HBDLifKA] ARCHBOLOGY OF CENTRAL ALASKA 149 



sion at Tanana. It is 20 centimeters (7.9 inches) Ion* and is slender, 

 the maximum sectional diameter being but 3.5 centimeters (1.4 

 inches). Like the single-grooved axes, it was shaped by pecking, 

 but much, of the surface was also ground. The reverse or hafting 

 surface is flat; the obverse is convexly tapered to sharp cutting 

 edges which are at right angles to the haft. The material is basalt. 

 The hafting grooves, two in number, are comparatively deep and 

 closely spaced. As to form this stone weapon is unique, appearing, 

 so far as is known to the writer, nowhere else on the American 

 Continent. It has been entered on the records of the National 

 Museum as Cat. No. 33280T. U.S.N.M. 



"One form of the double-bitted, multiple-grooved stone axes re- 

 sembles closely ivory forms made from walrus tusks^in the Bering Sea 

 region. This form also gives evidence of secondary modification, 

 specimens having been broken intentionally to reduce the tool to a 

 simple adze. The material is basalt and its range in the north is 

 limited to the Eskimo area, but becomes widespread to the south in 

 southeastern Alaska and in British Columbia. The form of this 

 widely diffused stone adze is approximated in a series of broken 

 stone axes collected by Doctor Hrdlicka. Two such broken and 

 originally double-bitted axes, Cat. Nos. 332806 and 332810, U.S.N.M., 

 were collected from the banks of the Yukon at an old village site 

 below Anvik. These axes are broken with a crude irregular fracture 

 just above the upper transverse groove. Another stone ax, Cat. 

 No. 332812, U.S.N.M., is from Ruby, Alaska, and is practically iden- 

 tical with the double-bitted but single-grooved stone ax from Tanana. 



" It would appear from this brief presentation that there is a re- 

 markable similarity of form, approaching identity, in the ancient 

 stone axes from the river valleys of central Alaska. Whether the 

 particular ax has one cutting edge or is double-bitted; whether it is 

 provided with one or with two parallel transverse hafting grooves, 

 the general identity of form remains. The striking thing about the 

 presence of the double-bitted ax among archeological finds from cen- 

 tral Alaska is that we do not find it represented in such numbers 

 anywhere until it again reappears in the Atlantic seaboard States. 

 The very interesting cultural objects discovered by Doctor Hrdlicka 

 and supplemented by my collection in 1927 show that Alaska is far 

 from sterile or fully known archeologically and make further explo- 

 ration both promising and important." 



