. 12, h). The lamp found by one of the natives at Diyaguna'Et(pi. 3, a) has a shaUow wick lip in the broad, rounded rim, whfle thebottom of the bowl is excavated to leave a wide, sloping, but notpronounced, ledge inside the rim.None of these particular features was found on the three specimensfrom Old Town II. Instead, one of the latter is a circular lamp witha plain rim and a small depression in the middle of the bowl (pi. 11,a; fig. 12, a). Also there is what appears to be the fragment of asimilar lamp, although the center of the reservoir is missing. Thethird lamp from Old Town II has flaring walls and a flat base, whilethe inside of the bowl is gently rounded. de Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 119 10J cm.Figure 12.?Profiles of stone lamps. Drawn by Donald F. McGeein. a, Lamp withplain rim and depression in the bowl, basalt, from just above floor of House 8, Old Town II(No, 656), (see pi. 11, a); b, lamp with grooved rim, schist, from fill of House Pit 1, OldTown III (No. 742), (see pi. 11, e); c, lamp with grooved rim, basalt, from Mound B,upper levels. Old Town III (No. 518).Three rather plain circular lamps with a small depression in thebottom of the reservoir (pi. 11, c?) are from Old Town III. Two ofthese (pis. 11, h, 12, c) were found together, upside down, in the fiUof House Pit 1 as if they had been cached. There is also a fragmentof what appears to have been a similar lamp.A fragment of a well-made circular lamp with flat rim was alsofound at Diyaguna'Et. Although the middle is missing, the bottomprobably lacked a central depression. 120 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192The unshaped lamps are simply limestone cobbles with a hollowpecked into one surface. The natural shapes of stones selected areroughly circular, ovoid, rectangular, and triangular (pis. 11, c, 12,c, e, f). Only a few have been slightly worked on the outside toproduce a more regular shape. Most of these crude lamps tilt slightlyto one side or one end, suggesting that the wick was placed at thelowest point of the rim, although they lack a wick lip. One specimen,with incrustations of carbon indicating its use as a lamp, is a naturallyhollow stone, so poorly balanced that it must have been propped upto prevent the oil from leaking out of the end.These lamps may be subdivided into two groups on the basis ofsize: 12 large lamps with a maximum diameter from about 14 to 20cm., and 13 smaller lamps with a maximum diameter from about8 to 11.5 cm., although no sharp distinction can be made. Thedepressions in these lamps vary from 0.5 to 2 cm. in depth. Possiblythe shallowest ones are unfinished, or the walls of the lamps mayhave weathered down. Some of the smaller specimens may havebeen toys.There are also 12 limestone cobbles, 7.3 to 11.7 cm. in diameter,with pecked depressions on one face that are clearly too small or tooshallow to have been serviceable as oU reservoirs. These may wellbe unfinished lamps.The proveniences of these unshaped and unfinished lamps are:11 large, 7 small, 9 unfinished from Old Town III; 1 large, 4 small,1 unfinished from Old Town II; 2 small and 2 unfinished from OldTown I.Lastly, fom- small limestone cobbles, only 5.1 to 6.1 cm. in diameter,with depressions 0.3 to 0.5 cm. deep, pecked in one face, may betoy lamps (pi. 12, a, b, d). They resemble the larger specimensidentified as crude lamps. Two are from Old Town III, and one eachfrom Old Town II and I. Our informants said that little girls usedto play with toy lamps. These were described as clamshells filledwith oil and actually lit. These four specimens were probably toosmall for such realistic use, although they may have been toys, aswere perhaps some of the small crude lamps with very shallowreservoirs.Stone lamps seem to be more numerous at Old Town in proportionto other artifacts than at any other site in the Pacific Northwest.This is probably due to the ease of working limestone cobbles, eventhough we may have been mistaken in our identification of someof the specimens. The crude cobblestone lamps of Old Town corre-spond perfectly to Abercrombie's description of lamps he saw amongthe Copper River Eyak in 1884, even though our Eyak informantssaid that lamps were of clamshells (Birket-Smith and de Laguna, de Lagiina] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 1211938, pp. 43, 70). Equally crude lamps have been found on PrinceWilliam Sound, Cook Inlet, and the Aleutians, but these are usuallyof hard rock.In general, the Yakutat lamps belong to the ancient pointed ovaltype (de Laguna, 1947, pp. 252 ff.; Birkct-Smith, 1953, pp. 184 ff.),common to the Aleut-Pacific Eskimo, Near Iputak, Norton, andDorset cultures. The Yakutat lamps, however, have a style of theirown, for they tend to be circular rather than oval. The shelf orgroove inside the rim is not a characteristic of other southwesternAlaskan lamps, and the depression in the bottom of the bowl hasbeen reported only from a few oval lamps from the lower levels atUyak Bay, Kodiak Island (Heizer, 1956, pp. 35 f.).The larger Yakutat lamps correspond roughly in size to the regularChugach lamps, with maximum diameters of 12 to 26.G cm., or toKoniag lamps. The smaller Yakutat lamps, with diameters of 8 to11.5 cm., correspond to Chugach specimens of 9.3 to 12 cm. that wereconsidered to be hunters' lamps (de Laguna, 1956, pp. 144 ff.). Simi-lar small lamps for emergency use on hunting trips are known fromKachem.ak Bay, Kodiak, and the Aleutians. Yakutat informants didnot mention hunters' lamps, and the Old Town specimens may havebeen used by little girls. The still smaller Yakutat examples, 5 to 6cm. in diameter, overlap in size some of the Aleut and Koniag hunters'lamps, and also the tiny Aleut specimens, some less than 4.5 cm. inlength, which Jochelson (1925, p. 74) considered to be toys or mortuaryofferings. No such tiny lamps were found on Prince William Soundor Kachemak Bay. Heizer (1956, p. 40) acknowledges that it is hardto draw any line between hunters' lamps and "pitted stones."Stone lamps appear sporadically on the Northwest Coast. Theyare known from the Chilkat Tlingit and southern Tsimshian (Krause,1956, p. 144; Drucker, 1950, Trait 963), while shell lamps were usedby the southern Thngit, Tsimshian, and Kwakiutl (Drucker, 1950,Trait 964), Although a few crude stone vessels, one or two of whichmight have been used as lamps, were found at the historic Thngitfort, Daxatkanada, their function is unknown, and Angoon informantssaid they had never used stone lamps (de Laguna, 1960, p. 103).Drucker (1943, pp. 54 ff.), in discussing archeological stone vesselsfrom the Northwest Coast warns us against the assumption that theywere lamps, since many were mortars for tobacco, berries, or paint,and others may have been dishes. (See also Keithahn, 1962, p. 73.)Such stone vessels, identified as mortars, appear in the Eraser Deltasites of Marpole (Eburne), Point Gray, and Whalen Farm I, and whatwere tentatively identified as lamps were found at Locarno Beach II(Borden, 1950, pp. 14, 17, 20). Yakutat lamps, however, are obviouslymost closely related to those of the Pacific Eskimo. 122 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bdll. 192FIRE MAKINGA small battered lump of quartz from Old Town I was identifiedby the natives as a strike-a-light, and a similar function was suggestedfor one of the hammerstones. The hand drill, cord drill, and bowdriU also were used at Yakutat to make fire, but only the hand drillwas used for holes.Drucker (1950, Trait 957) found that the Tlmgit were the onlyNorthwest Coast tribe to make fire by percussion. Battered quartzpebbles found at Daxatkanada were recognized as strike-a-Hghts bythe Angoon Tlingit, who, like the Yakutat natives, said that wax fromthe ears was put on one of the stones or on the tinder to make the sparkcatch better (de Laguna, 1960, p. 102). The Copper River Eyakdenied making fire by percussion (Birket-Smith and de Laguna, 1938,p. 77). Both quartz and pyrites for strike-a-lights were found in theAleutians and Prince William Sound, although drills were also em-ployed (de Laguna, 1956, p. 192). Quartz "hammerstones" fromKachemak Bay may have been strike-a-hghts (de Laguna, 1934, p.59), but it is unfortunate that we do not know how the ancient PacificEsldmo of Kachemak Bay I made fire, since Birket-Smith (1953, p.184) beheves that percussion with stones was the earliest methodemployed by the Eskimos, and that the bow driU for making firewas later.The hand driU was universally employed on the Northwest Coastfor maldng fire (Drucker, 1950, Trait 954; Barnett, 1939, Trait 382).In addition, the bow drill was used by the Tlingit, southern Haida, andnorthern Kwakiutl, although Drucker (1950, Trait 955, p. 269) is notsure that it was aboriginal.It would thus appear that with respect to methods of making firethe Tlingit and Yakutat show a greater resemblance to the Eskimothan to the other tribes of the Northwest Coast.WEAPONSSTONE CLUB HEAD AND STONE PICKSA double-pointed head of hard crystalline rock for a war club(pi. 5, c) was found on the floor of House 8 in Old Town II. It has alashing groove between two ridges that completely encircle the headand would have been lashed to a T-shaped handle like the blade for asplitting adz. Both points are broken off, but when complete thespecimen was probably 16 cm. long. The diameter at the haftinggroove is 5,8 by 3.3 cm.There are also three broken or unfinished, roughly chipped stonepicks, from 12.3 to over 17 cm. long, and from 1.6 by 4 cm. to 3.8 by5 cm. in diameter. Two are from Old Town III, the third from Old do Lafrunn] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA ] 23Town I. We do not know whether they were used as tools for dig-ging or as weapons, but it seems more Hkcly that they were the headsor spikes for war clubs.One informant described a "pick" used against enemies or animals,which had a hard stone or bone head, 12 to 18 inches long, lashed tothe top of a T-shaped handle. One end of the head was sharplypointed, the other had a peglike projection, just long enough toperforate the skull. The informant said he had found a stone weap-on of this kind on Lost River and had seen a similar bone one atDiyaguna'Et.The double-pointed club head is known from the late prehistoricChugach, the Tena (at least those on the Yukon above the Tanana),the Tlingit, Tsimshian, and Haida (de Laguna, 1947, pis. x, ^, xi, 2,pp. 162-164; 1956, p. 130; Birket-Sraith, 1953, p. 216). A similarobject is published by Keithahn (1962, fig. 1, c, p. 69) as an ice ax.As far as we can discover, no other American groups used this typeof weapon, and it probably originated on the northern NorthwestCoast.The chipped-stone picks from Old Town, which may also have beenweapons, are smaller than somewhat similar Chugach specimens,all probably from late prehistoric sites, HrdliSka (1944, p. 333)mentions what may be a stone pick from the upper level at UyakBay, but the type is otherwise unknown from Kodiak. Some formof war club or "slave killer" seems to be universal on the NorthwestCoast, although most Tlingit examples have nicely polished stoneor bone picks hafted by insertion into the handle (Niblack, 1890,pi. XLvi, figs. 257, 258). A club head of this kind was found atDaxatkanada near Angoon (de Laguna, 1960, p. 102). Keithahn(1962, figs. 6 and 7, pp. 73 f.) describes several Tlingit varieties offighting picks, slave killers, and stone clubs.LARGE WEAPON BLADESIn dealing with archeological specimens, especially with bladesfound without hafts, it is usually impossible to distinguish betweendaggers, large flensing knives, and spears. Even size is not sufficientto separate lance and dart points from blades for arrows or harpoonheads, although the latter are usually smaller. Archeological ex-amples of large weapon blades from Yakutat include three of chippedstone, three fragmentary specimens of ground slate, a bone blade,an iron spearhead, and an iron dagger. Since the same forms ofweapon blades are frequently encountered on the Northwest Coastand in southwestern Alaska in ground slate, bone, copper, and iron,we can assume that the last two, admittedly modern iron specimensfrom Yakutat, illustrate the types of spears and daggers made in 124 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192 earlier times. In addition, there were also found smaller blades ofslate, copper, and bone for lances and arrows.These various weapon blades will be described in the followingsections. DAGGERAlthough no large copper daggers or spearheads were found, thesewere remembered by our Yakutat informants. Daggers were wornby men in a sheath hanging across the chest, and were called in Tlingitby a word meaning "something close to one's hand." These weaponswere probably also made with slate blades.An iron dagger, or large double-edge knife (fig. 13, b), was found atDiyaguna'Et. Although the metal was probably obtained from Whitemen, the shape suggests native workmanship, but it may also reflectsomething more than purely aboriginal skill in metalworking. Thespecimen had originally a total length of about 27 cm., and the bladea width of about 3.5 cm., although the edges and point are now broken.The handle has been wound with cord to make a comfortable grip,and ends with two rectangular ears. The blade itself has two broadconcave facets down the middle of each side. This Imife is evidentlyof the same kind as one of the copper daggers seen by Dixon at Yaku-tat in 1787 (Dixon, 1789, fig. 4, opp. p. 188; Niblack, 1890, pi. xxvii,fig. 116, p. 284). The Tlingit also used stone-bladed daggers, aswell as those with copper and iron blades (ibid., fig. 108, b, c, pis.XXV, xxvii). Copper daggers were used by the Tena, Kutchin,Tanaina, Atna, Eyak, Chugach, and Tutchone of southwesternYukon Territory (de Laguna, 1947, p. 181 ; MacNeish, 1960, pi. vi, 9).The bone blade from Old Town III (fig. 13, a; see below) may alsohave been a dagger. Bone daggers are kno^vn from the Punuk andThule Eskimo, from Kachemak Bay III, and from sites on Kodiakand Prince William Sound, and also from the Aleut, Tena, Tanaina,Tlingit (including the occupants of Daxatkanada), Haida, Tsimshian,Kwakiutl, and Coast Salish, but not from the Nootka (de Laguna,1947, p. 181; 1956, pp. 193-195; 1960, p. 115; Heizer, 1956, p. 75,pi. 71, p, q; Drucker, 1950, Trait 536; Barnett, 1939, Traits 125-127).Some of these bone daggers antedate metal weapons; others seem tohave copied them or been influenced by them.Thus there is no doubt that the dagger was a weapon common inwestern America and that it has at least a moderate antiquity here(Birket-Smith, 1953, p. 205).IRON SPEARThat the inhabitants of Yakutat formerly made tanged lance bladesof slate or copper is suggested by one of iron, said to have been found de Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 125on the ocean beach near Nessudat (fig. 13, d). This specimen is 29.5cm. long, with a shouldered tang 10 cm. long and 1.7 cm. wide.The blade has a maximum width of only 2.5 cm., and is lenticular incross section. According to the natives, the spear formerly used inhunting bears had a double-edged blade like that of a dagger, about14 inches long, that was attached to a handle 6 or 7 feet long. Asimilar spear or lance, but with a handle only 4 feet long, was usedfor other game and to dispatch wounded seals and other sea mammals.The length of the spear used in war was not specified.A spear or lance for war and hunting is an ancient and widelydistributed weapon among the Northwest Coast Indians, and thePacific Eskimo and Aleut. It is reported ethnologically and repre-sented archeologically by long blades of slate and bone (Birket-Smith,1953, p. 182; Heizer, 1956, p. 49). Thus, all of the northern and cen-tral Northwest Coast tribes used long spears for bears, and shortbone-tipped spears for war. The latter were also employed in huntingmountain goats by the Tlingit, Tsimshian, and mainland Kwakiutl,and in hunting sea lions by the Tlingit. The Nootka dispatchedwhales with lances armed with a long, slender, bone point (Drucker,1950, Traits 149, 168, 174, 189, 538, and 540). The Coast Salishused war spears with slate or bone blades, and some also hunted theporpoise with spears (Barnett, 1939, Traits 237, 1018-1020, 1022).BONE WEAPON BLADEA slender leaf-shaped bone blade with tangless rounded butt,originally about 19 cm. by 2.8 by 1.3 cm., was found in Old Town III(fig. 13, a). This specimen could have been for a dagger, knife, orspear, like the bone weapon blades from Daxatkanada near Angoon(de Laguna, 1960, p. 115, pi. 9, r-t).LARGE DOUBLE-EDGED SLATE BLADESGround slate weapon blades were not numerous in the collectionsfrom the Yakutat area, although several types were represented.There are three fragments of large blades for flensing knife, dagger, orspear; when complete they may have resembled the large bone bladedescribed above. Two pieces of the same slate blade were found inOld Town II (fig. 14, h) ; the larger piece in the midden above the ruinsof the Storage House, the tip in Subsurface Pit 38 below the floor.The broken blade is now (8.7) cm. long and (3.1) cm. wide, and 0.4 cm.thick, but when complete was presumably much longer and somewhatwider. A smaller fragment of a large faceted slate blade (fig. 14, c) isfrom Old Town III. The third fragment is the butt end of what wasprobably a large blade and comes from an unknown level at Old Town.Although these specimens are broken, we can assume that at 126 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. lOli uFigure 13(For legend, see opposite page.) de Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA ] 27Yakutat some of the larger slate blades were leaf shaped, while otherswere tanged, especially since both shapes are represented among thesmaller slate and bone arrowheads described below.Double-edged slate blades, with or without tangs, and of varioussizes, are widely distributed types among tlie Pacific Eskimo, and areapparently older than forms with barbs (de Laguna, 1947, p. 174;1956, pp. 155, 270; Heizer, 1956, pp. 50 f.). Drucker (1943, pp. 42,120, 123 f., fig. 7, a, b) reports both tanged and untanged forms fromthe Tlingit. They are rare among the Tsimshian, and virtually absenton the central Northwest Coast, but become common again in ancientsites of the Coast Salish area, especially jVIarpole (Eburne), and WhalenFarm I and II. Large slate weapon blades with hexagonal cross sectionwere common at Locarno Beach on the Eraser Delta, as were otherdouble-edged slate blades (Borden, 1950, pp. 16, 20; 1951, pi. ii, 1-3;1962). King (1950, pp. 30, 34, fig. 11) finds the large leaf-shaped typesthe earliest at Cattle Point on San Juan Island, with smaller blades,stemmed forms and triangular shapes appearing later; also that thereis in general a parallel development of slate blades in the Gulf ofGeorgia?Eraser River area and in Pacific Eskimo territory. Bordenattributes this to diffusion of slate grinding from the ancient inhabi-tants of the Coast Salish area to the north.AWLLIKE SLATE POINTSFrom Old Town III, Old Town I, and from Old Town II or IIIthere are three fragments of slender slate blades, presumably for smalllances, that resemble the points of awls. Two narrow strips of sawedslate from Old Town I (fig. 14,/) may be unfinished points of the sametype. On the basis of these fragments we can deduce that the bladeswere probably over 8.5 cm, long, and were about 1.5 cm. mde and0.5 cm. thick, rounded in section at the point, but faceted furtherdown. The fragment of unknown age has a pronounced diamond-shaped cross section, and a butt (fig. 14, h) from Old Town I has aflattened hexagonal section, with a small tang set off by a pair ofnotches to facilitate hafting.Many slate points, presumably used for lances by the PacificEskimo and Northwest Coast Indians, are very long and slender.They range from heavier faceted points like Drucker's type II"bayonet points" (1943, p. 42, fig. 7, e, f) to "pencils," that areFigure 13.?Blades and points for large weapons, a. Bone blade for lance or dagger, fromMound B, upper levels, Old Town III (No. 292), drawn by Donald F. McGeein; b, irondagger with cord-wrapped handle, from Diyaguna'Et (No. Dy/3), drawn by Donald F.McGeein; c, modern Yakutat salmon harpoonhead, made from a file, sketched in a smoke-house on the Ankau lagoon by F. de Laguna; d, iron blade for lance, reportedly found onthe ocean beach near Nessudat, sketched at Yakutat by F. de Laguna. 128 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY t^ULL. 192 I A/ \ / I I I 12 3^5Scale-cm.Figure 14(For legend, see opposite page.) de Lngunn] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 129 "slender rods of ground slate, usually hexagonal or octagonal in form"(ibid., p. 57), or those that are oval or circular in section and havebeen described as slate "awls." No sharp distinction can be drawnbetween these forms which appear to be variants of one fundamentaltype.Even though the Yakutat specimens are either broken or unfinished,we can see their similarity to the numerous Chugach points. Thelatter range from 7 to 27 cm. in length, and appear to have been aspecialized type of weapon point, intended to snap off in the wound,and probably used in hunting sea mammals. The smallest may havebeen for arrows. They are more common in the earlier than in thelater prehistoric period (de Laguna, 1956, pp. 159 ff.). They are notnumerous on Kachemak Bay, although the forms are similar; theyappear only in Periods sub-Ill and III. Slate blades like pencils,mostly cylindrical in shape and ranging in length from 8 to 14.5 cm.,are common on Kodiak, especially in the lower levels (Heizer, 1956,pi. 47, a-c, h-j, also types IX and X, pp. 49 f.). The modern Kodiakblades for whaling lances are very like long slender bayonets, from13.3 to 41.2 cm. long. Presumably archeological whaling lanceshad similar points, and Heizer suggests that the smallest slate speci-mens were arrowheads."Slate pencils" have been recorded from the Haida, Tsimshian,Bella Coola, and Gulf of Georgia areas, including Marpole (Eburne)on the Eraser Delta (Drucker, 1943, p. 122), while the heavier "bayo-net" points appear in archeological collections from the Tlingit andCoast Salish areas, for example, among the nmnerous slate types atWhalen Farm II (Borden, 1950, p. 1 6) . Similar slender faceted points,but made of bone, are found at Cattle Point (King, 1950, fig. 13, 18,19). In most of these areas where such slate points are found,analogous forms also occm- in bone.BARBED SLATE BLADEThe butt end of a slate point with tang and small barbs (fig. 14, i)was found in the bottom of the midden at Diyaguna'Et. The barbsFigure 14.?Ground slate blades for weapons or knives. Drawn by Donald F. McGeeln.a. Small blade for arrow or knife, associated with basketry fragments, from just abovefloor of Storage House, Old Town II (No. 144); b, fragment of large double-edged blade forlance or knife, from Subsurface Pit 38 and Mound B, lower levels, Old Town II (No,369/430); c, fragment of large double-edged blade for lance or knife, from Mound B, upperlevels. Old Town III (No. 544); d, blade for arrow, from Mound B, level unknown. OldTown II or III (No. 7); e, blade for arrow, from Mound B, upper levels. Old Town III(No. 149);/, unfinished blade, sawed slate, from Mound D, upper levels. Old Town I(No. 881); g, blade for arrow, from fill of House Pit 7, Old Town I (No. 770/776);h, butt end of blade for lance (?), from Mound D, Old Town I (No. 916); i, butt end ofbarbed slate weapon blade, from Diyaguna'Et (49-25-107). 130 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192are so small as to be ineffectual; the cross section is lenticular. Thespecimen is now (6.2) cm. long, but was probably twice that whencomplete, and is 2 cm. wide and 1.6 cm. thick. It may have beenthe blade for a small lance (for sea mammals?) or for an arrow, sincebilaterally barbed arrowheads were mentioned by some of om-informants.Barbed slate blades appear in Kachemak Bay II and in the earlyprehistoric period on Prince William Sound, but become popularonly in later prehistoric times in these areas. They are numerous inboth upper and lower levels at Uyak Bay, Kodiak, but are absent fromthe Aleutians where slate blades of any kind are rare (de Laguna, 1947,p. 175; 1956, p. 153 ff., 270; Heizer, 1956, pp. 49 f., especially type V).Although a few barbed slate blades are known from the Coast Salisharea, they seem to be otherwise absent from the Northwest Coast.The center of their development was evidently among the PacificEskimo. CHIPPED STONE WEAPON BLADESTwo chipped triangular or leaf-shaped blades of slaty green chert(fig. 11, a, b), from Old Town III and Old Town II, measure 5.4 by2.2 cm., and 6.9 by 2.8 cm. They were double-edged blades forweapons or knives. A triangular blade of slaked schist (fig. 11, g),10.2 by 5.9 cm., is from Old Town III.The last is rather similar to chipped triangular slate blades fromPrince William Sound (de Laguna, 1956, pis. 28, 10, 29, 10, p. 131),although the latter are smaller, and were probably for arrows or darts.Blades of chipped metamorphic slate were common in Kachemak Bay,especially in Period II. They ranged in size from 4 by 1.2 cm. to 11.5by 6.5 cm., and were leaf shaped, narrowing to a straight base orrudimentary tang. One specim.en (de Laguna, 1934, p. 69, pi. 30, 8)is quite similar to the Yakutat blades. Although longer and moreslender leaf-shaped chipped blades for lances, spears, and knives arecommon, especially from the lower levels at Uyak Bay, Kodiak, thereare fom* triangular specimens of basalt and slate that are almostidentical with the Yakutat blades (Heizer, 1956, pi. 36, d-g, pp. 47 f.).It is impossible to compare the Yakutat specimens with chippedblades from the Northwest Coast, especially from the southern partwhere such artifacts are numerous, because the materials used aredifferent. Adequate comparisons cannot be based upon outlines ofthe shapes alone, but must involve sizes, thicknesses, methods offlaking and degrees of skill exhibited (M. W. Smith, 1950, pp. 17 ff.).We can only mention, therefore, that Drucker (1943, pp. 41 f., 122)records occasional archeological chipped stone points from Tlingit,Haida, Tsimshian, and Bella Coola territories (but not otherwise on de Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 131the central Northwest Coast), and from the Coast Sahsh area. Thereare apparently leaf-shaped and triangular forms, and bjisalt and slatewere the materials most commonly used. On the southern NorthwestCoast, chipped blades and points are of great antiquity (M. W. Smith,1950, pp. 17 &., 35; King, 1950, pp. 13 ff.; Borden, 1962).HARPOONSBARBED HARPOON HEADS WITH TANGDetachable barbed heads with tang from the Yakutat area havebeen divided into two groups on the basis of size. The larger, over 10cm. in length, were identified by informants as heads for harpoonsused in taking seal, porpoise, sea lion, and salmon ; smaller heads, under6.5 cm., were arrowheads for sea otter. Although our informants hadvague traditions about a two-piece socketed toggle harpoon head (forfish?) and were familiar with its Tlingit name (cf. de Laguna, 1960,pp. Ill, 112, pi. 8, b, c), they had never seen any and we found noarcheological examples.Heads with tang traditionally had three (or four) barbs on oneedge, but none of our archeological examples had more than two,although some specimens had probably been reshaped after a break.A few heads for seal or salmon harpoons are still being made of ironfiles (fig. 13, e) or commercial copper. They are from 15 to 25 cm.long, with two to four barbs, and may or may not have a line hole.The tang is set directly in the end of a 10- to 12-foot shaft, preferablyof cedar, because this floats better than spruce. The fore-end of theshaft is wrapped with cord or wire to prevent the socket from splitting.The line from the barbed head is usually hitched around the fore-endof the shaft and brought down near the butt, where it is again hitched.The salmon harpoon is thrust, and the line is made fast to the shaftwhich has a plain butt. The harpoon used for sea mammals is thrown,usually from the canoe, with the left hand holding the middle of theshaft and the forefinger of the right hand resting in a groove acrossthe expanded and flattened butt. The end of the harpoon line wasformerly tied to a sealskin float, or might be held in the hand, but ineither case was so attached to the shaft that the latter would floataway when the game was struck. Now seals are shot with rifles, andthe harpoon, if used at all, is employed like a gafT hook to retrieve thecarcass. None of our informants had heard of a tin-owing board.Although Niblack (1890, pi. xxvii, fig. 127, a, b) illustrates a throwingboard from Sitka, he reports that "The Tlingit are not known to haveused the throwing-stick . . . ." When hunting sea mammals in theopen water, the Yakutat people used the small canoe \vith forked prow(Birket-Smith and de Laguna, 1938, pi. 11, 8; Grinnell, 1901, pp. 132 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BuLi,. 192 Figure IS(For legend, see opposite page.) de Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 133161 f.) ; for sealing among the ice floes in Disenchantment and Icy-Bays they used a special type of small canoe with a heavy, spoon-shaped prow armed with a projecting post to push away the ice.Six complete or nearly complete barbed harpoon heads were found,as weU as six fragments. These bone specimens are about 11 or 12 cm.long, although some now broken probably measured as much as 15 or16 cm. If a barb were broken off, or if the point or tang were damaged,it seems to have been the practice to smooth over the break, so thatthe head could be used again (pi. 13, m). The proveniences of these12 specimens, including the fragments, are: 3 heads and 4 fragmentsfrom Old Town III (fig. 15, e, pi. 13, m), 2 heads and 2 fragments fromOld To\vn II (pi. 13, i-l), and 1 head (fig. 15, d, d') from Old TownI. The last and oldest specimen is interesting in that the single re-maining barb is hollowed out on the undersurface. This peculiarfeature is represented on three heads from the younger prehistoricperiod on Prince William Sound and is encountered occasionally onKodiak and Aleut specimens, but seems to be relatively late in south-western Alaska (de Laguna, 1956, pi. 33, 9, 16, p. 165). It is alsofound on two specimens illustrated by Drucker (1943, fig. Z,h,k) fromthe Northwest Coast, but without specific provenience.Barbed tanged harpoon heads are very ancient in Aleut and PacificEskimo culture, in contrast to other Eskimo groups among whom thetoggle head with socket was always more important. Tanged headsare present in Kachemak Bay I, and become more common inPeriod III than socketed harpoon heads; they outnumber the latterin both lower and upper levels at Uyak Bay on Kodiak, and were usedalmost exclusively in all known periods of Chugach culture (deLaguna, 1947, p. 199; 1956, pp. 164 ff.; Birket-Smith, 1953, pp. 180ff.;Heizer, 1956, pp. 57 ff.).AU of the detachable barbed heads from the Yakutat area, ancientand modern, are of the same fundamental type, with one to fom*barbs along one edge, a rounded wedge-shaped tang, and (except forsome harpoon arrowheads, see below) have the line hole placed asym-metrically on the tang so that it is nearer the barbed edge. This isthe type used by the Copper River Eyak (Birket-Smith and de Laguna,1938, pi. 13, 1, 2, 6-7), and is the dominant style on Kachemak Bayand Prince William Sound. While it also occurs in the followingFigure IS.?Barbed heads and wooden pin. Drawn by Donald F. McGeein. a, Fragmentof barbed wooden arrow, from just above floor of House 9, Old Town III (No. 973);b, bone arrowhead for sea otter harpoon, from fill of House 8, Old Town H (No. 740);c, wooden pin, from Mound A, lower levels, Old Town HI (No. 387); d, barbed bone har-poon head, from Mound D, upper levels. Old Town I (No. 901); d', detail of d, slightly-enlarged, to show hollowed barb; e, barbed bone harpoon head, from Mound A, upperlevels, Old Town HI (No. 414).693-818?64 10 134 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192adjacent regions, the most popular forms on Kodiak, the Aleutians,and Bristol Bay are bilaterally barbed with a shouldered, unpiercedtang (de Laguna, 1956, p. 269).Heads of the Yakutat style are like Drucker's types IV and V andplain type II (Drucker, 1943, fig. 3, g, n, m, pp. 36 ff.). The shorterheads (types II and IV) are especially characteristic of the Thngit,although they are also found among the Haida and Tsimshian. Thelonger, "simple unspecialized form" (type V) is recorded from theTlingit, Tsimshian, and sites in the Coast Salish area. The historicTlingit of Daxatkanada near Angoon evidently relied heavily uponthe tanged harpoon head, most of which were probably rather short(de Laguna, 1960, p. 112, pi. 8, /i-n, probably d-g). On the southernNorthwest Coast, however, most detachable barbed heads have apair of projections above the tang that serve as guards to hold theline (Drucker's type I). Such heads are characteristic of PointGray and Marpole (Eburne), and Borden (1950, pp. 14, 18; 1951,p. 45; 1962) believes that they are among the elements derived fromthe interior and has hazarded that the coastal sites where they occurare probably more recent than those with only one-piece and two-piece socketed heads. (Recent radiocarbon dates may have modifiedthis last interpretation; cf. Borden, 1962.) Certainly a specimenfrom Locarno Beach I (Borden, 1951, pi. i, 5) appears from the photo-graph to be a detachable barbed head without line hole or guards.The line could have been tied to it, as we believe was the case withsome Yakutat harpoon arrowheads (see below), and with a few har-poon heads from Kodiak (Heizer, 1956, pi. 56, c, e, i). Osborne,Caldwell, and Crabtree (1956, pp. 118 f.) have questioned the inlandderivation of the tanged harpoon head, in view of its wide and ancientoccurrence in both inland and coastal sites, pointing out that theorigin of the line guard (which, incidentally, is ancient in Laughlin'ssite at Nikolski on the Aleutians) should be considered apart fromthe origin of the general type of barbed, tanged harpoon head as awhole. Although the sequence of barbed and socketed harpoonheads on the southern Northwest Coast is still puzzling, the detachablebarbed head in this area need not be attributed specifically to theinterior, in view of its great antiquity in southwestern Alaska, andit is probably very old also on the northern Northwest Coast. Itcan be described as "Eskimoid" with as great justice as can thesocketed toggle harpoon heads. In fact, the lateral line guardscharacteristic of southern British Columbia barbed heads are rathersimilar to the shoulders on the most common type of head on Kodiak,the Aleutians, and Bristol Bay. These devices for holding the linemay be related or parallel developments and it may be premature topostulate which areas yield the most ancient examples. de Lagima] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 135IIAIIPOON AUKOWHEADSNine bone heads for sea otter harpoon arrows were found. Theseare lilce the detachable barbed heads for seal and fish harpoons exceptthat they are smaller, and some seem to lack the line hole, perhapsbecause the line was tied around the head below the lowest barb andabove the bulge of the tang. We cannot be sure, however, thatthese unpierced specunens were finished. The archeological speci-mens were identified by our informants, who reported that such headswere also made of copper, although they disagreed as to whetherthere were any of u'on. The harpoon arrow was described as a shaftabout 4 feet long, preferably of cedar, with three split eagle tailfeathers at the butt. At the fore-end was a socket piece of whaleboneinto which the tang of the barbed head was inserted. This part wasdescribed as "a little bone ring, split in two," that is, made in twoparts, and about as long as the thumb (5 cm.?). It had a hole at oneend for the shaft and a socket at the other for the barbed head.Another informant described the socket piece as like the cap of afountam pen, presumably made in one piece. Probably several differ-ent styles were used (see below). The function of the piece was toadd weight to the fore-end so the arrow would shoot straight, andalso so that it would float vertically in the water with the feath-ered butt projecting above the surface after the quarry had beenstruck and the barbed head detached. The harpoon line was oftwisted or braided porpoise sinew. It was divided, with both endsof the martingale attached to the shaft, one near the fore-end, theother near the butt.Hunting of sea otters was carried out by the surround method,using fleets of small forked-prow canoes. The chief directed thehunt and established rules intended to give each man an equal chanceof obtaining the valuable skins.The complete archeological heads for harpoon arrows (pi. 13, a-c,g, h) range in length from about 5 to 6.3 cm., in width from 0.8 to1 cm., and in thickness from 0.2 to 0.4 cm. One broken specimen(pi. 13, e) when complete may liave been only 3 or 4 cm. long and0.6 cm. wide. It evidently had only two barbs. This specimen isfrom Old Town II and is one of the fom* heads that have, or wereintended to have, drilled line holes. The largest of these (pi. 13, a),from Old Town III, has three barbs, and the others are two headsfrom Old Towm II, with two barbs (pi. 13, 6), and with fom- barbs(pi. 13, c). On the last, the line hole is only partially diilled.Three other heads lack the line hole, but may be imfinished. Onewith two barbs (pi. 13, h) is from Old Town III; a second from thesame level (pi. 13, g) is made of bu'd bone and has four poorly defined 136 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192barbs. The last (fig. 15, b) is from Old Town II and has two barbs.Two fragmentary heads from Old Town II (pi. 13, d) and III(pi. 13, /) are probably also for harpoon arrows. There is also atang from Old Town II, presumably broken from a similar head. Itdiffers only in being set off by a shght shoulder.Harpoon arrows, especially for sea otter, are characteristic of theAleut, Pacific Eskimo, Bering Strait Eskimo, Tanaina, and Eyak.The Ingalik Tena used the same type for land otter, beaver, and largefish (Osgood, 1940, pp. 203 ff.). Although all his Northwest Coastinformants denied to Drucker (1950, p. 234) that the harpoon arrowwas aboriginal, presumably modern examples have been reportedfrom the Tlingit, Tsimshian, and Kwakiutl (Birket-Smith and deLaguna, 1938, p. 432). Small barbed heads, which I interpreted asharpoon arrowheads, were found in KachemakBay I, although Birket-Smith (1953, p. 218) warns us that "size alone is not decisive, forfrom Kodiak we have sea-otter harpoons with heads which are inno way bigger than those intended for harpoon arrows," and he sug-gests that the latter may be a relatively late invention. I believethat it originated in prehistoric times in the Aleut-Pacific Eskimoarea and did not spread to the Northwest Coast southeast of Yakutatuntil the great days of the fur trade. Here it is closely associatedwith the surround method of hunting sea otter, a technique knownin modern times from the Tlingit, Haida, Clayoquot Nootka, andKwakiutl. Drucker (1950, Trait 184, p. 243) suggests that "it mayhave been an historic innovation over a wider part of the coast thanthe entries here show." It was probably introduced among theNorthwest Coast tribes by the Russians and their Aleut and PacificEskimo hunters. On the other hand, I would expect it to have beenlong practiced at Yakutat.Drucker's identification of detachable barbed heads (type IV),"usually under 5 inches long," from the Tlingit and Haida as har-poon arrowheads (Drucker, 1943, p. 37), is, therefore, suspect, es-pecially since most of them must have been considerably longer thanAleut and Pacific Eskimo specimens. No small barbed heads sug-gestive of harpoon arrows were found at Tlingit sites in the Angoonarea, even at the early historic site at Daxatkanada where sea otterbones were more numerous than those of any other animal. OurAngoon informants, in describing the surround, said that sea otterswere shot with ordinary unbarbed arrows, of the same type em-ployed for land animals. Although the heads were detachable, thearrows were not harpoons (de Laguna, 1960, p. 112). Drucker's(1950, Traits 181, 182) informants among the Tlingit, Haida, andNootka also reported that sea otters were shot with an ordinary de Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 137arrow, although they were more commonly taken with the sealingharpoon.The evidence would thus indicate that the sea otter harpoon arrowwas not kno^^Tl on the Northwest Coast in prehistoric times, butthat it was probably much older in southwestern Alaska and theYakutat area. SOCKET PIECESA bone socket piece was used with the harpoon arrow. It willbe remembered that informants described this as "a little bone ring,spht in two," or as similar to the cap of a fountain pen. A cylindricalpiece of whalebone from Old Town II was tentatively identified byone informant as a socket piece of this second type. It is broken atboth ends, but one is narrowed as if to provide a place for a lashing.The fragment is now (5.1) cm. long, and 1.9 by 1.2 cm. in diameter.Sketches of socket pieces made by different informants indicated thatthe diameter was greater than that of the arrow shaft, but the lengthswere very different, so we may infer that several different styles wereused. These probably included types made in two parts as well asin one piece.The finest piece of carving in the collection (see fig. 20, d) is a boneobject shaped like an animal's head, found in Old Town II. It is7.7 cm. long, 2.2 by 1.8 cm. in diameter. The bill or mouth is openand a hole has been drilled down the gullet and out the back of thehead. The rear end is bifurcated to form two flattened tangs, oneof which is broken. The other is incised with three compass-drawndots-and-circles, and the pupil of the eye is represented by the samedesign. The head was evidently hafted onto the wedge-shapedend of a shaft.Although the natives did not recognize the function of this piece,but assumed it to have been part of a shaman's outfit, it may havebeen the socket piece for a harpoon. The open mouth would haveformed the oval socket to accommodate the wedged tang of a barbedhead. We should note, however, that the socket piece is not used onmodern harpoons with barbed tanged heads, although it may havebeen in the past. However, this specimen is not unlike in size thespecimen tentatively identified as part of a harpoon arrow. It mayindicate, therefore, that the socket piece, made in one piece withbifurcated tang, was known at Yakutat.This type of socket piece was represented by fragments fromKachemak Bay III (de Laguna, 1934, pi. 41, 13), was more common inthe upper than the lower levels at Uyak Bay on Kodiak (Heizer,1956, p. 55, type lb), and was the dominant type throughout theprehistoric periods on Prince William Sound. However, only on 138 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Boll. 192Chugach specimens do we find the slit socket, corresponding to theopen mouth on the Yakutat carving (de Laguna, 1956, pp. 174 ff.).The short socket piece made in two parts, also mentioned by ourYakutat informants, was apparently the earliest or one of the earliestforms in southwestern Alaska, while the one-piece form diffused some-what later from the north (de Laguna, 1934, pp. 130, 195; Birket-Smith, 1953, pp. 180 ff.). The most modern socket piece for sea otterharpoon arrows used by the Aleut and Pacific Eskimo is a very long,heavy, one-piece device, again quite different in style from either theprehistoric Chugach or Yakutat specimens. (However, see Heizer,1956, pp. 55 f., for a somewhat different interpretation.) Amongboth prehistoric and modern northern Alaskan Eskimo we occasionallyfind socket pieces for harpoons that are carved to represent an animal'shead with open mouth. The Yakutat specimen in this respect hasa very Eskimo appearance.BOWS AND ARROWSThe bow was used in hunting land animals, birds, and sea otter.It was described as made of hard, springy, hemlock wood, about3 or 4 inches in diameter, and perhaps 4 to 4K feet long. It lackedboth the sinew backing of the Eskimo and the projecting wooden deviceto catch the bowstring found on Athabaskan bows. In the middle,the bow was narrowed for a grip, where the first and second fingersof the left hand steadied and aimed the arrow. Such bows areillustrated by Niblack (1890, pi. xxvi, figs. 109, 110 Yakutat; 112Sitka). The bowstring was reported to be of braided porpoise sinew.According to our informants, aU arrows had a feathered shaftlike that already described for the harpoon arrow (p. 135). Arrowheadsof all types were said to have been detachable from the shaft, althoughonly the head for the sea otter arrow had a line for retrieving thequarry. When a land animal was shot, the hunter simply pickedup the arrowshaft and fitted it with a new head from a supply whichhe carried in a bag slung under his left arm. Tlingit informants atAngoon (de Lagima, 1960, p. 114) also said that their unbarbed arrow-heads were detachable, and we suspect that this feature was morecommon on the Northwest Coast than has been specifically reported.It would lessen the danger of breaking the shaft, or of jerking thehead from the wound and so cause external bleeding, likely to frightenthe animal into flight. Drucker (1943, p. 41, cf. type BII points)mentions that Northwest Coast informants "tell of arrow pointswhich detached from the shaft, and 'worked around' in the quarry'sbody," although he suspects that this description applies to a specialtype of weapon point not found at Angoon or Yakutat.Although our informants mentioned wooden arrows with enlarged de Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 139blunt ends (cf. Niblack, 1890, pi. xxvii, fig. 126), used for practicingor for stunning birds, we found no examples of these in wood or inbone. A variety of bone forms were made by the Tlingit (Niblack,1890, fig. 126, a-c). WOODEN FRAGMENTSFrom House 9 in Old Town III there are fragments of wooden rods,1 and 0.8 cm. in diameter, (15) and (6.3) cm. long, which may bepieces of arrowshafts.In the same house was a broken wooden object (fig. 16, b), now (21)cm, long, 2 cm. wide, and 1.2 cm. thick. Lateral notches near theunbroken end suggest that it ma}^ have been a poorly made toy bow.The constriction at the broken end would, in this case, represent thegrip in the center of the bow, and the complete specimen would havebeen about 50 cm. long. ARROWHEADSAbout fifty-odd specimens were probably arrowheads. Of these,5 were of copper, 1 of iron, 10 or 11 of slate, 23 of barbed bone, 3 ofbarbed wood, and about 12 of unbarbed bone. Identification ofsome is uncertain, since they may have been points for light lancesor have served other purposes. In addition, there are other amorphousbone points which may have been arrowheads. The three slenderslate points and the barbed slate point (pp. 127, 129 f.), classed as headsfor lances, may have been for arrows. One of our informantsdescribed chipped stone arrowheads with serrated or finely barbededges; we found nothing of this kind.SLATE ARROWHEADSThree broken slate blades (fig. 14, e, g), with tangs but withoutbarbs, were probably arrowheads, to judge by their size. The mostcomplete specimen, represented by fragments from Old Town I(fig. 14, g), is 1.5 cm. wide and 0.2 cm. thick, and was originally about6.5 cm. long. It has a faceted point and sloping shoulders. FromOld Town III is a fragment of a presumably similar blade, anda poorly made specimen (fig. 14, e) with a tang, now broken off.Three bone arrowheads of the same shape (pi. 15, u~w) are from OldTo\\Ti I and II (see p. 146).More numerous were small, rather slender leaf-shaped slate points,without tangs or barbs, which could have served as blades for arrowsor harpoons (fig. 14, d). There are 7 (or 8) of these, ranging inlength from 2.8 to 5.6 cm., in width from 1.1 to 1.5 cm., and inthickness from 0.2 to 0.3 cm. Some are hardly more than slatesplinters which have been ground on the edges to produce a sharp 140 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192 Figure 16.?Wooden objects. Drawn by Donald F. McGeein. a, Fragment of barbedspear, from just above floor of Storage House, Old Town II (No. 127); b, fragment of toy-bow (.?), from floor of House 9, Old Town III (No. 657); c, decorated slab, from Mound B,upper levels. Old Town III (No. 600); d, rod scarfed at both ends (for spreading fish ?),from floor of Storage House, Old Town II (No. 417).point. Two specimens, including the smallest, were identified byinformants as detachable arrowheads for bears or mountain goats.One blade, associated with basketry fragments in the Storage House,may have been for an arrow or for a knife (fig. 14, a). Theproveniences of these slate points are: 1 from Old Town III, 2 fromOld Town II, 4 from Old Town I, and 1 from unknown level.These rather crude specimens remind us of the small leaf-shaped de Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 141or triangular slate blades from Kachemak Bay III and late prehistoricChugach sites with sharp points but dull edges (de Laguna, 1934,pi. 32, 12; 1956, pis. 28, 9, 29, 8, p. 155). Three somewhat similarblades were found at Cattle Point (King, 1950, fig. 11,9, 10), but it isuncertain whether these constitute a definite type.COPPER ARROWHEADSFive copper arrowheads were found at Old Town and a similarspecimen of iron came from Shallow Water Town on Little LostRiver. These all have leaf-shaped blades that are thickest in mid-section, sloping shoulders, and narrow pointed tangs. The latter aresquare or rectangular in cross section and differ greatly in length.One specimen with very long stem is from Old Toa\'ti II (pi. 14, a).The total length is 15.6 cm. although the blade itself is only 5 cm.long. Along the medial ridge on each surface a line of triangulardots has been stamped, perhaps as an owner's mark. Anotherlong-stemmed head (pi. 14, c) is from Old Town III, and measures9.8 by 1.9 cm.Three specimens with short tangs (pi. 14, h, d, e) range in lengthfrom 6.4 to 7.2 cm., in \vidth from 1.5 to 1.7 cm., and in thicknessfrom 0.2 to 0.3 cm. Two are from Old Town III, the third from OldToAvn II. The stem of the last has been wound with two-ply S-tmstsinew (?) thread, probably to make it fit more snugly into the socketof the arrowshaft.A fragment of copper from Old Town III may have been intendedfor a small arrowhead.There are also five copper pins, rectangular in cross section, whichresemble stems for arrowheads, although identification is impossible.Three (pi. 14, g, i) are from Old Town III, and one from Old Town I(pi. 14,/). The longest of all (pi. 14, j), measuring 9.1 cm., is fromOld Town II, and while similar to the long stem on the arrowheadfrom the same part of the site (pi. 14, a), it may have been an awl,since it was found with some (mountain goat?) wool.The copper arrowheads from Old To-wti are not unlike late prehistoricChugach specimens, heads from Dixthada near Tanacross on theupper Tanana, and from presumably Tutchone sites in southwesternYukon Territory, although each area has its own local style (deLaguna, 1956, pi. 36, 19, pi. 37, 10; Rainey, 1939, fig. 3, 10, 12, IJ^;MacNeish, 1960, pi. vi, li., 5). Copper arrowheads are reported onthe Northwest Coast only from the Chilkat Tlingit (Drucker, 1950,Trait 506), a group that maintained close trade contacts \vith theinterior Athabaskans from whom most of the native copper on thecoast was obtained. 142 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192BARBED BONE ARROWHEADSThere are 12 unilaterally barbed bone points for arrows (2 of whichmight be for multipronged arrows), 6 fragments of presumably simi-lar heads, and 5 very small barbed points which might have been forfishhooks. Since slender unilaterally barbed bone or antler pointsare common and ancient among the northern and southwesternAlaskan Eskimo and the Aleut, and are also found on the northernand southern Northwest Coast, appearing at such ancient sites asCattle Point, Marpole (Eburne), Beach Grove, and Locarno Beach(de Laguna, 1947, pp. 203 ff.; Drucker, 1943, type AI, pp. 41, 120;King, 1950, fig. 13, 32-35; Borden, personal communication), theirpresence at Yakutat could have been predicted. Our informantsalso mentioned a type of arrowhead with one (or two?) pau's of barbs,probably like the long-tanged bone and iron specimens from theEyak (Birket-Smith and de Laguna, 1938, pp. 103 ff., pl.l2, ^-8),but we found no examples.There are three complete slender barbed points mth more or lessdetached conical tangs, and a pair of incised lines or grooves out-lining the row of four or five barbs, and a flat bladelike tip. Theseare 21.2, 22, and 25 cm. long, and about 1.5 cm. wide and 0.7 cm.thick. The longest and most interesting specimen (fig. 17, o) has ascalloped edge below the row of five barbs, and the bordering linesare spurred. This specimen comes from Old Town II. The othertwo are from Old Town III; one with four barbs, the other (fig. 17, m)with five barbs and a medial line on each side, in addition to thebordering lines along the barbs. Informants who saw this last speci-men doubted that their ancestors had used such arrowheads, and oneman hazarded that it might have been Chugach.Fragments of what were probably similar heads are the basal partwith conical tang from Old ToAvn II (fig. 17, e), a midportion withbordering lines and two barbs from Old Town III, and a long fore-end like a blade from Old Town III (fig. 17,/).There is also a slender point (fig. 17, n), 14 cm. long and 1 cm.wide, with long conical tang, and a small shoulder or notch below thetwo barbs. It lacks bordering lines, however, and comes from OldTown II.These seven specimens resemble in a number of ways some of theslender barbed points from Kachemak Bay, Kodiak, and PrinceWilliam Sound. It is interesting that one man should ascribe themto the Chugach, for they have a definitely Eskimoid appearance,even though their particular combination of features is not duplicatedon southwestern Alaskan specimens. Thus, the flat tip like a bladeis characteristic of the Chugach barbed arrowheads, although theseare much smaller, and it is also found on protohistoric and modern de Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 143heads of the Tena and some northern Alaskan Eskimo (de Laguna,1947, pp. 205 f.; 1956, p. 179). The detached conical tang is oldamong the Eskimo although it was never as popular as the plainconical tang. Both forms occur on Prince William Sound and Kodiak,but not on Kachcmak Bay (de Laguna, 1947, p. 205; 1956, pi. 36;Heizer, 1956, figs. 43 and 44). Lines bordering the row of barbs aretypical of points from Kachemak Bay of all periods, and of Kodiak,and also are found in Prince William Sound, and in the Angoon area(de Laguna, 1947, p. 207; 1956, pi. 36, 23, 24, pi. 37, 1; 1960, pi. 8, a;Heizer, 1956, pi. 61). MacNeish (1960, p. 41, pi. vi, 8) illustrates aslender antler point with six barbs on one side, prismatic section,bordering and medial lines, and plain conical tang. "Points similarto these are found throughout Athabascan territory in late prehistoricand earlj^ historic time periods." But it is not certain whether thisobservation applies to all the stj^listic features.Six slender barbed arrowheads (fig. 17, c, d, g-i, k) have flattenedand rounded or roughly squared off bases, not detached tangs. Theylack bordering lines, and were apparently from 12 to 22 cm. longwhen complete, with up to four or five barbs. They appear to rep-resent a careless (?) divergence from the pattern characteristic ofsouthwestern Alaskan points, although a similar specimen was foundon Prince WilUam Sound (de Laguna, 1956, pi. 37, 3). Of these,one is a broken specimen from Old Town III, four heads and threefragments of presumably similar specimens are from Old Town II,and one complete head is from Old Town I.Two damaged specimens (fig. 17, b, I) were found together in Sub-surface Pit 38 below the Storage House in Old Town II, and aresimilar to the points just described except that they are rather curved.This suggests that they may have been points for multipronged arrowsor spears (leisters). The longer of the two was probably 17 cm.long when complete, with four small barbs on the inner edge of thecurved shaft. The base is also cut on a curve. The other, probably14.5 cm. long when complete, has three barbs on the slightly convexedge, and is more nearly straight than the first.Identification of these is very uncertain, since the Copper RiverEyak and Chugach denied the use of multipronged darts or arrows(Birket-Smith and de Laguna, 1938, pp. 112 ff.; Birket-Smith, 1953,p. 38). However, one barbed point for such a weapon was found onPrince William Sound and another on Cook Inlet, and this type ofweapon was well represented archeologically on Kodiak, the Aleutians,and m northern Alaska (de Laguna, 1934, pi. 42, 23, p. 193; 1956,pi. 36, 25; Heizer, 1956, pi. 60). The multipointed arrow has alsobeen reported from the central and southern Northwest Coast(Barnett, 1939, Trait 973; de Laguna, 1947, p. 206). On the northern 144 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BuLi,. 192 Figure 17(For legend, see opposite page.) de Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 145section, Drucker (1950, Trait 508) records it only from the Haidaand the southern coastal Tsimshian, not from the Tlingit; multi-pointed bird spears were denied by all of Drucker's (1950, p. 234)informants on the Northwest Coast. It would thus appear that evenif the multipronged arrow were used at Yakutat, it was a rare typeamong the mainland tribes of southwestern Alaska and the northernNorthwest Coast. However, there were four examples of barbedleister side prongs in the Maritime and Late Phases at Cattle Point,and King (1950, p. 46, fig. 13, S3) also notes similar specimens fromarcheological sites at Marpole (Eburne), Port Hammond, and NorthSaanich, as well as ethnological records of barbed multipointed spearsfrom the Twana and Makah.On the whole, the barbed arrowheads from Yakutat seem mostsimilar to Chugach specimens. There were too few Tlingit examplesfrom Angoon to permit detailed comparisons, although the onecomplete specimen was very similar to some Yakutat heads. Noneof the particular types described by Drucker (1943, pp. 39 ff., fig. 5)from the Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, southern Kwakiutl, and CoastSalish is sufficiently like any Yakutat specimen to suggest closeresemblances, although there are some similarities in particularfeatures. Drucker's observation that collections, especially from thenorthern Tlingit, contained heavy points ''of obvious Eskimo orAleut type," is equally applicable to the Yakutat material. Fixedbarbed bone or antler points are, of course, well developed in theGulf of Georgia and Fraser Delta areas, but seem to offer no closeparallels in style to these northern forms.It should be noted that we found no slender barbed bone arrow-heads that were slotted or grooved to hold stone or metal blades,hke those from Kachemak Bay, Kodiak, or the Tlingit (de Laguna, 1934,Figure 17.?Barbed points and arrowheads. Drawn by Donald F. McGeein. a, Bonearrowhead (?), from Mound B, lower levels, Old Town II (No. 291); b, barbed bone pointfor arrow (or leister), found with / in Subsurface Pit 38 below Storage House, Old TownII (No. 427); c, d, fragments of barbed bone points, from box in center of House 8, OldTown II (Nos. 913, 912); e, fragment of barbed bone arrowhead, with splitting adz (No.40) and cut bone (No. 48), from bottom of Subsurface Pit 14, Mound B, lower levels,Old Town II (No. 47);/, point of barbed (?) bone arrowhead, from Mound A, upper levels,Old Town III (No. 362); g, barbed bone arrowhead, from Mound D, upper levels, OldTown I (No. 900); h, fragment of barbed bone arrowhead (?), from Mound A, upper levels,Old Town III (No. 330); t, barbed bone arrowhead, from Mound B, lower levels, OldTown II (No. 576); ;, barbed wooden arrow point, from fill of House 9, Old Town III(No. 860); k, fragment of barbed bone arrowhead, from fill of Storage House, Old TownII (No. 234); /, barbed bone point for arrow (or leister), found with h in Subsurface Pit 38below Storage House, Old Town II (No. 424); m, barbed bone arrowhead, from Mound B,upper levels, Old Town III (No. 100/290); n, o, barbed bone arrowheads, from Mound B,lower levels, Old Town II (Nos. 153, 655). 146 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Boll. 192pi. 42, 12, 13; 1947, p. 208; Heizer, 1956, fig. 43, g, fig. 44, a-d, j;Niblack, 1890, pi. xxvii, figs. 112, 120). This type is also absentfrom the Chugach collections.BARBED BIRD-BONE POINTSSix barbed points of bird bone from Old Town II are so much smallerthan the points identified as arrowheads that they may have beenbarbs for compound fishhooks. One (pi. 13, d), 3.4 cm. long, withtwo barbs and a defective base, has already been mentioned as apossible head for a sea otter harpoon arrow. Four others (pi. 15,a-c, k), 4.2 to 9.4 cm. long, have a single barb, and the last (pi. 15,e), now broken, has a notch like a barb. Similar specimens, equallydifficult to identify, come from early prehistoric Chugach sites andfrom the historic Tlingit fort of Daxatkanada near Angoon (de Laguna,1956, pi. 36, 6, 12, pi. 37, 5, 8; 1960, p. 117, pi. 9, h).BARBED WOODEN POINTSThere are three fragmentary barbed points of wood. Two arevery similar to the barbed bone points and may have been fore-endsof arrows or of spears. One fragment from Old Town III (fig. 17, j)is (8.6) cm. long, with three barbs and indications of a fourth. Thesecond (fig. 16, a), from Old Town II, now (23.2) cm. long, has threebarbs, and was more probably part of a spear. A fragment of a smallbarbed wooden shaft, (5) cm. long, and 0.9 by 0.7 cm. in diameter,also comes from Old Town III (fig. 15, a). It is unusual in having3 rows of cuts that produce close-lying barbs, of which 11 are visible.This specimen could have been part of an arrow, the undercuttingof the barbs perhaps designed to make the point snap off in the wound.In style of barbing it resembles a (Haida?) detachable bone harpoonhead with bed for a blade (?) (Drucker, 1943, fig. 3, Z). I know ofno other comparable specimen.Although hardwood points for small game are recorded for severaltribes on the Northwest Coast: Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, BellaCoola, and Nootka (Drucker, 1950, Trait 507), and were mentionedby our Angoon informants (de Laguna, 1960, p. 114), such pointsseem to have been unbarbed. The Yakutat examples should beconsidered as copies of bone points.UNBARBED BONE ARROWHEADSThree bone arrowheads (pi. 15, u-w) with tang and sloping shouldersare duplicates in bone of the small tanged slate arrowheads (cf. fig.14, a, g). One of bird bone, 5.4 cm. long and 1.3 cm. wide, is fromOld Town I; a second is from Old Town II, and the largest, 7.4 by1.3, is of split animal rib and probably also comes from Old Town II. (le Liiguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 147Of less definite shape and thus resembling some of the small slateblades (cf. fig. 14, d, e), are three specimens of split rib (pi. 15, l~n),5.5 to over (6.7) cm. long, with rather dull edges and sharp points.These are also probably arrowheads. One is from Old Town III,and an additional fragment is from Old Town II.There are four additional blades of solid bone (pi. 15, r-t), about7 by 1 cm., which may have been for arrows, or possibly for smallknives, since they are not very symmetrical. AU are from Old TownII.Also from the same level is a longer and more slender blade (fig.17, a), 12.7 cm. long, which is almost certainly an arrowhead, sinceits thin, flattened, squared-ofF butt and sharp point resemble in stylethose on some of the barbed bone arrowheads. Two fragments toosmaU to identify with certainty but which suggest similar points arefrom Old Town II, and one from Old Town III,There are six flat blades or points of bird bone, with duU edges andsharp points (pi. 15, o-q). AU are under 7 cm. in length, and, withone exception which is from Old Town II, are from Old Town III.They may have been arrowheads, although identification is uncertain.There are other points of bij-d bone (pi. 15, g-j), anunal rib, andother animal bones, which may also have been arrowheads, barbsfor fishhooks, teeth for fish rakes, or parts of other implements.Identification of function is in most cases impossible. (See below.)Unbarbed bone arrowheads are not uncommon on the NorthwestCoast and in southwestern Alaska, although the lack of pronouncedcharacteristics makes comparisons difficult. Chugach specimenstended to have flattened points like blades and were perhaps mostsimilar to some of the Old Town examples. Cylindrical pinlikearrowheads were common on Kachemak Bay and Kodiak (de Laguna,1956, p. 179; Heizer, 1956, pi. 54, a-f). Our knowledge of NorthwestCoast archeology is insufficient to make detailed comparisons, butwe may note that many bone points from Cattle Point in the Gulfof Georgia, some of which were probably arrowheads, approach thesenorthern forms (King, 1950, fig. 13, 15-23, p. 45). Large unbarbedbone points are reported ethnologically from the Tlingit to thenorthern Kwakiutl and Nootka (Drucker, 1950, Trait 499). Angooninformants described such arrowheads, usuaUy about 10 cm. long,or even 15 cm. long, for bear. Although unbarbed, they were detach-able (de Laguna, 1960, p. 114). The Yakutat specimens, thoughshorter, probably belong to the same tradition.BONE POINTS, SHAFTS, AND COPPER PINSIn addition to the specimens described as unbarbed bone arrow-heads, there are a number of miscellaneous bone points, some of which 148 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192may also have been for arrows, while others were presumably awls,drills, barbs for fishhooks and fishspears, teeth for fish rakes, and soforth, even though certain identification is impossible.BONE POINTSFour bird bones, more or less sharpened at one end, are probablyawls (pi. 16, m-p). They range in length from 5.2 to 9.5 cm. Threeare from Old Town II, the fourth from Old Town II or III.Similar to the above, although the bird bones are split as well assharpened, are four specimens from Old Town II (pi. 16, qrs). To thelatter group we may perhaps add two broken specimens from OldTown III, another from Old Town II or III, and a fourth from OldTown II.A bird bone splinter from Old Town II, shaped like a tiny knife(pi. 16, k), has already been mentioned (p. 108).There are, in addition, eight tiny points made of bird bonesplinters (pi. 15, g-j), about 4 to 5 cm. long, with rough or brokenbutts. One is from Old Town I, five from Old Town II, and two fromOld Town III. They may be points for weapons or fishing devices.Seven points are made of split animal rib (pi. 16, t-v). These are6.4 to 10.5 cm. long, 0.8 to 1 cm. wide, and 0.2 or 0.3 cm. thick. Twoare from Old Town III, four from Old Town II, and one from anundetermined level.Lastly, there are 13 crudely shaped or fragmentary pieces of bonewith pointed ends, some evidently unfinished. Six are from OldTown III, seven from Old Town II, and one from Old Town I.Except for the specimens (pi. 16, m-s) which were probably awls,it is impossible to identify the rest. Some may have been points forarrows, although the bird bone splinters are too light, and the pointedribs too curved. It is more likely that some of these are barbs forfishhooks or teeth for fish rakes.BONE SHAFT FRAGMENTSThere are six fragments of bone shafts. Three are from Old TownIII. One of these, now measuring (17.8) cm. in length, with diametersof 2.4 by 1 cm., was apparently pointed at both ends. Two otherswere rectangular in cross section. One was over 7.5 cm. long whencomplete, pointed at one end and rounded at the other. The secondspecimen was similar but larger. The remaining three specimensare all from the Storage House in Old Town II. Of these, the firstis (15.2) cm. long, 2.5 by 1.5 cm. in diameter, with a blunt pointat one end. A shorter and more slender fragment of a shaft withoval section is bluntly rounded at the end. The third fragment has de Laguna] ARCPIEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 149a hexagonal cross section. These broken shafts may have been partsof weapons or tools.It is impossible to determine the functions of these points and shafts,even though similar objects have been found in southwestern andsoutheastern Alaska. As Drucker (1943, p. 56) writes: "Almost anycollection of archeological materials from this area contains numbersof pointed bone artifacts, which may have served various purposes:hook barbs, herring rake teeth, hafted drill points, pins or skewers."The same uncertainty applies to larger shafts or fragments of rods(Drucker, 1943, p. 55). COPPER PINSThere are two copper pins pointed at both ends from Old Town II(see fig. 18, d, e). One is 6.3 cm. long, and 0.3 cm. in section; theother 5.5 cm. long, and 0.5 by 0.2 cm. A third pin from Old TownIII (see fig. 18, i) is pointed at one end, while the other is expandedand flattened. This is 6.8 cm. long, 0.6 cm. wide, and 0.3 cm. thick.A slender, curved and pointed piece of copper, 3.2 cm. long, also fromOld Town III, may be a scrap cut from a larger sheet, partially shapedinto a pin.These double-pointed pins are not unlike a copper pin from PrinceWilliam Sound, although the latter is 12.5 cm. long, and was tenta-tively identified as a nose pin (de Laguna, 1956, pi. 42, 26, p. 209).The Old Town specimens are too short and roughly finished for sucha use. Like eight copper pins from the prehistoric Athabaskan siteof Dixthada on the Tanana (Rainey, 1939, fig. 3, 11), they may havebeen awls. Or, possibly they were parts of hooks or rakes for catchingfish. DEVICES USED IN FISHING AND TRAPPINGThe Yakutat natives formerly caught salmon in large rectangularfishtraps set in weirs across such streams as the Situk and Lost Rivers.Smaller cylindrical traps were also used for salmon and eulachon. Asalready mentioned, the harpoon with detachable barbed head wasused for taking salmon, as was a type of gaff hook with bone barb.Unfortunately, the latter is no longer clearly remembered. Halibutwere caught in deep water with large hooks, made of two pieces ofwood lashed together to form a V, and furnished with a sharp bonebarb (cf. Niblack, 1890, pi. xxxi, figs. 155, 156). The shanks of thesehooks were carved to represent men, birds, mythical creatures, andother figures. Pieces of squid were used for bait, and the hooks wereanchored by heavy stones. The line was attached to a float or pairof floats made of wood carved like a sea bird, or made of an inflatedseal stomach. Smaller compound V-shaped hooks were used forother fish, such as cod (Niblack, 1890, pi. xxx, figs. 147, 146, although693-818?64 11 150 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192from the Makah). Herring in open water were taken with the fishrake. FISHHOOKSPresumably some of the small bone points were barbs for fishhooks(pi. 15, a-e, k). Such tiny barbed points, usually grooved or notchedat the base for attachment to the shank, are known archeologicallyfrom the Aleutians, Kodiak, and Kachemak Bay (all periods) (deLaguna, 1943, p. 196; 1947, p. 212; 1956, pp. 182 f.; Heizer, 1956, p.73, type III). What is essentially the same type of hook with barbedbarb was used for salmon and cod by the Nootka and Kwakiutl, andby the Chilkat for trout (Drucker, 1950, Traits 55, 57, and 57a). Ahook with U-shaped shank and barbed barb (Trait 58) was used forhalibut on the southern and central Northwest Coast and by some ofthe southern Tsimshian. A small point with three barbs fromDaxatkanada near Angoon was tentatively suggested as a barb for afishhook (de Laguna, 1960, p. 117, pi. 9, h).Barbed bone points suitable for fishhooks have been found at arche-ological sites in Coast and Interior Salish country, although Barnett(1939) reports only unbarbed points on modern fishhooks from theGulf of Georgia Sahsh.We may assume that the fishhook with barbed bone barb is an oldtype on the Northwest Coast and in southwestern Alaska. The V-shaped hook, with plain barb, probably represented by some of themany small bone points found at Yakutat (pi, 15, g-j), from which theangular halibut hook of the northern Northwest Coast was developed,is apparently a still older and more widely distributed form (deLaguna, 1947, pp. 212 f.).What may be an unfinished shank for a halibut hook is describedunder "Human Figurines" (pp. 172-175),NOTCHED STONESFour notched stones from Old Town may have been sinkers forfishing lines, even though the smallest seems very light for such use.The largest, from Old Town, level unknown, is a slab of rock, 2 cm.thick, that has been roughly shaped into a disk with a diameter of 23cm., on which three or four notches or irregularities could have held aline.Two small flat circular pebbles have four evenly spaced notches onthe rim (fig. 18, h). One with a diameter of 1.2 and a thickness of0.2 cm. is from Old Town III; the second, 6 cm. in diameter and 2,5cm. thick, is from Old Town II. An ovoid cobble from Old Town I,with a maximum diameter of 7.5 cm., has been notched on both edgesnear one end. de I^nRuna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 151Notched stones for bolas and sinkers have already been discussedat length (de Laguna, 1934, pp. 167 flF. ; 1956, p. 271). It is sufficientto mention that they are widely distributed in southwestern Alaska,although absent from Kachemak Bay I and Prince William Sound.The Chugach and Eyak both lacked the bola, and usually employedunshaped stones for sinkers (Birket-Smith and de Laguna, 1938, pp.113, 120 ; Birket-Smith, 1953, p. 39). Although Drucker (1950, Traits74 and 75, p. 239) records both grooved and unshaped sinkers fromthe Northwest Coast, he finds that archeological notched, grooved,and perforated stones are rare, and have not been found in collectionsfrom the Tlingit and Haida (Drucker, 1943, pp. 57, 122, 124). Mostof the stones identified as sinkers from Cattle Point on San JuanIsland were perforated, although a few notched forms were also found(King, 1950, pp. 36 ff., 40 ff.).BARBS FOR GAFF HOOKSFour bone specimens w^ere found which may have been barbs forgaff hooks (fig. 18, a, j, g). It is less probable that they were sideprongs for fish spears. They range in length from 6.1 to 8.4 cm,, andin cross section from 0.9 by 0.6 to 1.4 by 0.9 cm. One end is pointed,the other scarfed for attachment; on the largest specimen there is aridge or shoulder opposite the scarf to hold the lashing. This barband two others are from Old Town III; one is from Old Town II.Possibly some of the slightly curv^ed bone points of split rib (pi. 16,l-n) may have served a similar function.Some kind of gaff hook was formerly used at Yakutat, accordingto our informants, and while they recognized the picture of the three-pronged fish spear used by the Chilkat (Drucker, 1950, Trait 47, fig.on p. 238), they denied its use at Yakutat. Similar statements weremade by the Chugach and by the Tlingit at Angoon (de Laguna, 1960,p. 116).Barbs somewhat similar to the Yakutat specimens have been foundon Prince William Sound, Kachemak Bay, Kodiak (?), and the Aleu-tians (de Laguna, 1934, p. 195, pi. 43, 14, 15; 1956, p. 182, pi. 36, 15;Heizer, 1956, p. 78). Some of these were undoubtedly lashed on,others had narrow butts for insertion like specimens from Daxatkanadanear Angoon (de Laguna, 1960, pi. 9, k, I). It is unfortunate thatwe do not know for what type of spear or gaff these barbs wereintended . The fish spear (leister) with two barbed side prongs and a centralprong is old in Eskimo culture and v.as used by a number of interiortribes in the Northwest as far south as the Columbia River, althoughit was of sporadic distribution on the Northwest Coast (de Laguna,1947, p. 211 ; Drucker, 1950, Traits 46 and 47 ; Rostlund, 1952, map 35). 152 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY IBoli-. 192 Figure 18(For legend, see opposite page.) de Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 153This type of spear is primarily used to catch fish in frozen lakes inwinter, and would therefore not be as important among coastal tribeswho relied upon stores of dried and smoked salmon, taken by the farmore efficient traps and weirs.On the other hand, Drucker (1950, Trait 49, p. 238) reports thefish gaff from a number of northern and central Northwest Coasttribes, although he "does not believe the gaff hook was an aboriginalimplement on this part of the coast, nor did most informants think so."Descriptions of the gaff hook by some of our Tlingit informants donot give the same impression of such recent adoption. Birket-Smith(1953, pp. 41, 200), moreover, records the gaff from the Aleut, Chu-gach, and other Eskimo groups, and finds it "common throughoutthe Northwest Coast and far into California," ascribing to it a respect-able antiquity (i.e. as "Neo-Eskimo"). We cannot, of course, be surethat Drucker and Birket-Smith are referring to exactly the sameimplement.The gaff is used by the Thngit to hook salmon by feel in muddystreams where they cannot be seen and speared. Such streams arenumerous in the Yakutat area.FISH LURES OR AMULETSTwo flat pieces of bird bone from Old Town I may have been luresor amulets (fig. 18, k, I). They are 4.5 cm. long, and 1 to 1.4 cm.wide, with the outlines of a fish. On one, the eye, mouth, fin (?), andtail are depicted, while a drilled hole served for suspension. The otheronly vaguely suggests a fish, with a deep notch at one end and a pairof notches at the other, representing the mouth and tail and perhapsserving for attachment of a cord.Drucker (1950, Trait 98, a, h) reports no fish Im-es on the NorthwestCoast, except for the very special spinner used by the Nootka whichis quite different from the fish image dangled from a line. R-ostlund(1952, pp. 180 f.) has summarized the distribution of the fish decoy.Figure 18.?Devices used in fishing and trapping. Drawn by Donald F. McGeein. a,Bone barb for gaff or fish spear, from Mound B, upper levels, Old Town III (No. 321);b, bone gorge, from Surface Pit 8, Mound B, lower levels, Old Town II (No. HI); c, bonegorge, from Mound B, lower levels. Old Town II (49-25^6); d, copper pin (tooth for fishrake?), from fill of House 8, Old Town II (No. 602); e, copper pin (tooth for fish rake?),from Mound B, lower levels. Old Town II (No. 877); /, bone barb for gaff or fish spear,from Mound B, upper levels, Old Town III (49-25-45); g, bone barb for gaff or fishspear, from Subsurface Pit 38 below Storage House, Old Town II (No. 432); h, notchedpebble (sinker?), from Mound B, upper levels. Old Town III (No. 21); i, copper pin (toothfor fish rake?), from Mound B, upper levels. Old Town III (No. 970); ;, copper hook(for snare ?), from fill of House Pit 1, Old Town III (No. 758); k, bone fish lure (?), fromMound D, upper levels, Old Town I (No. 925); /, bone fish lure (?), from Mound D, lowerlevels. Old Town I (No. 923). 154 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192used either with hook and line jigging (when often the liook itselfor the sinker is the lure), or with the fish spear, and finds the lureamong the northwestern Alaskan and Canadian Eskimos (datingback to the Thule culture), the Kutchin, Ingalik Tena, Carrier,Chilcotin, Shuswap, and Coast Salish. The Chilkat Tlingit used thelure in winter when spearing lake fish through the ice with the three-pronged spear. Identification of the Yakutat specimens as lureswould be strengthened if there were evidence that they utilized thistype of fish spear.These archeological specimens may, however, be compared tosmall bone carvings of salmon and other fish from Kodiak, and tolittle whale or whale-tail effigies from Kodiak, Prince William Sound,Kachemak Bay, and the Alaska Peninsula, some of which werepresumably amulets (de Laguna, 1934, pp. 208 ff.; 1956, pi. 42,30; Heizer, 1956, pp. 79 f.). Borden (1962) reports small stoneeffigies of fish with suspension hole in the middle of the back fromMarpole (Eburne) and allied sites. Although used at Yakutat for catching aquatic birds, not fish,the gorge may be mentioned here. It is represented by four slender,slightly asymmetric pieces of bone, pointed at both ends (pi. 15,/, fig. 18, 6, c). The two larger specimens, 10.6 and 11.7 cm. long, wereidentified by our informants as gorges for catching ducks or sea gulls,and the same explanation may apply to all. The smallest, about6.3 cm., is from Old Town III; the rest are from Old Town II.Our informants explained that a few families still use gorges ifthey have no shotgun shells. A line 4 feet long is attached to themiddle of the gorge, and the latter is baited with a whole herring,eulachon, or smelt. Several such devices are attached to a line stretchedacross a stream where the current runs over shallows, so that thefish appear to be swimming. Ducks ascending the stream swallowthe bait and are caught when the gorge turns crosswise in their throats.Sea gulls are taken in a similar fashion.The gorge is a very ancient device for catching fish and bkds.Rostlund (1952, p. 117) believes, however, that in western NorthAmerica it is not and was not more widely distributed than compoundfishhooks. Gaps in its distribution are due to the adoption of morecomplex types. For example, the Chugach catch gulls and duckswith a three-pronged piece of wood, or a stick with a crosspiece(Birket-Smith, 1953, pp. 38 ff.). Drucker (1950, Trait 225) recordsthe gorge for waterfowl among the Chilkat, Kwakiutl, and Nootka.(Note that his "gorge" for kelpfish. Trait 38a, is really a bent hook.) de Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 155The gorge (for fish?) was used by three Salish tribes in the Gulf ofGeorgia (Barnett, 1939, Trait 86).Since the gorge is simply a bone pin or splinter, pointed at bothends, archeological examples are difficult to identify. On Kodiak,however, gorges with an off-center groove for the line were numerous,especially in the lower levels (Heizer, 1956, p. 73). Drucker's (1943,p. 56) "bipointed forms" of "small slender bone objects," commonin Northwest Coast archeological collections, may be gorges. Double-pointed bone pins of various sizes, and probably of various functions,were found at sites near Angoon (de Laguna, 1960, p. 117, pi. 9, a~g).What may be large bone gorges were common at Locarno Beach II(Borden, 1950, p. 16), and are probably represented at Cattle Point(King, 1950, pp. 44 ff., 56, fig. 13, 12).COPPER WIRE HOOKSA pair of hooks made of copper wire (fig. 18, j) were found togetherin the fill of House Pit 1 in Old Town III. The wires are rectangularin section, about 0.2 by 0.3 cm. Both are laminated, with opensplits for short distances, showing that the copper had not beensufficiently hammered to fuse the layers. The larger hook has alength of 18.1 cm., and is made of a piece of wire 29.3 cm. long;the smaller specimen is made of a section 13.7 cm. long. One end ofeach hook is pointed, the other blunt. About the latter is a mndingof two-ply S-t^vist sinew (?) thread, which seizes the end of anotherthread, laid on at right angles. The latter is unfortunately brokenoff short on each specimen. The larger hook also has the remainsof another lashing about its pointed end.These hooks are too slender to have supported much weight.They may have been leaders to which were attached the sinew loopsof snares for small game, since the trapped animal would have beenunable to chew through the copper. This suggestion is advancedonly tentatively, since copper may have been too valuable for sucha purpose. Our informants offered no explanation.ORNAMENTSA variety of ornaments of native manufacture were found at OldTown (fig. 19), and include pendants of various materials, beads,copper bracelets and rings, pins and bodkins (some presumabl}^ forthe nose), as well as objects of possible ritual significance, describedbelow. The only objects reported ethnologically but not found inthe sites, were labrets and ornaments of dentalia and haliotis shell. 156 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Boll. 192 Figure 19(For legend, see opposite page.) de Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 157PENDANTSFive pendants were made of animal teeth, grooved or pierced atthe root for suspension. From Old Town III there are a mountain-goat incisor (pi. 17,/), a bear molar (pi. 17, e) on which one root isgrooved and the other broken, and an unidentifiable tooth (pi. 17, d)with two holes and a notch in the root. Seal canine pendants (pi.17, g, h) come from Old Town II, and Old Town II or III.An incised C3dindrical pendant of greenstone (fig. 20, 6), 7 cm. longand 0.7 cm. in diameter, is from Old Town III. A suspension hole,only 2.4 mm. in diameter, has been drilled at one end. The designabout the lower part consists of three encircling lines, between whichrun obliquely slanting lines, forming a series of obtuse chevrons.Long pointed spurs run from this band toward the bottom of thependant.Pendants of animal teeth are too widely distributed to be verysignificant. Archeological specimens come from the Aleutian Islands,Kachemak Bay (all periods), and Prince WUliam Sound, but notKodiak (de Laguna, 1934, p. 203; 1956, p. 217). They are reportedethnologicaUy from the Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, and northernKwakiutl as earrings, and archeological specimens have been found inTlingit, Tsimshian, and Coast Salish areas, the latter including Marpole(Eburne), Whalen Farm I and II, and Locarno Beach II (Drucker,1943, p. 122; Borden 1950, pp. 17-21; de Laguna, 1960, p. 120).The cylindrical stone pendant from Old Town is probably unique,for although stone pendants are occasionally encountered at sites insouthwestern and southeastern Alaska and in Coast Salish country,these seem to be of other types.COPPER BEADS AND DANGLERSThere are three rolls of sheet copper that served as ornaments(fig. 19, g, i). One from Old Town III is a small cone, 3 cm. long,with a maximum diameter of 0.8 cm. Remains of the thin cord oftwo-ply S-twist sinew by means of which this dangler was suspendedprotrude from the smaller end (pi. 19, g).A second specimen from Old Town III is a tube, now (3.8) cm. longFigure 19.?Ornaments. Drawn by Donald F. McGeein. a, Copper bracelet, from MoundB, lower levels, Old Town II (No. 140); b, copper bracelet, from fill of House Pit 1, OldTown III (No. 832); c, copper ring, from Mound B, lower levels, Old Town II (No. 160);d, copper bracelet, from below floor of House Pit 1, Old Town III (No. 971);^, bone bodkinwith copper cap, from Mound B, lower levels, Old Town II (No. 375);/, bone bodkin, fromMound D, upper levels, Old Town I (No. 924); g, copper dangler, from Mound B, upperlevels, Old Town III (No. 139); h, coil of copper wire, from Mound B, upper levels. OldTown III (No. 583); i, copper dangler, from fill of House 8, Old Town II (No. 969); ;, bonecatch or buckle, from Mound B, lower levels, Old Town II (No. 972). 158 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192and 1 cm. in diameter, containing organic matter (roots?), preservedby the copper. A similar specimen from Old Town II is now (3.5)cm. long (pi. 19, i). It was strung or hung on a string of two-ply S-twist sinew(?) cord. Organic matter, including a coarse black(human?) hair, adheres to the exterior. The two tubes may havebeen beads, not pendants or danglers.The tubular copper ornaments are similar to archeological specimensfrom Kachemak Bay IV, Daxatkanada near Angoon, and from theterritory of the southern Kwakiutl, Coast Salish (Comox), and InteriorSalish (Drucker, 1943, p. 122; de Laguna, 1934, pi. 49, 5, 6, p. 207;1960, p. 126, pi. 10, I). Necklaces of copper beads were worn by theChilkat Tlingit, who also wore copper ear pendants, as did the Tsim-shian, Haida, Kwakiutl, Nootka, and Bella Coola (Drucker, 1950,Traits 625 and 653). Although Drucker (1943, p. 59) suggested thattubular copper beads or pendants might belong only to the historicperiod, they were certainly older at Yakutat and Kachemak Bay. Itwas probably only by accident that none was found in Prince WilliamSound. COILED COPPER WIRE BEADSTwo coils of copper wire were found in Old Town III. One (seefig. 18, /0, 2.9 cm. long and 0.6 cm. in diameter, was evidently made bywinding a thin copper strip 15 times around a slender cylindrical shaft.The second coil, 2.6 cm. long and 1.1 cm. in diameter, is made ofround wire.These coils were probably strung as beads for necklaces, like thoseof "ancient form" illustrated by Niblack (1890, pi. vi, figs. 9, 10)from the Haida, for a Yakutat informant said that sometimes copperwire was twisted like a rope and worn as a necldace. Some braceletsand noserings were also said to have been made of twisted copper,although these ornaments were probably solid, not open, coils of wire(cf. Niblack, 1890, pi. vi, fig. 8).COAL BEADSSome 77 pieces of coal were found at Old Town. Of these, 15were beads, 21 unfinished beads, and 41 unmodified lumps rangingin size from 1.6 to 5.2 cm. in maximum diameter. The latter pre-sumably represented material from which beads were to be made.Although our mformants reported that their ancestors knew thatcoal would burn and called it "Raven's ashes (or charcoal)," theydid not use it for fuel, and there is no archeological evidence to suggestthis. Coal can be found on the mainland at Eleanor Cove nearKiiight Island, and on the mountainside on the west shore of YakutatBay. Presumably, the coal at Old Town came from the first locality. de I^giina] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 159and several lumps are waterworn as if they had been picked up on abeach or along a stream. The coal is soft (3 on Mohs' scale).Of the 15 finished and 21 unfinished beads, all but two are cylindrical(pi. 17, i-y, aa, 66). They were evidently made by first grindingthe lump into a cylindrical or nearly cylindrical shape. Then theends were ground flat and a hole was begun, usuall}^ drilled from bothends. In three instances the bead split during the drilling process(pi. 17, y). Three specimens have been successfully drilled, but theexteriors are still rough (pi. 17, aa), suggesting that the final grindingand polishing was not undertaken until the bead had been safelydrilled. These holes are from 2 to 4 mm. in diameter, arguing forthe use of a drill of copper or iron wire. Finished beads are from 1.6to 2.5 cm. long, though some fragmentary specimens were probablylonger, especially since the unfinished beads range up to 5.2 cm. inlength (pi. 17, aa). The diameters of most are about 0.7 cm., althoughagain several unfinished beads are much thicker.Two specimens, both (?) from Old Town III, are disk shaped. Oneis very tiny (pi. 17, c) with a diameter of 6 mm., a thickness of 2 mm.,and a hole only 1.5 mm. in diameter. The unfinished disk bead(pi. 17, 2) has a maximum diameter of 3.3 cm., and is 0.8 cm. thick.The proveniences of these coal specimens are: 14 beads, 16 unfin-ished beads, and 37 lumps from Old Town III; 3 unfinished beads and3 lumps from Old Town II; 1 lump from Old Town I; and 1 bead,two unfinished beads, and 1 lump from Old Town, level unknown.It is obvious that coal beads are characteristic of the latest periodof occupation. BONE BEADSTwo bone beads come from Old Town III. The first is made froma flat, oval piece of bh'd bone (pi. 17, 6), 1.6 by 1.1 cm. The secondis a perforated halibut vertebra disk (pi. 17, a), 2.1 cm. in diameterand 0.8 cm. thick.It is curious that so few beads of material other than coal shouldhave been found at Old Town, for their prehistoric Chugach neighborsmanufactured quantities?of bone, of "ivory" (from bear canines),of shell, and of stone, in oval, rectangular, disk, and tubular shapes,and possessed a gi'eater variety of beads than any other Imown Eskimogroup. They did not, apparently, make ornaments of coal, so theoval bone bead and the fish vertebra disk are the only Yakutat speci-mens duplicated in Chugach sites. The fish vertebra disk, or ring,is known from Kachemak Bay III, Kodiak, and the Aleutians (deLaguna, 1956, pp. 210 ff.; Heizer, 1956, p. 77).On Kodiak and Kachemak Bay, lignite (coal, jet) or oil shale wascommonly used for labrets, and from Uyak Bay we have two coalbeads, one globular, the other tubular like the Yakutat specimens 160 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192(Heizer, 1956, pp. 53 f.; de Laguna, 1956, p. 273). Otherwise, fromUyak there are only three disk stone beads and a score made fromsections of bird bone (Heizer, 1956, pp. 54, 77). Cylindrical amberbeads are Imown from the Aleutians. On Kachemak Bay, cylindricalbeads of naturally baked red shale were most common, although therewere also disk beads of shale, and small rectangular beads of boneand shell (de Laguna, 1934, pi. 50, p. 202).A cylindrical coal bead, identical with the Yakutat specimens,was found at Daxatkanada (de Laguna, 1960, p. 121, pi. 10, u); thematerial undoubtedly had been obtained from the soft-coal beds nearAngoon. At the same site there were also tubular beads of beartooth "ivory" and of bird bone as well as disk-shaped forms of shale,all types represented in Prince William Sound.Aside from the Angoon specimens and some disk shell beads fromthe Haida, no beads are reported archeologically from the northernand central Northwest Coast. Drucker (1943, pp. 58 ff., 122) recog-nizes the following types: dentalia, clamshell disks, tubular sectionsof bird bone, narrow pieces of mammal bone, and asymmetric lumpsof cannel coal. All of these came from the great site at Marpole(Eburne), as did disk beads of stone. Borden (1950, pp. 17, 19, 20)reports disk beads of coal shale from Whalen Farm II, and also stonebeads with lenticular cross section from Locarno Beach II, but ascribesto a later period the numerous small disk stone beads found nearLocarno Beach. At Cattle Point there were only a few disk beads ofjadeite and sheU and a few tubular bird bone beads (King, 1950,p. 61).On the whole, the beads from Yakutat, as well as those from Angoon,are more like those of the southwestern Alaskan mainland than of therest of the Northwest Coast. Tubular beads, other than naturallycylindrical sections of bird bone, seem to be characteristic of theEskimo. The use of shell for beads and the flat disk shape may havecome from the south, for they do not appear in Kachemak Bay untilthe Third Period (de Laguna, 1934, pp. 202 if.). Flat oval beads ofshell and stone, although related to the disk and rectangular forms,are not as yet known outside of Prince William Sound, except for thesingle oval bone bead from Yakutat. We should have expectedtubular bone beads, shell (and shale?) disk beads, and dentalia atYakutat, and perhaps it was only accidental that no examples werepresent in our diggings. Disk shell beads were reported from theshaman's grave on Knight Island, and our informants spoke of orna-ments of dentalia. COPPER BRACELETSThere are six bracelets from Old Town, made from pieces of copperthat have been folded and hammered into narrow strips or bars with de Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 161a laminated structure. These are round in cross section (fig. 19, 6),0.3 and 0.4 cm. in diameter, or are rectangular (fig. 19, d), measuring0.4 by 0.3 or 0.3 by 0.2 cm, or they are flat (19, a), from 0.6 to 1.1cm. wide. All taper toward the blunt points at the ends. The rodor bar is bent into an oval, leaving a gap between the ends so that thebracelet could be slipped onto the wrist. These ornaments rangein diameter from 5.2 by 4.8 to 7.7 by 5.5 cm. The smallest wasperhaps for a child; the rest would have fitted grown women. Fourspecimens are from Old Town III, one is from Old Town II, and oneis from an unknown level.These copper bracelets are similar to one from Kachemak Bay IV(de Laguna, 1934, pi. 49, 10). Curiously enough, they are not re-ported from either the Chugach or the Eyak, who had copper orna-ments of other kinds. Copper bracelets and anklets, for women only,are known ethnologically from the Tlingit and Haida, and copperbracelets from the northern KwakiutI (Xaihais) (Drucker, 1950,Traits 656, 658). Bracelets (type unspecified) were worn by some ofthe Coast Salish, as were copper anklets (Barnett, 1939, Traits 1157,1 1 59) . Both bracelets and anklets of copper are known archeologicallyfrom the Thompson River valley (de Laguna, 1934, p. 207).COPPER RINGSThere are four copper rings made in the same way as the bracelets,although the gaps between the ends of the strips are closed (fig. 19,c). The smallest, from an unknown level at Old Town, is made of aband 0.3 cm. wide and 1.1 cm. thick. Its present diameter is only0.8 cm. It may have been an ear pendant, or if spread open it couldhave been worn on the finger of a child or the little finger of a woman.The other three specimens have diameters of 2.4 to 3.3 cm. andare made of rods with rectangular cross sections, 2 by 1.5 to 3 by 3mm. One is from Old Town III, the other two from Old Town II.They appear to have been too large to have been worn on the fingers,and our informants suggested that they might have been noserings.Formerly the septum of the nose was pierced; in modern times thesilver nosering has a gap that slips easily onto the septum. Sincethe archeological rings have no gaps, it is hard to understand howthey could have been lost if they had been worn in holes in the nose.Copper rings have been found on Prince William Sound and atDixthada in the Tanana Valley (de Laguna, 1956, pi. 43, 25; Rainey,1939, fig. 3, 9). Copper finger rings were worn by Eyak men andwomen, and also by the Atna above them on the Copper River. Ashaman seen by Abercrombie among the Eyak in 1884 drew a lock ofhair through a copper ring on each side of his head (Birket-Smith andde Laguna, 1938, pp. 59, 62). Niblack (1890, p. 262) reports of the 162 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Boll. 192Northwest Coast Indians that finger rmgs "were formerly made ofcopper, bone, shell, or black slate and were ornamented with totemicdesigns. Now silver has so generally displaced other materials thatthe primitive types are rarely seen."Copper pendants in the form of flat crescents and rings have beenfound archeologically in the territory of the southern Kwakiutl andCoast Salish (Drucker, 1943, pp. 59, 122), and Borden (personalcommunication) reports copper ornaments at Beach Grove and Marpole(Eburne).The Tlingit also wore rings of copper and silver as ear ornaments.ORNAMENTAL BODKINS OR PINSThere are two nicely made bone pins or bodkins. One from OldTown I (fig. 19,/) is a slightly curved rod with blunt ends, 7.1 cm.long and 0.4 cm. in diameter. Near one end is a tiny projection likea blade. A small groove runs across this and around the shaft, as iffor the attachment of something, perhaps a feather.The second specimen (fig. 19, e), from Old Town II, is a pointedbone pin, 13.9 cm. long, 0.8 by 0.6 cm. in diameter. The blunt endis bound around with a copper band. Between this and a shallowencircling groove in the middle, is a scalloped ridge pierced by seventiny holes, to which perhaps feathers had been attached. On theside not visible in the illustration there is also a row of finely incisedchevrons.The ornamental bodkins may have been worn in the hair, or as earor nose pins, although we must admit that their function is unknown.Bone pins with an enlargement at one end and attached pendantswere among the ornaments worn in the nasal septmn by the Aleut(Jochelson, 1925, fig. 95), the Chugach, and the Eskimo of the AlaskaPeninsula, but what were probably nose pins from Kachemak Baywere short pegs with a groove about the middle. Both styles arerepresented on Kodiak (de Laguna, 1934, p. 207; 1956, pp. 207-210;Heizer, 1956, pi. 69, d-n). A broken bone pin with a T-shaped headfrom Daxatkanada near Angoon may also have been a nose ornament(de Laguna, 1960, pi. 10, k, p. 122). The Indians of the northernNorthwest Coast formerly wore "a bone or ivory stick or cylinder"in the nose, and the Tlingit and Haida sometimes thrust a bone orivory peg with enlarged head through a hole in the ear. The ear pinillustrated by Niblack (1890, fig. 12, a, p. 261) has a perforationthrough the head as if something had once been suspended from it.Bone pins as ear ornaments are reported sporadically from all themajor groups on the northern and central Northwest Coast exceptthe Haida, and bone pins for the nose are also widely distributed,except that among the Tlingit and Haida they were worn only by de Lagiina] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 163shamans (Drucker, 1950, Traits 627, 632). This suggests that thenose pin was the older style of ornament, retained by shamans, afterthe silver nosering had become popular in historic times for secularwear. The chief, a young woman, and a man, sketched at Yakutatby Suria in 1791 (pis. v, vi, viii in Wagner, 1936), all seem to bewearing some kind of nose pin. It is not clear from Barnett's list(1939, Trait 1136) whether the Gulf of Georgia Salish wore a bone pinin the nose or only used it to make a hole in the septmn. Noseornaments are well known from the interior Athabaskans.It would appear that nose ornaments were characteristic of theNorthwest Coast. They seem to be relatively late in southwesternAlaska, perhaps not antedating Kachemak Bay ITT, and are a traitlinking the Aleut and Pacific Eskimo with their neighbors, in theinterior, at Yakutat, and farther south, rather than with the northernEskimo. LABRETSSince the Yakutat women wore large medial labrets in the late ISthcentury (see sketches by Suria with Malaspina, in Wagner, 1936, pis.II, VI, and in, Olson, 1956, p. 677), and a few were stiU wearing smallsilver studs a hundred years later, it is surprising that we found nolabrets. To be sure, Yakutat labrets are said to have been made ofwood, and so would not have been preserved, but the same descrip-tions are given of Tlingit labrets in general, although specimens ofstone were found in the Angoon area (de Laguna, 1960, pp. 121 f.).It is more likely that the prehistoric Yakutat, like the Copper RiverEyak, did not wear this type of ornament (Birket-Smith and deLaguna, 1938, p. 62), and the apparent absence of the labret fromthis area requires explanation in view of its otherwise wide distribution.In southwestern Alaska and in the southern Bristol Bay area, boththe larger medial labrets and the smaller lateral labrets occur arche-ologically in sites of all known periods and are reported ethnologically.They were worn by both sexes, and within this area the most elaborateforms were evolved (de Laguna, 1934, pp. 205 fl.; 1956, pp. 205, 207;Heizer, 1956, pi. 79; Larsen, 1950, pp. 181, 183). The medial labretworn by women is reported ethnographically from the Tlingit, Haida,Tsimshian, and northern Kwakiutl, but not farther south (Drucker,1950, Traits 636-638; Niblack, 1890, p. 260), although archeologicallabrets are known from the Thngit, Haida, Bella Coola, and CoastSalish areas (Drucker, 1943, p. 122; de Laguna, 1934, pp. 204 fF.).A medial labret was found in Locarno Beach I, where an antler figurineshows that it was worn by men (Borden, 1951, pi. I, 12). Otherlabrets from the Eraser Delta area include small lateral forms (Duff,1956). Borden (1962) ascribes labrets to both the Marpole and 164 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192Locarno Beach Phases, and suggests that they diffused northwardfrom this area to the Aleut and Eskimo.A labret worn in the middle of the lower lip (by both sexes?) isprobably the oldest style. Very large saucer-shaped medial labretsworn only by women represent a local development on the northernNorthwest Coast, while the lateral labret worn in pairs only by menis another local development among the Eskimo north of BristolBay. Although labrets, including some large medial ones, belong tothe Ipiutak cultm-e of Point Hope and also to the older NortonPhase of Bristol Bay (Giddings, 1960, p. 125), the labret is curiouslyabsent from other old northwestern Alaskan cultm'es until moderntimes, when it was presumably reintroduced from the south (Birket-Smith, 1953, pp. 218 ff.). An interior source is less likely, for it hasbeen reported only from the Ingalik Tena, Tanaina, Babine, andpossibly the Chilcotin; the first three seem to have adopted it onlyrecently from their coastal neighbors. It did not occur in Tena sites.The labret is thus one of the ancient traits linking the southernEskimo and the southern Northwest Coast, and should, therefore,have been found at Yakutat, probably at some site more ancient thanOld Town. Presumably it was abandoned at Yakutat, as it was innorthern Alaska and on the central and southern Northwest Coast.Its revival at Yakutat must be ascribed to recent Tlingit influence.Perhaps it was discarded on the Gulf of Alaska because of migrationsto the coast of Copper River and Alsek River Athabaskans who didnot wear it. Interior influences may also explain why the labret wasabandoned on the central and southern Northwest Coast.BONE CATCHA flat piece of bone with rounded ends (fig. 19, j), about 10.3 cm.long when complete, and 1.3 cm. wide, comes from Old Town II, Inthe middle of one edge are six notches, and at each end is a pair of holesconnected on one surface by a groove. This object was probably acatch or fastener of some kind, for if a line were passed through thetwo pairs of holes it could be tightened by catching a loop in one ofthe notches. Our Angoon informants told us that decorated hatssometimes had a bone catch to tighten the cord under the chin.WOODEN COMBA carbonized wooden comb comes from Old Town II (fig. 20, c).It is 7.4 cm. long and about 4 cm. wide, and originally had six teeth.The handle is carved to represent a bird's head, probably the Raven,a totemic crest of the K'^ackqwan sib that owned Yakutat Bay. Theflat surfaces are decorated with the eye motif characteristic of North-west Coast art, although here it is not very well executed. de Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA. 165Bone or wooden combs were used for dressing the hair of ordinarypersons among the Tlingit (Niblack, 1890, pp. 259, figs. 11, c, d).Possibly the Yakutat comb belonged to a shaman, since Tlingitshamans used combs to hold up their long tangled hair, not to comb it(Swanton, 1908, fig. 116). Furthermore, this specimen came fromthe Storage House, where two figurines were found which may alsohave been associated with shamanism (see pp. 172-175).The carved one-piece comb of wood, less often of bone, is commonon the Northwest Coast (Drucker, 1950, Traits 605, 606; Barnett,1939, Trait 1175). The Yakutat specimen marks the northwesternlimit of this distribution, since no one-piece combs are known fromthe Aleut, Pacific Eskimo, or Copper River Eyak, except for a fewpresumed copies of Russian combs (de Laguna, 1947, pp. 222 ff.;Birket-Smith and de Laguna, 1938, p. 60; Bu'ket-Smith, 1953, p. 69).Instead, the composite comb, made of separate tines lashed together,is the only type known archeologically from southwestern Alaska.The one-piece comb of bone or ivory is, however, the characteristicnorthern Eskimo type (dating back at least to the Old Bering Seaculture), and would appear to be related to the wooden comb on theNorthwest Coast. Possibly this form was once used in southwesternAlaska, perhaps of wood since no examples have survived, or thelinks in its distribution are to be sought in the little-known interior(de Laguna, 1947, pp. 222 ff.).OBJECTS OF POSSIBLE RITUAL SIGNIFICANCEBAND OF RYEGRASS STEMSPart of a fragile band made of sections of ryegi'ass stems strungtogether (fig. 23, d, d') was found under the floor of the Storage Housein Old Town II. The grass tubes, 3 cm. long and about 0.5 cm. indiameter, were laced together with what appear to be grass fibers.The original length of the band could not be determined, althoughseveral dozen tubes were recovered.Our informants were unable to explain this object, although some-thing similar, made of dentalium shells and glass beads, was obtainedin trade from the Tsimshian and was worn as a hair ornament bylittle girls and young women of wealthy families. The hair wasdrawn tightly back and passed through a ring (preferably of driftbamboo) at the nape, to wliich the long dangling ornament was tied.As one informant explained, "When you move, it's like the wind wav-ing the bushes. It makes you grow." It is possible that this band ofgrass stems was made by children in imitation of the valuable dcntaliaornament.If this interpretation is correct, it would indicate that the modernornament was worn in prehistoric times. We can find something693,-818?64 12 166 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192 m 12 3^ 5 Cm. dFigure 20.?Decorated objects. Drawn by Donald F. McGeeln. a, Fragment of bonefigure, worn as pendant, from fill of Storage House, Old Town II (No. 223); b, Incisedgreenstone pendant, from Mound A, level unknown, Old Town III (49-25-26); c, woodencomb, carved to represent the Raven, from floor of Storage House, Old Town II (No. 192);d, carved bone socket piece for harpoon (?), from Mound B, lower levels. Old Town II(No. 3). de Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 167similar in the "veil" or nape ornament of beads aud dentalia wornby the daughter of a Chugach chief (Birket-Smith, 1953, p. 68).According to I\jause, the Tlingit "ornament made of dentalium andbeads . . . covers the braid in a broad band and hangs almost tothe gromid" (Kj-ause, 1956, p. 102), The purpose of hair orna-ments worn by adolescent girls among the Tlingit, Haida,Tsimshian, Kwakiutl, Bella Coola, and Nootka was to make the hairgroNv, as our Yakutat informant implied. "The weights were usuallybunches of dentaha, pieces of copper, etc." (Drucker, 1950, Trait1182, p. 276). Some of these were metal strips bent into a U thatended in a pair of spirals (Niblack, 1890, pi. vi, fig. 11, p. 261), butthat worn by Nootka girls was evidently similar to the dentalia beadornament of the Tlingit and Yakutat, and the magical associationwith growth is similar. Although on the central Northwest Coastthis ornament was specifically associated with the first menses, amongthe Tlingit, Yakutat, and Chugach it was not so restricted. Itshould not be confused with the beaded hood worn by pubescent girlsamong so many northwestern American tribes (Birket-Smith and deLaguna, 1938, p. 157; Drucker, 1950, Trait 1191). We should notethat all of the Northwest Coast, interior Athabaskan, plateau, andGulf of Alaska Indians treated the girl's adolescence as the mostimportant crisis of her life, affecting her whole future and that of herfamily, although the particular rites varied. Apparently the Aleutand Chugach, unlike the northern Eskimo, shared this concern, andmany of their specific practices were identical with or very similarto those of the Thngit (Birket-Smith, 1953, pp. 87 ff.; Laughlin andMarsh, 1951, pp. 84 ff.; Laughlin, 1952, pp. 34, 40).BIRD BONE TUBESThere are two tubes of bird bone (swan femur?), 10.4 and 17.1 cm.long, from Old Town II, the first coming from the floor of the StorageHouse which yielded a number of presumed ritual or ceremonialobjects. An incised fragment of bird bone, from Old Town III, maybe a fragment of a similar tube.Our informants could only hazard that these tubes were part of ashaman's outfit, either pieces of his rattling bone necklace, or, moreprobably, the tube through which he sucked out disease from apatient's body. The statement that among the Tlingit: "The wingbones [of the eagle], particularly the radius and ulna, are used inillness as tubes for sucking up fluids" (Niblack, 1890, p. 350, quotingvon Langsdorff), suggests another possible connection with shamanisticcures. 168 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192Even though our Yakutat informants denied that bone drinkingtubes were used by adolescent girls, this possibility cannot be dis-missed, since such tubes were employed among many interior groups,including the Copper River Atna, Southern Tutchone of the upperAlsek, Tagish, and Inland THngit, with all of whom the Yakutat hadclose affihations (McClellan, personal communication). Moreover,among the Copper River Eyak the adolescent girl sucked waterthrough a swan bone, although the drinking tube may not have beenrestricted to her use (Birket-Smith and de Laguna, 1938, pp. 87, 157).Although the Northwest Coast Indians imposed water restrictionson adolescent girls, only some of the central and southern tribes re-quired use of the bone drinking tube (Drucker, 1950, Traits 1168, and1172; Barnett, 1939, Trait 1554). Such tubes were used for differentoccasions, for example, by the Haida, interior Tsimshian, Kwakiutl,and Nootka for drinking water from covered buckets in canoes(Drucker, 1950, Trait 466). Among the Eskimo in general thedrinking tube is an article of everyday use.Bird bone tubes have, of course, been found archeologically on theNorthwest Coast, in the interior, and in southwestern Alaska, andpresumably served many purposes which cannot now be determined.A bird-bone tube was, for example, found at the historic site ofDaxatkanada near Angoon (de Laguna, 1960, pi. 9, y).AMULETS (?)Several pebbles or pieces of mineral, found in the fills or on thefloors of house pits, may have been collected by the natives out ofcuriosity or to use as amulets. These were a pebble of crystalline oropaline stone from the fill of House Pit 1 and another from House Pit7; a scrap of mica and a large quartz crystal, 5.4 cm. long, from thefill of House 8; a limestone nodule naturally ringed around with araised band and slightly modified by carving, from just above thefloor of House 8; and, lastly, a lump of iron oxide and a piece ofvesicular slag from the Storage House. The last was apparently alump ot mineral which had melted when the cache biu'ned.INCISED PEBBLESFrom Old Town III is a sandstone pebble (fig. 21, a, a'), 6.6 by5.5 cm. in diameter, and 1.8 cm. thick, with a poorly executed, fineincising on both surfaces. On one side (a) are two rectangular figuresabove, and below, a transverse band made up of zigzag hnes betweenpairs of bordering lines. Two of the triangular areas in the zigzagare filled with horizontal hatching. On the other face {a') is atransverse band of crosshatching between parallel Unes, and six de Lapuna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 169detached squares or rectangles in two rows, flanked on each side byscratches that suggest Unes with slanting spurs.A flat piece of limestone (fig. 21, c), (6.8) by 4.2 cm., with fivetransverse fines scratched across one face, is from Old Town III.There is also an incised pebble from a pit below the floor of HousePit 1, but the scratches on one surface were probably not intendedto make a pattern.These incised stones, or perhaps only the fijst, were probablyrubbing amulets, like the hard cobbles used by adolescent girls,widows, peace hostages, and aristocratic youths to scratch theirbodies, or to rub around their lips as a magical precaution againstuttering provocative words or gossip. Although it was implied atYakutat that such stones were plain, some incised pebbles from thehistoric Tlingit site of Daxatkanada were tentatively identified asrubbing amulets for adolescent girls by our Angoon informants (deLaguna, 1960, pp. 122 S.). One informant said she had seen such arubbing stone with a picture of a bear on it, pierced for suspensionon a cord around the girl's neck. Such pierced pebbles with incisedrepresentations of animals have been collected from the Tlingit(deposited in Washington State Museum, Seattle). A stone witha fairly realistic picture of a killer whale comes from the DevelopmentalPhase at Cattle Point, and is similar in spirit to the designs on theseethnological Thngit amulets (King, 1950, fig. 17, 17). From a laterperiod at the same site there is a piece of stone (King, 1950, fig. 17, IS)on which is incised what looks like a human face with large eyes,nose, and mouth, possibly with a nose ornament and tattooed or paintedlines on the cheeks. These specimens may be related to the northernrubbing amulets.The decoration of the Yakutat pebble (fig. 21, a, a') is, however,completely geometric. Pebbles or roughly shaped stone plaqueswith similar designs also were found at Daxatkanada (de Laguna,1960, fig. 15, pp. 122 ff., 127 f.), at early prehistoric Chugach sites, andat (late prehistoric?) sites on Kodiak (Heizer, 1956, p. 52). None wasfound at Kachemak Bay, but this may mean only that they escapednotice.Heizer (1947, pp. 288 f.; 1952, p. 266) has pointed out that thedesigns on the Kodiak pebbles actually represent very convention-alized anthropomorphic figures. Such features as the brows, nose,mouth, labret, hair, or tattooing are merely suggested by scratchesconfined to a small area near one end of the pebble. The rest of thedesign, consisting of geometric patterns, evidently represents theclothing, to which more attention was paid than to the face. The 170 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192 a ! \ 1 J L 1 cm. a cm. cm.Figure 21(For legend, see opposite page.) de Liigima] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 171latter is indicated by the same abl)reviated design elements used torepresent faces on the petroglyphs at Capo Alitak, Kodiak Island,on Chugach pictographs, and on Northwest Coast petroglyphs.Thi-ee of the Angoon pebbles are also faces, but the details aredifferent, for on two of these the eyes appear to be weeping (de Laguna,1960, fig. 15, c, e). Otherwise the designs are similar in that theyconsist of geometric elements, chiefly zigzags and spurred lines andpanels.The Chugach pebbles or plaques exhibit perhaps the richest seriesof geometric elements, but there is nothing to suggest a face, and thedesigns correspond, therefore, only to the "clothing" of the Kodiakfigures.All the specific design elements on the Yakutat pebble can beduplicated or closely matched by those from Kodiak, Prince WilliamSound, and Angoon; the layout of the designs is also similar in theseareas. Can we take the Kodiak specimens as a guide and interpretall of these pebbles as highly conventionalized anthi-opomorphicrepresentations? If so, it is obvious that clothing is more importantthan the features. Perhaps ceremonial garments are portrayed, andthe "faces" themselves may be really masks. In this case, the tworectangles on one side (a) of the Yakutat pebble are all that is leftof the mask or face; the horizontal band below suggests a fringedgarment, perhaps the apron of a dancer or of a shaman (see Emmons,1907, pp. 346, 395 ft'., figs. 588, 589). On the reverse side (a') wouldbe the back of the figure, and this design bears a strildng resemblanceto that of the Chilkat blanket from the grave on Knight Island (pi. 19) . The band across the top, the fringed ends, the row of rectangles,two of which are "tasseled" at the lower left corner, are all duplicatedin the Yakutat blanket (see pp. 187-192), and suggest that the samegeometric style of blanket may have been made during the lateprehistoric period represented by the upper part of Mound B, or OldTown III. If the geometric patterns of the Daxatkanada pebblescan also be interpreted as representing blankets, although this isless certain, we might infer the persistence of the geometric Chilkatblanket weaving into early historic times in the Angoon area. In Figure 21.?Carved and incised stone objects. Drawn by Donald F. McGeein (except d,sketched by F. de Laguna from photograph), a, a'. Pebble incised to represent a humanfigure (?), wearing dancing apron (a) and Chilkat blanket (a'), from Mound B, upperlevels, Old Town III (No. 278); b, carved stone hand hammer or pestle, from Mound B,upper levels. Old Town III (No. 266); c, incised limestone fragment, from Mound B, upperlevels, Old Town III (No. 30); d, carved stone maul head, representing the Frog (.'),found in bed of Situk River near U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service weir. 172 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192this connection we should note that Lisiansky, in 1805, observed ofthe Sitka Tlingit:The rich wrap themselves up sometimes in white blankets, manufactured in thecountry, from the wool of the white sheep [read mountain goat], which is as softand fine as the Spanish merino. These blankets are embroidered with squarefigures, and fringed with black and yellow tassels. Some of them are so curiouslyworked on one side with the fur of the sea-otter, that they appear as if lined withit, and are very handsome. [Lisiansky, 1814, p. 238.]This might be a good description of the type of blanket in question.The Kodiak designs hint at a long frock of gutskin, with tuftedseams, or one patched together from small pelts, garments charac-teristic of the Aleut and Pacific Eskimo in late prehistoric and earlyhistoric times. It is impossible to guess at what type of costumemay have been intended by the Chugach designs, since the latterare so completely styhzed. However, they seem to be more likethe patterns of baskets, textiles, or skin mosaic, than any of thetypes of design usually incised by the Eskimo on ivory or bone.CARVED WOODEN SLABA completely carbonized, carved wooden slab comes from OldTown II (fig. 16, c). It is elhptical in outline, measuring 28.4by 10.3 cm., and has a round hole through the wider end. One sur-face is flat; the other is slightly convex in the middle, with a narrowflange around the edge, and bears a carved decoration. The designelements resemble somewhat the traditional eye motif of NorthwestCoast art. They may represent the suction disks on squid tentacles.The function of this unique specimen is unknown. It could havebeen part of a song leader's dance paddle, or half of a snapper, a kindof rattle made of two pieces of wood fastened together (see Niblack,1890, pi. LViii, fig. 305, from the Hoonah Tlingit).HUMAN FIGURINESA broken, charred bone carving (fig. 20, a) from the fill of theStorage House in Old Town II represents the head and shoulders ofa man, with round face, large eyes and mouth. There is a smallprotrusion at the back, suggesting a knot of hair. The figurine isbroken off at the shoulders, and the edge of a hole can be seen in themiddle of the chest. The specimen is now (2.1) cm. long, 1.2 cm.wide, and 1 cm. thick. The function is unknown, but it could havebeen worn as an ornament or amulet. When complete it may havebeen rather like the ivory figurine from the lower levels at UyakBay, Kodiak Island (Heizer, 1956, pi. 82, p).A charred wood figiuine (fig. 22) was found on the floor of theStorage House, beside a piece of chopped wood. The figurine is de Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 173 lUm m'^ a a 1 2 3 4 5 cm.Figure 22.?Wooden figurine, from floor of Storage House, Old Town II (No. 194). Drawnby Donald F. McGeein.12.2 cm. tall, 1.6 cm. wide, and 2 cm. thick. It represents an arm-less, nude figm-e, probably male, although there is no clear indica-tion of sex. The head and neck are plainly carved, although theface is shown only by a concave area, without features, betweenwhat appear to be bangs and a prominent chin. The torso is long 174 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bui.l. 192waisted, as is common in Tlingit portrayals of the human figure.The small of the back, the buttocks, and the slightly bent knees areall indicated, but the feet are shown simply by a roughly cut knobat the base. One has the impression that the back of the figure wasmore carefully shaped than the front, and that the specimen may beunfinished.The function of this object is uncertain. It may have been in-tended for the shank of a halibut hook, since these were traditionallycarved to represent a human being, an animal, or a bird. Niblack(1890, pi. XXXI, figs. 155, 156) illustrates Tlingit examples similarto ones seen at Yakutat. In this case, the chest of the figure wouldhave been perforated to attach the line, and the other part of theV-shaped hook with the bone barb would have been fastened by alashing around the ankles.However, we should note that one of the shamans at Yakutat whodied at the end of the last century possessed a wooden figure repre-senting one of his guardian spirits, the Child of the Sun. Duringseances, this doll is said to have become animated and danced. Thefirst shaman at Yakutat to obtain this spirit was Xatgawet, the greatleader associated by some informants with Knight Island, and thespirit was inherited by his successors. Our specimen may, therefore,be a shaman's doll.Carved figurines used by shamans in this fashion are known fromthe Eyak, Chugach, Tanaina, Koniag (?), and Aleut (?) (Birket-Smithand de Laguna, 1938, p. 210; de Laguna, 1956, pp. 221, 223; Birket-Smith, 1953, pp. 127, 217). Archeological figures interpreted asshamans' dolls are from Kachemak Bay II and III, Port Moller onthe Alaska Peninsula, and Kodiak. Specimens from the first twoareas have a pointed head, suggesting the Chugach notion aboutshamans' spirits (de Laguna, 1934, pp. 114 f., 208; Birket-Smith,1953, p. 209; Heizer, 1956, pp. 79 f.). The conception that spirits hadpointed heads, common in Siberia, may also have been known on theNorthwest Coast, since an antler figurine from Locarno Beach I is soshaped (Borden, 1951, pi. i). However, Birket-Smith is too cautiousto commit himself to speculative theories on this point. Shamans'dolls, in any case, did not necessarily reflect the owners' familiars,but were essentially inanimate figures (sometimes of animals or birds,or commercial dolls) into which the shaman might put his power andthereby cause them to move. This notion of animating objects byprojection of shamanistic power is widespread in Siberia and NorthAmerica, finding expression in such themes as the drum that beats ofitself, objects that fly through the air dm^ing seances, or the CoastSalish "spirit boards" that drag their holders around the house. Thisidea may be the basis for the carvings of various sorts which are de Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 175secretly luanipulated by strings uiul wliich play sucli an importantpart in northwestern Alaskan Eskimo ceremonies and in the per-formances of central Northwest Coast secret societies. Humanfigurines from the lower levels of Kodiak with jointed, movable limbssuggest similar practices (Heizer, 1956, p. 56, p. 79). Corpse orskeleton marionettes, like those of the Nootka whale ritualist, mayalso be represented on Kodiak (in ''Intermediate Levels") andKachemak Bay III (de Laguna, 1934, pp. 43 f., 46, 113; 1956, p. 95;HrdliSka, 1944, fig. 40, p. 351; Heizer, 1956, p. 77).Most southwestern Alaskan shaman's dolls, like the exampledescribed by our Yakutat informants, evidently combined the notionof portraying the familiar spirit of the shaman with the inanimatefigurine which the shaman's power could bring to life.WOODEN VESSELS AND BARKWOODEN VESSELSFragments of two kinds of small wooden boxes or dishes were foundat Old Town. The first type is represented by the oval bottom ofwhat was apparently a cylindrical vessel (fig. 23, c), found just abovethe floor of House 9 in Old Town HI. It measures 8.1 by 7.2 cm. indiameter, and is flanged to fit inside the wall of the box. Presumablythe latter was a thin bent plank, to which it was fastened by the finecopper nails still present in the bottom piece.The second type of box or dish is represented by fragments of atleast two square or rectangular vessels on or just above the floor of theStorage House in Old Town III (fig. 23, a, b, h'). Both were small,the maximum dimensions apparently not exceeding 30 cm. Onboth, the side was a single plank, 1 to 1.2 cm. thick and about 6cm. high, evidently grooved or kerfed and bent at three corners, theends sewn together at the fourth. There were holes and a flangealong the lower edge, so that the side could fit around and be peggedto the bottom piece. The side on one vessel was uneven in height,rising at one point, and this specimen may have been a dish ratherthan a box.Wooden vessels like the second type from Old Town are characteris-tic of the Northwest Coast, but the rounded shape of the first is not,except for dishes, carved from one piece of wood. The Chugach,however, made both round and square boxes and dishes with a singlebent plank for the side, and a pegged-in morticed bottom (Birket-Smith, 1953, fig. 27, pp. 57 ff.). The Yakutat specimens, takentogether, resemble Chugach vessels more closely than they do thoseof their southern neighbors.Square or rectangular boxes, with the side made of a single plank,are characteristic of the Northwest Coast and represent the most 176 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192 r ? ' !O /. LJ L3 cm. drFigure 23(FoT legend, see opposite page.) de Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 177technically advanced type, requiring straight grained wood and skill.Cedar is ideal for this purpose and was always used for such boxes,except that Chilkat (Drucker, 1950, p. 257) and Yakutat informantsreported the use of carefully selected spruce. Tlingit, Haida, Tsim-shian, and Kwakiutl boxes, especially those for holding liquids, hadflanged, morticed bottoms (Drucker, 1950, Trait 449). Similar boxeswere made at Yakutat in recent times, and one of the specimens fromOld Town has this type of bottom, even though it is oval.Very large boxes on the Northwest Coast were sometimes madewith two or fom- separate pieces for the sides (Niblack, 1890, p. 319;Birket-Smith and de Laguna, 1938, pp. 413 f.). This type was easierto make than that with a single bent piece for the side, since it did notrequire skill in bending wood, nor such fine planks. Presumably,such boxes were also made at Yakutat, since they were by the CopperRiver Eyak and the Chugach, and are quite old among the Eskimo(Birket-Smith, 1953, pp. 57 ff., 202, pi. 26, b; Birket-Smith and deLaguna, 1938, pp. 78 f., 413 f.). Pegging or nailing was employed tofasten the sides of these boxes together, but the method typical of thenorthern and central Northwest Coast is to sew the parts together.The Coast Salish used both methods (Barnett, 1939, Traits 359-361,365-367). Both are represented by the Old Town specimens and werereported by our Yakutat informants, although we gathered thatpegging was more common.The cylindrical vessel with a flat round or oval bottom, like thatfrom Old Town III (fig. 23, c), may have been a still older type thanany form of square-cornered box, for it is less diflBcult to make. Thesides of such vessels are usually of pliable bark or baleen, or of thinwood which is easily bent after soaking in warm water. Cylindricalpails of this kind were made by the northern Alaskan Eskimo at leastas far back as Birnirk and Old Bering Sea times, and have been re-ported ethnologically from the Pacific Eskimo, Aleut, Eyak, Tanaina,Tena, and many interior Athabaskan groups (Birket-Smith and deLaguna, 1938, pp. 413 ff.; Bhket-Smith, 1953, p. 202). The ends ofthe side piece on such vessels are commonly joined by sewing, whichmay explain why the northern and central Northwest Coast Indianshave adopted this essentially interior bark-working technique andadapted it to the manufacture of wooden pails and chests.Figure 23.?Box fragments and band of grass. Drawn by Donald F. McGeein, a, Side ofsmall wooden box or dish (restored), from floor of Storage House, Old Town II (No. 367);b, b', fragment of a similar box or dish, same provenience (No. 367); c, bottom of woodenbox or vessel with copper nails, from just above floor of House 9, Old Town III (No. 974);d, band of ryegrass stems, strung together, from floor of Storage House, Old Town II(No. 283); d', diagram to show method of stringing d. 178 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192Two small fragments of birch (?) bark, one of which had been foldedtwice, were found in House 8, Old Town II. No birch grows in theYakutat area, but birchbark baskets fuU of soapberries were sometimestraded from the Southern Tutchone at the head of the Alsek River.Both berries and baskets were considered a novelty at Yakutat.Two pieces of spruce (?) bark were found on or near the floor ofHouse 9 in Old Town III. They may have been part of the roof, orof some big container such as the large sheets of spruce bark whichwere set on posts above the fire as pans in which to cook berries forstorage. CORDAGE, BASKETS, AND TEXTILESCORDAGEThere are seven carbonized pieces of two-ply Z-twist cords, from2 to 8 mm. in diameter, probably made of spruce root. Six were onthe floor of the Storage House, as was a Imotted length of spruceroot (?), and the seventh was from the fill of House 8.Examples of two-ply S-twist sinew (?) thread or string, about 0.5mm. in diameter, were preserved on the stem of an arrowhead fromOld Town II (pi. 14, b) and on two copper hooks from Old Town III(fig. 18, i).Informants mentioned heavier ropes or cords of spruce roots, ropesof untanned seal and sea lion hide, fishing lines of kelp, and braidedsquare sennit cords of porpoise sinew for bowstrings and harpoonhnes. Thread of porpoise sinew was used for sewing garments.TWINED BASKETSCarbonized fragments of several fine, twined spruce root baskets (pi.18, a) were found on or just above the floor of the Storage House inOld Town II. The direction of twining is downward from left toright; the fragments vary from about 6 warps and 8 wefts per squarecentimeter to 9 warps and 10 or 11 wefts. Salmonberry seeds werefound with one of the coarser baskets, suggesting that it had beenused to gather or store berries. The finer baskets were decoratedwith false embroidery, a technique in which the northern Tlingitexcel (Mason, 1904, pp. 308 flf.). "The Yakutat have always heldfirst place in basketry," and legend credits them with the origin ofthis art (Emmons, 1903, pp. 229-231). Yakutat women claim thattheir baskets were superior because they held the weft strands tightwith their teeth while weaving, whereas other Tlingit women used onlytheir fingers (sic) . Baskets of a variety of shapes and weaves were formerly made.Those designed to hold liquids were soaked and then rubbed on the de Lagunii] AUCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 179inside while still damp with a brown bear canine, which polished andflattened the strands, making the weave watertight. A bear canine(pi. 16, i), found on the floor of the Storage House, was probably usedfor this purpose, for there is a worn facet in the enamel and both edgesof the root have been cut flat.There is nothing about the archeological basket fragments todistinguish them from modern baskets of the Yakutat and othernorthern Tlingit (cf. Niblack, 1890, pi. xxxvi). The Haida makesimilar baskets, except that among them overlaid designs are said tobe recent. Decorated twined baskets are not found elsewhere on theNorthwest Coast until we reach the Makah (and the Nootka who haverecently copied them), but their baskets are rather different from thoseof the Thngit. Twined, decorated baskets are, of course, made bymany southern Northwest Coast tribes, includino; the Coast Salishand northwestern California groups.In southwestern Alaska, the Copper River Eyak, Chugach, andTanaina also made baskets of Tlingit type, similarly decorated, andthe Koniag made some twined baskets. The finest work was done bythe Aleut, although their baskets were of grass and difterent indesign. Twmed baskets were also made sometimes north of BeringStrait (Bu-ket-Smith and de Laguna, 1938, pi. 14; Birket-Smith,1953, fig. 28; Osgood, 1937, pi. 10, A-C). This type of basketry hasa circum-Pacific distribution, while coiled baskets occur in areasbeyond its limits. Unfortunately, archeological specimens are tooseldom preserved to give clear evidence of the antiquity or sequenceof types in any given area. However, twined basketry with falseembroidery is found from southern Oregon to the Columbia, withradiocarbon dates indicating an age of 9,000 years. Except for thematerials, it resembles Tlingit work very closely, and Cressman(1960, p. 73) reports that he saw the same kind of basketry in Heizer'scollections from Kodiak. Fragments of rather coarse, open twmedbaskets, as well as of coiled baskets, were found in the PlatinumVillage site in Bristol Bay (Larsen, 1950, fig. 57, 1-4)- This siteseems to be older than others in the area with pottery, and the materialfrom it shows similarities to both the Near Ipiutak of Point Hope andthe lower levels of Kachemak Bay. All available evidence, therefore,suggests great antiquity for twined baskets on the Northwest Coast.MATTINGA fragment of twined grass (or shredded bark?) matting wasfound on the floor of the Storage House. Our informants had heardthat shamans used such mats in their seances, but could not describethem. At a still earlier period, mats were undoubtedly used forordinary domestic purposes. The weft elements of this mat are about 180 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 1921 cm. apart and are twined upward from left to right, so that it isidentical with specimens from late prehistoric burials of the Chugach,Aleut, and Tena, as well as with the sleeping and kayak mats of themodern Kuskokwim-Kotzebue Eskimo (de Laguna, 1947, pis. xix, xx;1956, pis. 52 and 53; Oswalt, 1952, pi. 18, A, B). The undecoratedgrass mats on the walls and floor of the Eyak sleeping room maywell have been the same (Birket-Smith and de Laguna, 1938, p. 34).Coarse twined grass mats were found on the floor and sleeping plat-form of a bm-ned house at the Platinum Village site in Bristol Bay(Larsen, 1950, p. 184). Twined cedar-bark mats are common on theNorthwest Coast (Drucker, 1950, Traits 718, 733, etc.). In general,twined mats, used for bedding, seats, and for shrouds, have a verywide distribution in both the Old and New Worlds, and the oldestdirection of twining seems to have been up from left to right (deLaguna, 1947, pp. 217 jff., 272).BLANKETSThe geometric patterned woolen blanket, known at Yakutat inearly historic (and late prehistoric?) times (see pp. 171 and 196),is an obvious link with the Tlingit of southeastern Alaska. Accordingto our informants, a number of Yakutat women knew how to makeChilkat blankets of conventional, modern type with representativecrest designs, since they had at one time been "married into Chilkat."There was no specific reference to pattern boards which they mayhave used ; certainly there is none at Yakutat now.The knowledge of weaving blankets may have extended even farthernorthwest than Yakutat. Thus, Captain Cook (1785, vol. 2, p. 368)who visited Prince William Soimd in 1778 reported "one or twowoolen garments like those of Nootka." Strange (1928, pp. 42 f.)also said that the Chugach in 1786 had thick warm woolen blankets,but valued them too highly to sell any. He bought the skin of theanimal from which it was obtained, and described it as very similarto a sheepskin. In a report by Potap Zaikov, who explored PrinceWilham Sound in 1783 (Tikhmenev, 1863, App., p. 6 ^), the Russiansobserved "... a blanket made of white wool, similar to sheep's wool,plaited and fringed. The blanket was ornamented with yellow andcoffee color." Our Chugach informants, however, believed that itwas not until after the arrival of the Russians that they themselveslearned how to weave goat wool blankets (Birket-Smith, 1953, p. 64).In 1884, Abercrombie noted that the Eyak slept under woven goatwool blankets about a yard wide and 5 feet long, but our informants ' Translation by Ivan Petrofl. Permission to quote this passage has been given by the Director of theBancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley. de Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 181denied that the Eyak laiew how to make them (Bii"ket-Smith andde Laguna, 1938, pp. 43, 70).The lack of specific mention of designs on Chugach and Eyakblankets and the description in Tikhmenev suggest that they wereeither plain or had only simple geometric patterns, like that of theYakutat blanket, for surely anything resembling the elaborate crestpatterns of modern ChUkat blankets would have been remarked.On the basis of her detailed study (see pp. 187 ff.), Carolyn Osbornerecognizes a northern center for woolen blankets with geometricdesigns.MISCELLANEOUS WORKED BONE, STONE, AND WOODWORKED BONEA flat piece of bone from Old Town III, (7.5) cm. long and 1.9 by1 cm., may have been the handle of a tool. There is a shallow cutacross one face near the unbroken rounded end. Another possiblehandle is a flat piece of seal (?) bone, (9.2) cm. long, 2.3 by 1.2 cm.,from Old Town II. It is ground on several sides; one end is roundedand smooth, the other broken. A somewhat similar worn bone frag-ment from Old Town II, (4.7) cm. long, has a hole through the roundedend. Also from Old Town III is a cut section of animal rib, 7.8cm. long, \vith one rounded end; the other is damaged. This alsomay have been a handle.A flat piece of whalebone from Old Town III has been whittledinto a disk, 1.8 cm. in diameter and 1.2 cm. thick (for a top?).In addition, 28 nondescript pieces of bone, most of which appearto be workshop debris, show that bones were split by cutting groovesin one or both surfaces and that bone was also shaped by adzing,whittling, and grinding. Two pieces from Old Town II are thearticular ends cut from animal long bones.The distribution of these pieces is: 1 from Canoe Pass, 15 from OldTown III, 15 from Old Town II, 2 from Old Town I, and 3 fromOld Town, level unknown. It should be noted that these workedbones include fragments of whale or porpoise bone, mostly from OldTown III, of large mammal (bear? and mountain goat), of smallmammals, and of birds.CHERT CORES, NODULES, AND CHIPSThree cores of green chert, two about the size of the fist, fromwhich flakes were struck by direct percussion, are from Old TownIII, and another core is from an unknown level. Three nodulesof green chert, about 3 by 4 cm., struck from larger pieces, are fromOld Town III.693-818?64 13 182 BUREAU OF AlVIERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192 Figure 24(For legend, see opposite page.) de Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 183Some 45 chips of chert, mostly green in color, range in length from1 to 6.5 cm. A few might have been used for scrapers or knives,but most seem to be the debris of manufacture. We do not knowwhat was being made, however, since the few finished artifacts offlaked stone include no specimens of chert. The proveniences ofthese flakes are: 4 from Old To^^^l III, 2 from Old Town II, 1 froman unknoAvn level, and all the rest from Old Town I, including theupper and lower levels of Mounds C and D and of the fill in HousePit 7.Thus, of 52 pieces of worked chert only 9 came from Old TownIII, 2 from Old Town II, and 2 from an unkno\\Ti level in Mound B,showing that the flaking of chert, whatever the purpose, had becomevirtually obsolete by the period represented by Alounds A and B.WORKED QUARTZ, GREENSTONE, AND SLATEFrom Old To\vn III is a flake of quartz, 4.8 cm. long, which couldhave been used as a knife or scraper.In addition to the fragments of adz blades, already described(p. 95), there are 6 flakes of greenstone. One is from Diyaguna'Et,one from Old Town III, three from Old Town I, and 1 piece from OldTown, level unkno^vn. The last could have been used as a scraper.Of chipped and ground slate, a piece from Little Fort Island mayhave been intended for a knife blade. The proveniences of otherfragments are: one from Old Town III, one from Old Town II, andthree from Old Town I.MISCELLANEOUS WOODEN OBJECTSIn addition to the artifacts described elsewhere, many piecesof carbonized wood were found, chiefly in the burned houses. Theseare mostly fragments of firewood, workshop chips or splinters, a fewof which show the marks of adz and knife but only 10 appear to havebeen purposely shaped.Among the latter, there are two slender wooden pins, well madeand polished. One (fig. 24, d), pointed at both ends and 17.5 cm.long, is from the Storage House in Old Town II; the other (fig. 15, c),from Old Town III, is now broken, but was evidently pointed at oneend. A more roughly made pin, originally over 30 cm. in length,came from House 8 in Old Town II.Figure 24.?Wooden objects. Drawn by Donald F. McGeein. a, Spatulate object, fromfloor of Storage House, Old Town II (No. 388); b, wooden blade, from below floor ofStorage House, Old Town II (No. 423); c, spatulate object, from below floor of StorageHouse, Old Town II (No. 429); d, wooden pin, from just above floor of Storage House,Old Town II (No. 256); e, fragment of bidarka rib (?), from floor of Storage House, OldTown II (No. 399);/, cut branch, from floor of House 9, Old Town III (No. 658). 184 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192A stick (fig. 16, d), 42.5 cm. long, has been trimmed smooth, andboth rounded ends are beveled from one side. It may have beenused to spread fish for drying or cooking.There are four spatulate wooden fragments, also from the StorageHouse. One (fig. 24, c), now (14.4) cm. long, has a series of finelyincised chevrons on the flat blade near what appears to be the handle(on the side not illustrated). This may have been a paddle forbeating up soapberries, an imported delicacy. Another (fig. 24, b),looking like an asymmetric wooden knife, 17.8 cm. long, suggeststhe implement used for eating sea urchin ovaries. A third mayhave been intended for a wedge, although it shows no signs of wear.The functions of the other two specimens (fig. 24, a) cannot be guessed.There is also a section of a slightly curved branch (fig. 24,/), now(18) cm. long and 2.5 cm. in diameter, which has been cut with asharp metal (?) knife. Both (?) ends were originally bluntly pointed.It was found in a litter of charred shavings, twigs, and moss on thefloor of House 9 in Old Town III.The proveniences of the other pieces of worked wood are: 15 fromOld Town III, and 37 from Old Town II. Some of the larger pieceswere sent to Dr. J. Louis Giddings, at the Haffenrefi'er Museum of theAmerican Indian, Brown University, with the hope that these, to-gether with borings from livings trees in the area, might furnishmaterials for dedrochronological dating. The samples were, however,insufficient. Other pieces of wood were given to Miss ElizabethRalph, in the Department of Physics, University of Pennsylvania, forradiocarbon dating. We are extremely grateful to her for the resultsreported below (p. 206). CANOESThere are two bluntly pointed, slightly curved wooden sticks(fig. 24, e), flat on one side and rounded on the other. One from theStorage House in Old Town II is (13.4) cm. long; the other, smallerfragment is from House Pit I. It is possible that these were piecesof ribs for bidarkas or kayaks, since they resemble some Chugachspecimens (de Laguna, 1956, p. 247), and our Yakutat informantsreported that their ancestors long ago used sealskin canoes. Theseincluded large boats like umiaks, one-hole kayaks, and two-holebidarkas. Obviously, there could never have been a complete boatin the Storage House.While the ethnographic evidence (cf. de Laguna, 1963) is sufficientto establish that the prehistoric Yakutat once made skin boats likethose of the Chugach, this cannot be said of the Tlingit, with thepossible exception of the Chilkat. However, the skin canoe used bythe latter for crossing lakes when on trading trips to the interior, had a de Lagunal ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 185covering of moose or caribou hide, not of sealskin (Drucker, 1950,Trait 390, p. 254), and was probably, therefore, of Athabaskan type;it was paddled, not rowed. The Chilkat tradition that they once hadonly skin boats, "before they knew there were other people living tothe south and west on the coast," is also suggestive of an interiororigin.While the Yakutat themselves made or purchased from theirsouthern neighbors several well-known Northwest Coast types ofdugout, they made two distinctive types of their own. The forked-prow canoe for the open sea or swift currents was made only by theEyak-speaking Gulf of Alaska Indians, from Yakutat to the mouthof the Copper River; the canoe with spoon-shaped bow and ram forsealing in the ice floes was made only at Yakutat and Icy Bay. We areinclined to consider dugouts as peculiar to the Northwest Coast, soit is important to remember that they were made by the Chugach,Tanaina (the latter possibly in imitation of the Kenai PeninsulaEskimo), and even by some of the northern Koniag, although amongthese peoples the dugout was never as common as boats of other kinds(de Laguna, 1956, pp. 241 ff.).While the dugout is the modern type of craft on all the NorthwestCoast, Borden (1951, pp. 46 ff.) had argued that the ancient inhabi-tants of WTialen Farm I and Locarno Beach I and II must have huntedseal and porpoise from skin canoes because they lacked antler wedges,pestle-shaped hand mauls, and large adz blades?tools which hebelieved were essential to making dugouts. Although the presenceof such implements does indicate a well-developed woodworkingindustry, their absence cannot prove that boats were made of skin,not of wood, since the modern Coast Salish fell trees by burning orchiseHng with a relatively small adz (Barnett, 1939, Traits 571, 572),and the Tlingit, at any rate, shape their dugouts with a small planingadz and crooked knife. This question has been further discussed byOsborne, Caldwell, and Crabtree (1956, p. 121). However, weshould also note that Borden (personal communication) believesthat the dugout was made in the Marpole Phase, which was in largepart contemporaneous with that of Locarno Beach. Probably thequestion of boat types on the southern Northwest Coast in the mostancient days is not yet ready for solution. THE YAKUTAT BLANKETBy Carolyn Osborne*The blanket remains which were recovered from a shaman's graveon Knight Island, Yakutat Bay, were cleaned between two framesof plastic screening with sprayed detergent suds and clear water.Even though unfolding was done carefully the largest fragment meas-ures a very ragged lOj^ (warp) inches by 12}^ (weft) inches. Thisfragment, which is apparently from the main body of the robe (orceremonial blanket), contains neither warp (top and bottom) norweft (side) selvages. Fragments of both warp (top) and weft (side)selvages do exist, but I was unable to piece these to the other frag-ments to give continuity of design or weave or to give an indicationof size of the blanket. There can be no doubt that all of the fragmentsbelong to a single blanket. The many fragments have been placedwith a high degree of accuracy, in the following order: i.e., the heavygeometric-patterned twined fragments with the fur binding as topselvage; the twilled-twined gold or yellow with the concentric rec-tangles of dark brown and with multiple tassels as the main body ofthe textile; the heavy warpwise-twined rows and the attached fringeand the wi'apped bundles as side border. One fragment of this sideborder had a section of three-strand braid attached (?) to it; it maypossibly have been part of the lower border.DESCRIPTIONMaterials.?Samiples of the various yarns (warp; light-coloredweft; decorative yarn used both weftwise and warpwise; tassels; furedging) were sent to the laboratory of the Federal Bureau of Inves-tigation, which very kindly consented to identify the fibers used inthis and other local aboriginal textiles. Their findings are as follows:Warp yarn: Goat (includes mountain goat) dyed light brown. [There is apossibility that this might be burial staining; it seems probable that the originalcolor was either natural white or light yellow.]Weft yarn: Goat (includes mountain goat) dyed light brown. [This is the samecolor as the warp yarn.] ' I wish to express my gratitude to the following: Mr. J. Edgar Hoover, who directed the laboratory ofthe Federal Bureau of Investigation to identify the fibers; Dr. Kaj Birket-Smith, who supplied photographsof the Copenhagen blanket; and the Portland Art Museum for lending the Tsimshian blanket from theRasmussen Collection. This paper was read, in part, at the 1957 meetings of the Society for AmericanArchaeology, in Madison, Wis. After this reading Dr. Arnold Pilling kindly sent me his notes on theoriginal catalogs of the Cook and Vancouver Collections in the British Museum. 187 188 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bdll. 192Tassel of blanket and decorative yarn: Goat (includes mountain goat) dyeddark brown.Side border decorative yarn: Goat (includes mountain goat) dyed dark brown.Fur edging: Otter {Lutra*) or sea otter (Enhydra) natural light brown to darkbrown.The warp yams are two-ply, Z-twist (singles S-) approximatelyone-sixteenth of an inch in diameter; loose to medium degree in twist.They are invariably Ught colored. Warp yarns were set up 14 to theinch and were used in pairs or fours; never singly. The light weftyarns, which form the background color of the blanket, are also two-ply Z-twist as is the warp, but are smaller in diameter and somewhatharder twisted. The dark-brown decorative yarn and fringe yarn isconsiderably smaller in diameter (a minimum of one-thirty-second ofan inch) ; it is also two-ply Z-twist and medium to hard in degree. Thedark-brown side border decorative twining yarn is approximatelyone-eighth of an inch in diameter; two-ply Z-twist and usually hardtwist. The attached fringe at the side selvage is light colored, two-plyZ-twist about one-eighth of an inch in diameter.Technique.?As previously mentioned, there are fragments of threeor possibly four sections of weaving, of distinctive design andtechnique. Five fragments of the top border of the blanket arepresent, of which two show the complete complex of techniques(pi. 19, a). The larger of these measures 5}^ inches long (warp) by 6%inches wide (weft); this fragment and the next larger have portionsof the top selvage and fur. The warp, as is common for the suspended-warp weaving of all Northwest Coast blankets (with the exception ofthe Salish which were ring-woven on a tension bar loom) was doubledat the top over a heavy loom cord, and secured with an inital row ofplain twining. This row of twining was covered with the otter or seaotter fur band (hide and fur) about 1 inch wide, which was folded overthe top edge so that it appears equally on both sides, and sewn. Allof the twining in the blanket is carried over paired or quadrupledwarps. The pitch of the background weave of the light-coloredwefts, of the weftwise decorative twining (three-strand), and of thevertical decorative wefts (three-strand twining) is invariably up-to-the-left. This is in contrast to the elaborate stylized naturalistic Chilkatblankets in which change of direction of pitch of twining may be usedto emphasize design breaks and changes.The sequence of the twining rows from the first weft workingdownward is: two rows of plain twining over paired warps; five rowsof twilled-twining over paired warps; one row of three-strand dark-brown twining; 10 rows of twilled-twining over quadrupled warps. * In view of the horror which the modern Tllngit and Eyak have of the land otter and the taboo againstwearing its fur, we may assume that this was sea otter fur.?F. de L. de Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 189The pattern then proceeds into a geometric zigzag design of dark-brown and Hght-brown wefts. There is no "eccentric" wefting inthis section as is common in the Chilkat blankets; all of the wefts areat right angles to the warps. In all of this zigzag section, the weavingis accomplished with one light twining element and one dark. Thepattern is therefore reversible; when the light appears on one surface,the dark forms the identical pattern on the reverse. Of necessity,in this zigzag design, therefore, the twining proceeds on a twill-lineover paired warps (see fig, 25, a). Between each rectangle of thebold zigzag design are four vertical bands, one-half of an inch Avide,alternating light and dark wefts. In the fragments preserved, thereis not one of the complete rectangles of the zigzag design; their widthis uncertain. The maximum of width of the zigzag block of anyfragment, which is therefore a minimum for the design, is 5% inches.The warp length of the design band, which is complete in severalfragments, is 2^ inches.Unlike the Chilkat blanket weaving in which short pieces of weftyarns were inserted in the design pattern and locked with the adjoiningwefts, all of the wefts in this textile proceed from selvage to selvageand were woven directly across the entire width, forming the zigzagdesigns and the vertical bars as these design elements appear in turn.Warp count throughout the blanket is 14 to the inch, used primarilyin pairs. The Chilkat blankets often had warps added to aid inshaping the blanket to a curved shape. There was no evidence ofadded warps in the fragments of the Knight Island blanket.The weft count in these top fragments is 32 single wefts used inpairs (i.e., 16 weft courses or rows) an inch.At the base of this bold pattern is a single row of dark three-strandtwine, followed by four rows of the twilled-twining of the light-colored wool; another single row of dark twining, three-strand; andtwo-rows of light twilled-twining. At the very bottom of one of thefragments, follo^ving the above series of twined rows, is a row oftwining showing two light wefts and contiguous to these two darkwefts. These may well indicate that there were originally twocomplete rows of the horizontal bands of zigzags and bars. No morethan this hint was present.The fragments of what appear to be the main body of the blanketare more numerous than the top border pieces. Completely cleanedand in good enough condition to be teased apart for thorough analysiswere four large fragments, the largest of which is 10}^ by 9% inches.It is exceedingly unfortunate that none of this series could be fittedto the preceding pattern section. This portion of the blanket isprimarily light wefted with designs of concentric rectangles of adeep reddish brown (pi. 19, b). The basic weave is twilled-twining 190 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192 niTfiilifiiflll!i!(| - - -^^ Ns /- ?-?- zjz-z.z^L^JLZ.z^:.zjz,zr ^'' *? ^{---/ VV /nN^SN<'X'>^ 4-- ^^^VV^NS ^X^/vt^-e? 2 ^ / NX /nn/xx/xn<*? 4 ^^ i-^" ./vv^xv ?^^/>.Vv^/nn ^ XV / \># v> ^ ,; 7, ~,~.?r.".;^.T '^ fS ' ^'' ''' ^^ * '' ^ ''-^ --" '.--"'X--'-^ rrrrrrrii;;^ ^: ^ ^^ ^ .. /^ _>/ s\ ^ \s^ v/ -?> -?^ < XX ? w ^ x^ / y : v/ N\/ xN r T V -*^- >'xx