do Lafrunn] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUT AT BAY AREA, ALASKA ] 23 



Town I. We do not know whether they were used as tools for dig- 

 ging or as weapons, but it seems more Hkcly that they were the heads 

 or spikes for war clubs. 



One informant described a "pick" used against enemies or animals, 

 which had a hard stone or bone head, 12 to 18 inches long, lashed to 

 the top of a T-shaped handle. One end of the head was sharply 

 pointed, the other had a peglike projection, just long enough to 

 perforate the skull. The informant said he had found a stone weap- 

 on of this kind on Lost River and had seen a similar bone one at 

 Diyaguna'Et. 



The double-pointed club head is known from the late prehistoric 

 Chugach, the Tena (at least those on the Yukon above the Tanana), 

 the Tlingit, Tsimshian, and Haida (de Laguna, 1947, pis. x, ^, xi, 2, 

 pp. 162-164; 1956, p. 130; Birket-Sraith, 1953, p. 216). A similar 

 object is published by Keithahn (1962, fig. 1, c, p. 69) as an ice ax. 

 As far as we can discover, no other American groups used this type 

 of weapon, and it probably originated on the northern Northwest 

 Coast. 



The chipped-stone picks from Old Town, which may also have been 

 weapons, are smaller than somewhat similar Chugach specimens, 

 all probably from late prehistoric sites, HrdliSka (1944, p. 333) 

 mentions what may be a stone pick from the upper level at Uyak 

 Bay, but the type is otherwise unknown from Kodiak. Some form 

 of war club or "slave killer" seems to be universal on the Northwest 

 Coast, although most Tlingit examples have nicely polished stone 

 or bone picks hafted by insertion into the handle (Niblack, 1890, 

 pi. XLvi, figs. 257, 258). A club head of this kind was found at 

 Daxatkanada near Angoon (de Laguna, 1960, p. 102). Keithahn 

 (1962, figs. 6 and 7, pp. 73 f.) describes several Tlingit varieties of 

 fighting picks, slave killers, and stone clubs. 



LARGE WEAPON BLADES 



In dealing with archeological specimens, especially with blades 

 found without hafts, it is usually impossible to distinguish between 

 daggers, large flensing knives, and spears. Even size is not sufficient 

 to separate lance and dart points from blades for arrows or harpoon 

 heads, although the latter are usually smaller. Archeological ex- 

 amples of large weapon blades from Yakutat include three of chipped 

 stone, three fragmentary specimens of ground slate, a bone blade, 

 an iron spearhead, and an iron dagger. Since the same forms of 

 weapon blades are frequently encountered on the Northwest Coast 

 and in southwestern Alaska in ground slate, bone, copper, and iron, 

 we can assume that the last two, admittedly modern iron specimens 

 from Yakutat, illustrate the types of spears and daggers made in 



