de Laguna] ARCHEOLOGY, YAKUTAT BAY AREA, ALASKA 161 



a laminated structure. These are round in cross section (fig. 19, 6), 

 0.3 and 0.4 cm. in diameter, or are rectangular (fig. 19, d), measuring 

 0.4 by 0.3 or 0.3 by 0.2 cm, or they are flat (19, a), from 0.6 to 1.1 

 cm. wide. All taper toward the blunt points at the ends. The rod 

 or bar is bent into an oval, leaving a gap between the ends so that the 

 bracelet could be slipped onto the wrist. These ornaments range 

 in diameter from 5.2 by 4.8 to 7.7 by 5.5 cm. The smallest was 

 perhaps for a child; the rest would have fitted grown women. Four 

 specimens are from Old Town III, one is from Old Town II, and one 

 is from an unknown level. 



These copper bracelets are similar to one from Kachemak Bay IV 

 (de Laguna, 1934, pi. 49, 10). Curiously enough, they are not re- 

 ported from either the Chugach or the Eyak, who had copper orna- 

 ments of other kinds. Copper bracelets and anklets, for women only, 

 are known ethnologically from the Tlingit and Haida, and copper 

 bracelets from the northern KwakiutI (Xaihais) (Drucker, 1950, 

 Traits 656, 658). Bracelets (type unspecified) were worn by some of 

 the Coast Salish, as were copper anklets (Barnett, 1939, Traits 1157, 

 1 1 59) . Both bracelets and anklets of copper are known archeologically 

 from the Thompson River valley (de Laguna, 1934, p. 207). 



COPPER RINGS 



There are four copper rings made in the same way as the bracelets, 

 although the gaps between the ends of the strips are closed (fig. 19, 

 c). The smallest, from an unknown level at Old Town, is made of a 

 band 0.3 cm. wide and 1.1 cm. thick. Its present diameter is only 

 0.8 cm. It may have been an ear pendant, or if spread open it could 

 have been worn on the finger of a child or the little finger of a woman. 



The other three specimens have diameters of 2.4 to 3.3 cm. and 

 are made of rods with rectangular cross sections, 2 by 1.5 to 3 by 3 

 mm. One is from Old Town III, the other two from Old Town II. 

 They appear to have been too large to have been worn on the fingers, 

 and our informants suggested that they might have been noserings. 

 Formerly the septum of the nose was pierced; in modern times the 

 silver nosering has a gap that slips easily onto the septum. Since 

 the archeological rings have no gaps, it is hard to understand how 

 they could have been lost if they had been worn in holes in the nose. 



Copper rings have been found on Prince William Sound and at 

 Dixthada in the Tanana Valley (de Laguna, 1956, pi. 43, 25; Rainey, 

 1939, fig. 3, 9). Copper finger rings were worn by Eyak men and 

 women, and also by the Atna above them on the Copper River. A 

 shaman seen by Abercrombie among the Eyak in 1884 drew a lock of 

 hair through a copper ring on each side of his head (Birket-Smith and 

 de Laguna, 1938, pp. 59, 62). Niblack (1890, p. 262) reports of the 



