de Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 3 



Cordova on the eastern edge of Prince William Sound to the Italio River, 

 a little over 30 miles east of Yakntat. Still farther east, the inhabitants 

 of the Akwe River and Dry Bay area are reported to have spoken 

 Athabaskan (Tutchone?). Already in the 18th centmy was being 

 felt that movement of Tlingit from southeastern Alaska which intro- 

 duced Tlingit speech and culture to Yakutat Bay, and some Tlingit 

 were apparently even then living at Lituya and Dry Bays. The 

 Russians 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 of 

 Tlingit. Some items of material culture, notably the hunting canoe 

 \vith forked prow, link the Yakutat with the Eyak of the Copper 

 River Delta. 



According to Birket-Smith (Birket-Smith and de Laguna, 1938, 

 pp. 530 f.), Eyak culture represents a very ancient phase of northern 

 Northwest Coast culture, somewhat modified by more recent influences 

 from the Eskimo and the Tlingit. Although it may be impossible to 

 trace Eyak speech southeast of the Italio River, it seems likely that 

 all the northern Tlingit area was occupied until relatively recently 

 by small scattered populations with a simple form of Northwest 

 Coast culture, quite possibly one similar to that of the Eyak (de 

 Laguna, 1953). Nowhere in northern Tlingit territory are there 

 large or numerous archeological sites comparable to those of the 

 Koniag or Chugach or to those on the southern British Columbia 

 coast (Drucker, 1943). Tlingit sib traditions would indicate a very 

 recent expansion of population, owing in part to immigration from 

 the south, perhaps under pressure from the Tsimshian and Haida, 

 in part to immigration of Athabaskans from the interior, and in part 

 to local population growth. This expansion probably accompanied 

 the development of classic Tlingit cultural patterns. An important 

 factor may have been contact with the European traders in the 18th 

 century which made possible a richer life on the coast. The same 

 processes by which the coastal Tlingit of southeastern Alaska absorbed 

 and acculturated originally non-Tlingit elements presumably operated 

 in the Yakutat area, where some of the events and changes are 

 remembered in oral traditions. 



It was expected, therefore, that archeological research at Yakutat 

 would reveal a rather simple type of culture, resembling the culture 

 reported ethnologically from the Copper River Eyak, and that the 

 more recent sites might document the growth of Tlingit influence. 



TRADITIONAL HISTORY OF THE YAKUTAT AREA 



According to informants at Yakutat, their ancestors once occupied 

 all of the Gulf of Alaska from Cape Martin, east of the Copper River, to 



