Pre-Russian Sites
Figure 7.—The Yukon from Bystraia to below Holy Cross
As already told in the Narrative, a search for truly ancient sites along the Yukon has proven largely negative. A more intense and prolonged archeological survey, with exploratory trenches wherever there is promise, may one day prove more fruitful. But, as pointed out before, much can never be expected. Man could at no time have occupied the Yukon Valley and watershed in large numbers. He would not have found enough sustenance. Even with fair resources he would hardly have tarried in these inclement regions as long as the ways toward the south were open. He never built here of lasting materials and had little chance to develop or even keep up any higher culture, and since he is gone the ever-cutting river has taken away whatever it could reach and scattered it through its silts and gravels. There is nevertheless a number of small elevated plateaus along the right bank that ought to be sounded by exploratory pits or trenches, particularly perhaps where there are traces of later habitations.
Figure 8.—The Yukon from above Holy Cross to below Mountain Village
Figure 9.—The Yukon from below Mountain Village to near Marshall
There are, of course, some sites that are older than others. The most interesting of these was found at Bonasila, beneath the old site of Makki or Magimute, 18 miles downstream from Anvik. (See Narrative.) The main facts concerning this site are as follows:
Figure 10.—The Yukon from near Marshall to below Kavlingnak
At the above distance from Anvik, on the right bank of the river and following a wooded hill, is a low flat backed by rising ground and cut across by a little stream. The flat is narrow, at present about 300 feet; and the part above the stream is deeply pitted by the remains of semisubterranean houses of a "dead" native village, which I believe is identifiable with the Magimute of the Russians. On the slope behind the village were still about a score of old surface burials, with an article here and there of Russian derivation.
The bank of the flat rises at present only about 4 feet above the beach of the river, but the flat behind is higher. The bank itself contains many specimens showing human workmanship, consisting of objects of stone, birch bark, bone, and rarely also of ivory, besides many fragments of pottery, many bones of wild Alaskan animals, and here and there a human skeleton. Some of these objects are low down in the bank. All the bones from the bank, including the human, and even the rare points of ivory, are semifossilized; the 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.
Figure 11.—From above Kobolunuk to mouth of river
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 volcanic slabs broken to the desired size and chipped more or less roughly along what was to be the scraping edge. A closer examination 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 circumstances, was not really bad. (Pls. 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: