114 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192 



but are otherwise not documented from the Northwest Coast. In 

 the Fraser Delta and San Juan Island area they are found as early 

 as the Locarno Beach Phase and the Developmental and Maritime 

 Phases on Cattle Point (Borden, 1962; King, 1950, p. 39). 



Chugach saws (de Laguna, 1956, pp. 127-130) were very numerous, 

 and seemed to be used especially in making long slender slate weapon 

 points and in cutting out the blades for planing adzes from green- 

 stones and other hard rocks. Stone saws declined slightly in number 

 during the later prehistoric period on Prince William Sound, perhaps 

 because of the lessened importance of the planing adz. An extension 

 of this trend may explain why only two very doubtful specimens 

 were found at Yakutat. However, the Yakutat may have cut stone 

 by means of wood or bone tools and sand. This apparently simple 

 method has a wider distribution than has the stone saw, and it is 

 to be inferred where sawed stone is present but the stone saw has 

 not been found. 



GRINDING SLABS 



There are relatively heavy slabs (four of sandstone, two of micro- 

 crystalline rock, one of granite), ranging in size from 25 by 18 cm. 

 to over 37 by 20 cm., and in thickness from 5.5 to 15 cm. One or 

 both surfaces have been ground flat or even concave from use. Some 

 had obviously been used to sharpen and polish stone and bone imple- 

 ments, and two had been used to grind red paint. Our informants 

 said that edible roots and medicinal plants were ground on such 

 slabs. No handstones (manos) were found, unless the hammerstone- 

 abraders served such a function. 



In the fill of House Pit 1, two freshly sharpened splitting adzes 

 (pi. 5, b, d) were found cached under one grinding slab on which they 

 had probably been sharpened. A grinding slab from a cache below 

 this house pit is smeared with red ocher, and is made of such extremely 

 hard rock that it would have served better as a mortar than as a 

 grindstone. 



The proveniences of the specimens are: five from Old Town III 

 (including two from the fill of House Pit 1, and one from the pit 

 below it), two from Old Town II (on and below the floor of House 

 8). These locations, and the weight of most of the specimens, suggest 

 that the grinding slabs were used at or near the places where they 

 were found. 



A few grinding slabs are known from sites on Prince William Sound, 

 Kachemak Bay, Lake Iliamna, and the Aleutians. In the last area 

 they are restricted to the preparation of paint, while lamps on Kodiak 

 were sometimes used for the same purpose. Manos or hand stones 

 for use with grinding slabs occur on Kachemak Bay, Lake Iliamna, 



