de Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 105 



a 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 or 

 knives 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 beaver 

 and other rodents appear sporadically among the Eskimo, being known 

 from the Ipiutak of Point Hope, Nukleet I at Denbigh on Norton 

 Sound, 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 (de 

 Laguna, 1960, p. 118, pi. 9, o-q), and the tool is reported ethnologically 

 from 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 British 

 Columbia sites as Whalen Farm II, Comox, Cattle Point (Maritime 

 Phase), and Marpole (Eburne) (Borden, 1950, p. 20; 1962; King, 1950, 

 pp. 51, 58). Beaver-tooth tools are, however, much more extensively 

 used by the Indians of the northwest interior than on the coast. 



STONE SCRAPERS 



Six flat ovoid boulder chips, or flakes struck from hard beach 

 cobbles, 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 a 

 skin 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, and 

 three 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 edge 

 and a wide tang, somewhat constricted laterally as if for hafting. 

 Somewhat similar blades of iron are now fastened to handles from 3 

 to 4 feet long for use as fleshers in cleaning and softening sealskins 

 while they are being stretched and dried in a frame. The iron blade 

 from 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 at 

 or near the working edge. Three are from Old Town III, and one each 

 from Old Town II and I. There is also an oval end scraper blade of 

 slaty schist from Old Town III which could have been used as a flesher. 



