144 ANTHROPOLOGICAL SURVEY IN ALASKA [BTH. ANN. 41 



stone industry is peculiar; and the human remains differ plainly from 

 both those of the later Yukon Indian and from those of the Eskimo. 

 They are apparently Indian (see section on physical characteristics), 

 but a tall Indian of a type that now is only met with much farther 

 south. 



The stone industry from the bank appeared at first sight so 

 primitive that even the term " paleolithic " would not fit and the 

 only term that seemed to meet the situation was "protolithic." It 

 consists predominantly of scrapers and knockers, with here and there 

 a tool sharpened for cutting. The scrapers look especially crude. 

 They consist simply of pieces of smaller or larger andesite-like vol- 

 canic slabs broken to the desired size and chipped more or less 

 roughly along what was to be the scraping edge. A closer exami- 

 nation of the stones, which were obtained from a base of a cliff 

 farther down the river, showed, however, that they were of material 

 which is hard to work, and that the chipping, under the circum- 

 stances, was not really bad. (Pis. 11, 12.) Pottery must have been 

 fairly plentiful and quite up to the average of the river, both in make 

 and decoration. 



Two fine long, partly fossilized ivory points picked up formerly 

 on the site were obtained from Mr. Lawrence. They are handsomely 

 barbed on one side and show a high grade of skill. They must have 

 come from the Bering Sea and may belong to the old fine ivory 

 culture of the western part of that region, of which more later. 



There are also some fairly ancient sites farther down the river 

 (see Narrative), but just what they are and how old remains to be 

 determined. 



A report on the archeological remains from the bank of Bonasila 

 by Mr. H. W. Krieger, one of the curators of the Department of 

 Anthropology, United States National Museum, follows: 



ARCHEOLOGY OF CENTRAL ALASKA 



Ancient Stone Culture 



" Until the results of Doctor Hrdluka's Alaskan reconnaissance 

 were first made known to science it had been generally assumed that 

 Alaskan and Canadian subboreal regions were archeologically bar- 

 ren. It had been currently accepted that only as one approached 

 the great river valleys of the Skeena, the Fraser, and the Columbia 

 could anthropological exploration be conducted to advantage. One 

 might expect to uncover cemeteries and ancient village sites only 

 there where a dense and sedentary population had long been estab- 

 lished. Through the discovery of ancient village sites and centers 



