206 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192 



the core extractor was only 12 inches long and thus much too short to 

 reach the center of the larger trees. It was impossible to cut them 

 down and secure core samples from logs, as was done with the speci- 

 mens from Redfield Cove. In consequence, we do not know when the 

 oldest trees on the site began to grow. A small tree in House Pit 7 

 could be dated back to A.D. 1839, with perhaps no more than 3 or 4 

 central rings missing. The much larger spruce growing within the 

 same house pit, however, could be dated back only to 1849, and Dr. 

 Giddings (letter of Dec. 11, 1962) informs me: "The center is missing, 

 and no estimate of the rings to the center is possible." Thus, the 

 larger, and presumably the older, the trees tested, the smaller was the 

 proportion of growth rings that could be reached with the borer. In 

 only the little hemlock tree in House Pit 7 was the center ring present, 

 and this gave a date of A.D. 1876, which unfortunately tells us nothing 

 about the age of the site. 



Charcoal samples were sent to Miss EUzabeth Ralph, Department 

 of Physics, University of Pennsylvania, who was able to make radio- 

 carbon tests from two pieces of wood from the Storage House in Old 

 Town II. Unfortunately a sample from House 8 and another from 

 the bottom of House Pit 7 were too small for analysis. A charred 

 stake from the Storage House (P-178) gave a date as of June 1958 of 

 136 ± 62 years B.P., or from A.D. 1760 to 1884. A large charcoal 

 plank with 125 rings gave a date of 328 ± 78 B.P., or A.D. 1552 to 

 1698. Since it was not possible to tell whether or not the sample 

 came from the core or the outer part of the tree, the true age may be 

 125 years younger, or from A.D. 1677 to 1833 (Ehzabeth Ralph, 

 letter of July 16, 1958). Judging by the contents of the site and by 

 the growth of trees upon it, the older hmit for the first date (A.D. 

 1760) is possible, but the 19th-century dates are highly improbable. 

 Although Malaspina in 1791 saw grave monuments here, he failed to 

 note any signs of habitation. An early to mid-1 8th-century date 

 would seem most reasonable. It is a pity that these radiocarbon 

 analyses, made by the pure carbon dioxide proportional counting 

 technique, were not more in accord with each other, since they offer 

 no surer dating than an ordinary archeological estimate. 



According to native testimony, Diyaguna'Et was abandoned some 

 time before 1880. China fragments suggest a terminal date between 

 1850 and 1875, and stone tools indicate that occupation began in pre- 

 historic times. The part of Nessudat that we explored is said to have 

 been settled after the defeat of the Russians in 1805 and to have been 

 occupied until late in the 19th century, if not into the 20th. All of 

 the material wliich we found there belongs to the historic period. 

 Shallow Water Town on Little Lost River was probably protohistoric. 

 Too little was found at other sites to indicate their age. 



