de I^giina] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUT AT BAY AREA, ALASKA 159 



and several lumps are waterworn as if they had been picked up on a 

 beach or along a stream. The coal is soft (3 on Mohs' scale). 



Of the 15 finished and 21 unfinished beads, all but two are cylindrical 

 (pi. 17, i-y, aa, 66). They were evidently made by first grinding 

 the lump into a cylindrical or nearly cylindrical shape. Then the 

 ends were ground flat and a hole was begun, usuall}^ drilled from both 

 ends. In three instances the bead split during the drilling process 

 (pi. 17, y). Three specimens have been successfully drilled, but the 

 exteriors are still rough (pi. 17, aa), suggesting that the final grinding 

 and polishing was not undertaken until the bead had been safely 

 drilled. These holes are from 2 to 4 mm. in diameter, arguing for 

 the use of a drill of copper or iron wire. Finished beads are from 1.6 

 to 2.5 cm. long, though some fragmentary specimens were probably 

 longer, especially since the unfinished beads range up to 5.2 cm. in 

 length (pi. 17, aa). The diameters of most are about 0.7 cm., although 

 again several unfinished beads are much thicker. 



Two specimens, both (?) from Old Town III, are disk shaped. One 

 is very tiny (pi. 17, c) with a diameter of 6 mm., a thickness of 2 mm., 

 and a hole only 1.5 mm. in diameter. The unfinished disk bead 

 (pi. 17, 2) has a maximum diameter of 3.3 cm., and is 0.8 cm. thick. 



The proveniences of these coal specimens are: 14 beads, 16 unfin- 

 ished beads, and 37 lumps from Old Town III; 3 unfinished beads and 

 3 lumps from Old Town II; 1 lump from Old Town I; and 1 bead, 

 two unfinished beads, and 1 lump from Old Town, level unknown. 

 It is obvious that coal beads are characteristic of the latest period 

 of occupation. 



BONE BEADS 



Two bone beads come from Old Town III. The first is made from 

 a flat, oval piece of bh'd bone (pi. 17, 6), 1.6 by 1.1 cm. The second 

 is a perforated halibut vertebra disk (pi. 17, a), 2.1 cm. in diameter 

 and 0.8 cm. thick. 



It is curious that so few beads of material other than coal should 

 have been found at Old Town, for their prehistoric Chugach neighbors 

 manufactured quantities — of bone, of "ivory" (from bear canines), 

 of shell, and of stone, in oval, rectangular, disk, and tubular shapes, 

 and possessed a gi'eater variety of beads than any other Imown Eskimo 

 group. They did not, apparently, make ornaments of coal, so the 

 oval bone bead and the fish vertebra disk are the only Yakutat speci- 

 mens duplicated in Chugach sites. The fish vertebra disk, or ring, 

 is known from Kachemak Bay III, Kodiak, and the Aleutians (de 

 Laguna, 1956, pp. 210 ff.; Heizer, 1956, p. 77). 



On Kodiak and Kachemak Bay, lignite (coal, jet) or oil shale was 

 commonly used for labrets, and from Uyak Bay we have two coal 

 beads, one globular, the other tubular like the Yakutat specimens 



