de Lagiina] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 121 



1938, pp. 43, 70). Equally crude lamps have been found on Prince 

 William Sound, Cook Inlet, and the Aleutians, but these are usually 

 of hard rock. 



In general, the Yakutat lamps belong to the ancient pointed oval 

 type (de Laguna, 1947, pp. 252 ff.; Birkct-Smith, 1953, pp. 184 ff.), 

 common to the Aleut-Pacific Eskimo, Near Iputak, Norton, and 

 Dorset cultures. The Yakutat lamps, however, have a style of their 

 own, for they tend to be circular rather than oval. The shelf or 

 groove inside the rim is not a characteristic of other southwestern 

 Alaskan lamps, and the depression in the bottom of the bowl has 

 been reported only from a few oval lamps from the lower levels at 

 Uyak Bay, Kodiak Island (Heizer, 1956, pp. 35 f.). 



The larger Yakutat lamps correspond roughly in size to the regular 

 Chugach lamps, with maximum diameters of 12 to 26. G cm., or to 

 Koniag lamps. The smaller Yakutat lamps, with diameters of 8 to 

 11.5 cm., correspond to Chugach specimens of 9.3 to 12 cm. that were 

 considered to be hunters' lamps (de Laguna, 1956, pp. 144 ff.). Simi- 

 lar small lamps for emergency use on hunting trips are known from 

 Kachem.ak Bay, Kodiak, and the Aleutians. Yakutat informants did 

 not mention hunters' lamps, and the Old Town specimens may have 

 been used by little girls. The still smaller Yakutat examples, 5 to 6 

 cm. in diameter, overlap in size some of the Aleut and Koniag hunters' 

 lamps, and also the tiny Aleut specimens, some less than 4.5 cm. in 

 length, which Jochelson (1925, p. 74) considered to be toys or mortuary 

 offerings. No such tiny lamps were found on Prince William Sound 

 or Kachemak Bay. Heizer (1956, p. 40) acknowledges that it is hard 

 to draw any line between hunters' lamps and "pitted stones." 



Stone lamps appear sporadically on the Northwest Coast. They 

 are known from the Chilkat Tlingit and southern Tsimshian (Krause, 

 1956, p. 144; Drucker, 1950, Trait 963), while shell lamps were used 

 by the southern Thngit, Tsimshian, and Kwakiutl (Drucker, 1950, 

 Trait 964), Although a few crude stone vessels, one or two of which 

 might have been used as lamps, were found at the historic Thngit 

 fort, Daxatkanada, their function is unknown, and Angoon informants 

 said they had never used stone lamps (de Laguna, 1960, p. 103). 

 Drucker (1943, pp. 54 ff.), in discussing archeological stone vessels 

 from the Northwest Coast warns us against the assumption that they 

 were lamps, since many were mortars for tobacco, berries, or paint, 

 and others may have been dishes. (See also Keithahn, 1962, p. 73.) 

 Such stone vessels, identified as mortars, appear in the Eraser Delta 

 sites of Marpole (Eburne), Point Gray, and Whalen Farm I, and what 

 were tentatively identified as lamps were found at Locarno Beach II 

 (Borden, 1950, pp. 14, 17, 20). Yakutat lamps, however, are obviously 

 most closely related to those of the Pacific Eskimo. 



