de Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 93 



reshaped Iroin another implement, possibly a splittinjj; adz, and has 

 a single broad groove. The cutting edge is broken, and the specimen 

 was 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 asymmetric 

 planing adz blade. 



In addition, a celt (pi. 6, i) from the fill of House Pit 1, Old Town 

 III, was probably a planing adz blade, although the asymmetric 

 shape of the butt suggests that it may have been hafted like an ax. 

 There is a similar uncertainty about the blade of a small woodworking 

 tool (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 Copper 

 River Eyak, the Chugachs, and the Koniag, with a possible Tlingit 

 exception (Keithahn, 1962, p. 69). The specimens seem to be unusual 

 variants of the splitting adz, appearing sometimes as double-bitted im- 

 plements such as an "adz-ax" or an "ax-pick." They are few in nmnber 

 and not known before the early prehistoric period in Prince William 

 Sound and the upper (Koniag) levels on Kodiak. Crude ungrooved 

 stone ax blades, lashed to the side of the handle, have been reported 

 from the Eyak, the Ingalik Tena, and the northern Eskimo (for 

 chopping 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 from 

 Yakutat, probably hafted as an ax blade. 



PLANING ADZES 



There are 13 planing adz blades (pi. 6). These are ungrooved stone 

 celts that are wider than they are thick, in contrast to the splitting 

 adz blades that are thicker (higher) than they are wide. One sm-face 

 is more convex than the other, and they were evidently hafted by 

 lashing the flatter side against an (inverted) L-shaped handle, like 

 modern steel planing adz blades from Yakutat (cf. Niblack, 1890, 

 pi. XX, fig. 79, g; pi. xxiii, fig. 94). The archeological specimens 

 are made of greenstone or hard, fine-gTained rock, and show various 

 degrees of finish. Some are made of a naturally shaped stone, or a 

 section (boulder chip) broken from a cobble, with only a sharpened 

 edge; others have been neatly shaped by pecking, flaking, and prob- 

 ably by sawing, although none is polished at the butt. They are 

 roughly rectangular in outline, usually narrowing at the butt, although 

 two specimens from Old Town II and one from Old Town I are 

 naiTOwer at the cutting edge. An kon blade (pi. 4, I) from Old 

 Town III, probably for a planing adz. has already been described 

 (p. 83). 



