de Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 101 



New and Old Worlds (Birket-Smith, 1953, p. 187; de Laguna, 1947, 

 p. 182). However, iilo blades of ground slate date back to Kachemak 

 Bay I (for which Rainey and Ralph, 1959, p. 371, have assigned a 

 radiocarbon 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). Except 

 for Okvik and Old Bering Sea, none of these early Eskimo cultures in 

 Alaska has a well-developed ground slate industry; ground slate ulo 

 blades are lacking in the Dorset, "Paleo-Aleut," and Ipiutak. In 

 these, and in a number of earlier cultures, chipped blades presumably 

 take the place of the ground slate ulo. Slate ulo blades (Drucker's 

 types I to III, 1943, pp. 51 f., 123 f.; 1950, Trait 108, "stone fish cutting 

 Ivuives"; Barnett, 1939, Trait 349) are of wide distribution on the 

 Northwest Coast, although they are not common except in the 

 Coast Salish area. At both Angoon (de Laguna, 1960, pp. 109 f.) 

 and Yakutat sites, ground slate ulo blades were represented only by 

 doubtful fragments, in striking contrast to the quantities from the 

 Pacific Eskimo and Eraser River regions. Moreover, in both these 

 areas 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 I 

 site 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 Pacific 

 Eskimo culture to prove or disprove Borden's (1962) thesis that ground 

 slate 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 slate 

 ulo was not as popular as Imives of other materials, chiefly shell, but 

 we need clearer archeological evidence on this point. Modern ulos 

 with metal blades are illustrated from the Tlingit and Haida by 

 Niblack (1890, pi. xxiv, figs. 95, 96). 



Nowhere on the Northwest Coast except at Yalmtat and among 

 the Chilkat was native copper abundant enough to have been the 

 preferred material for ulos. Blades like those from Old Town are also 

 known from Kachemak Bay IV (de Laguna, 1934, pi. 49, 14, 15). A 

 small copper blade for a man's knife like an ulo was found in a late 

 prehistoric 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 was 

 doubtful of his informants' accuracy. The latters' testimony is, how- 



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