FOREWORD 



This report deals with archeological investigations in the Yakutat 

 Bay area, Alaska, which were undertaken as part of a larger program 

 of coordinated archeological and ethnological studies of the northern 

 Tlingit. The ultimate objective of the program, as originally formu- 

 lated, was to gather materials on the history of northern Thngit 

 culture 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 ethnological 

 reconnaissance 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 of 

 Alaska, respectively. As a result, the Yakutat region on the Gulf 

 of Alaska and the territory of the Angoon Thngit in southeastern 

 Alaska were chosen, A report on the field work at Angoon in 1949 and 

 1950 has been pubhshed by the Bureau of American Ethnology as 

 Bulletin 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 ethnological 

 work in the winter and spring of 1954. While Frederica de Laguna 

 was in overall charge of this research, the archeological parties were 

 led by Francis A. RiddeU (now State archeologist for the California 

 Department of Parks and Recreation). He was assisted in 1952 by 

 J. Arthur Freed, Kenneth S. Lane, and Donald F. McGeein, and in 

 1953 by Lane, McGeein, Albert H. Olson, Jr., and Robert T. Anderson 

 (now assistant professor of sociology and anthropology at Mills 

 College), then all students at the University of California or recent 

 graduates from that institution. Dr. Catharine McClellan (now 

 associate professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin) 

 collaborated in the ethnological work at Yakutat in 1952, and Mary 

 Jane Downes (now Mrs. Benjamin Lenz, then fellow in anthropology 

 at Br3m Mawr College) served as ethnographic assistant in 1954. In 

 connection with this program, a study of Eyak Hnguistics was made 



IS 



