[Illustration: 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.
[Illustration: FIGURE 8.--The Yukon from above Holy Cross to below
Mountain Village]
[Illustration: 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:
[Illustration: 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.
[Illustration: 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: