de Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 113 



1962, fig, 2). They are known from the Canadian Thule culture, 

 from Punuk times (?) on the Kobuk River, and from protohistoric 

 northern Alaskan Eskimo and Tena sites. They occur among the 

 Pacific Esldmo: at Kodiak (earlier periods especially, contempo- 

 raneous with Kachemak Bay III?), on Kachemak Bay (period un- 

 known), and Chugach sites (late prehistoric only?). They have not 

 been reported from the Copper River Eyak. Drucker finds them 

 especially characteristic of the Tlingit, Tsimshian, and Haida, but 

 records no examples south of the Bella Cool a and the northern 

 Kwaldutl. Although found among the Interior Salish, they are 

 unknown from the Coast Salish or from sites in their territory. In 

 distribution and in method of hafting, these grooved maul heads 

 suggest a relationship to the heavy splitting adz, although they have 

 a wider distribution than the latter, especially in the north. While 

 particularly characteristic of the Pacific Eskimo and northern North- 

 west Coast, the grooved maul head seems to make a relatively late 

 appearance and to remain less important than the ordinary cobble 

 hammerstone. According to Yakutat and Angoon Tlingit inform- 

 ants, most mauls (for driving wedges^ stakes for fishtraps, etc.) 

 were of hardwood, and this may always have been so, even though 

 Drucker (1950, Trait 427, p, 256) suggests that the "wooden maul 

 of trunk and branch" used by the Haida, Tsimshian, and Tlingit, 

 may not be aboriginal, 



STONE SAWS(?), GRINDING SLABS, WHETSTONES, AND PAINT 



STONE SAWS (?) 



Although fragments of sawed slate were found, no clearly identifiable 

 stone saws were recovered. A specimen of sandy schist from Old 

 Town II, listed among the irregular rectangular scrapers, shows 

 wear suggestive of use as a saw. From Diyaguna'Et is a flat rec- 

 tangular slab of sandstone, 11.8 by 5.6 by 0.9 cm., with thin edges 

 and rounded corners, but it is too badly weathered for certain identi- 

 fication. Keithahn (1962, p. 72) lists nine saws from Yakutat in the 

 Alaska Historical Museum at Juneau. 



Stone saws were found at sites on the Kobuk River (Giddings, 

 1944, p. 119), and at Tena sites on the Yukon. They appear in 

 Kachemak Bay III, and are numerous on Cook Inlet and Prince 

 William Sound, rare on Kodiak and the Aleutians (de Laguna, 1943, 

 pp. 62, 175 ff,; 1947, pp. 123, 150, 169 ff.; Birket-Smith, 1953, p. 

 212; Heizer, 1956, p. 46). Tlingit examples were found in the Angoon 

 area, although not recognized by the natives (de Laguna, 1960, pi. 

 7, q, r, p. 105), and they may have been used by the Nootka. Stone 

 saws also occur at sites in Coast Salish and Interior Salish country. 



