ARCHEOLOGY OF CENTRAL ALASKA
Ancient Stone Culture
"Until the results of Doctor Hrdlička's Alaskan reconnaissance were first made known to science it had been generally assumed that Alaskan and Canadian subboreal regions were archeologically barren. 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 established. Through the discovery of ancient village sites and centers of population in the lower and middle Yukon River Valley, Doctor Hrdlička has extended the northern archeological horizon into the sub-Arctic.
"Of the many sites examined, the old village site at Bonasila, 18 miles below the confluence of the Anvik and Yukon Rivers, yielded the most interesting data. Crudely flaked implements of trap rock with cutting edges showing evidence of chipping and grinding were uncovered. These implements are unique among Alaskan artifacts and have no relationship with known types of Eskimo or Indian stonework. In the shaping technic employed by their aboriginal makers; in form, and in type; and, generally, in their undeveloped character, the stone artifacts from Bonasila and other ancient archeological sites on the middle Yukon may be classified as primitive neolithic.
"The stone implements uncovered at Bonasila are so crudely fashioned and are apparently of such an improvised nature as to suggest an extreme conservatism in culture development, or perhaps a degeneration, due largely to lack of better materials. Due to the lack of basalt, jadeite, or other hard stone in the valley of the lower middle Yukon, recourse was had to sandstone and trap rock by the primitive makers of stone axes and celts.
"Crude pottery vessels and potsherds were discovered associated with the objects of stone. This ware incorporates elementary decorative designs distinct from the known historic Eskimo or Indian types of pottery decoration. There can be no intimation that this ware is archaic or that it belongs to any archaic culture offshoot from farther south. It therefore becomes a question of some unknown earlier Asiatic culture connection that manifested itself in crude forms of flaked and ground stone implements and in unique pottery forms. It is uncertain that the ancient fossil ivory culture of northwest Alaska, of which Doctor Hrdlička has brought in some excellent examples, is in any manner associated with the primitive neolithic stone and pottery forms uncovered at Bonasila. It is established, however, beyond a doubt that both cultures and types of artifacts are Asiatic in origin and have little or no connection with the culture of the western Eskimo.
"The Eskimos of the lower Yukon Valley made extensive use of slate and of jadeite in the production of their polished knives and celts. Slate knives and polished celts of jadeite are characteristic of Eskimoan culture throughout the whole of its extent in Alaska. Each of these materials as well as the finished products shaped from them were subjects of native barter. Eskimos often undertook long journeys for their procurement. It is therefore noteworthy that no single object fashioned from slate or jadeite and but few points of fossilized ivory were recovered at any of the sites characterized by the primitive stone culture and pottery of the Bonasila type.
"The most characteristic finds at Bonasila are the crudely flaked implements of stone, some of which show incipient chipping and grinding. The coarse type of pottery is unlike that of the modern Eskimo in tempering, firing, and decorative design.
"The stone culture of the site, although rich in forms, is deficient in technical development and is scarcely worthy of being classed as neolithic. There were found in numbers the following types of artifacts: Circular, discoidal stone pebbles with rim fractures due to use; river wash pebbles of irregular form used as improvised scrapers and hammerstones; basaltic, discoidal hammerstones with abraded edges and pitted at the center; large flake saws of trachyte (trap rock) triangular in section but provided with sharply fractured cutting edges; slender flaked fragments of trap rock tapered to the form of wedges with intentionally worked end sections and cutting edges; crudely flaked stone knives with evidence of secondary chipping at cutting edges; other knives of thin slabs of trap rock with flaked and bilaterally ground beveled cutting edges; oblong axes of flaked sandstone with hafting notches struck off at the edges midway from the base; abrading tools of sandstone; celts of sandstone with ground and beveled working edge and notched for hafting as an ax; stone scrapers with ground and beveled cutting edges; fragmentary perforators of stone; re-chipped, flaked knives shaped by grinding; roughly worked, multiple-grooved hammers or mauls; and many stone objects unformed and unworked but classified generally as hammerstones.