[Pl. 10]
"The grooved stone ax is a typical New World implement. Its
distribution is limited to tribes of the eastern maize area, the
Pueblo tribes of the Southwest, the Athapascans, and the northern
woodlands tribes. Elsewhere in America grooved stone implements of
any description are rare, although not unknown. The groove for the
attachment of cord or sinew binding is common also to the stone adze,
which is characteristic of Indian tribes of the Pacific Northwest
and of the Eskimo of Arctic America. The distribution of the stone
adze is more intensive but is much less extensive than is that of the
grooved stone ax and appears to be an environmental form borrowed from
the Arctic tribes by the Indian of southeast Alaska and of British
Columbia.
"The double-bitted, multiple-grooved stone ax has two areas of
distribution in North America. One of these is the country of the
northeastern woodlands Indians, extending as far south as the Central
Atlantic States. The other area of distribution is the extreme
northwest, or the mainland of Alaska.
"In the collection brought to the National Museum from Alaska by
Doctor Hrdlička are eight grooved stone implements. All but one of
these have cutting edges for use as axes or adzes. The exception,
Cat. No. 332809, U.S.N.M., is a grooved spherical stone maul or club
9.5 centimeters (3.7 inches) long and 7.5 centimeters (2.9 inches)
in sectional diameter. This grooved object was found near Tanana on
the beach of the Yukon River. Like the grooved stone axes in Doctor
Hrdlička's collection, the groove is incomplete. A flattened space
of approximately 2 centimeters is left un-grooved for the hafting of
a flat surfaced handle end with binding, which is passed around the
transverse groove and then through a hole in the wooden handle.
"Three single-grooved, double-bitted stone axes were collected from
various points on the Yukon River. These are of interest because of
their similar grooving and double cutting edges. Each is identical in
form, each has been shaped by pecking, except in the sector near the
cutting edges where they have been sharpened and polished by grinding.
Between the raised borders of the centrally pecked groove and the
cutting edges the surface has been shaped to a slight concavity by
pecking. In Cat. No. 332805, U.S.N.M., this concavity is replaced by a
well-defined convex bevel. The pecked groove is at right angles to the
longitudinal axis and is comparatively shallow but has a wide diameter
of 2 centimeters or more. The material is uniformly of basalt. The axes
are 20 centimeters or more long, while the sectional diameter varies
from 6 to 10 centimeters according to whether the ax is flattened or
oval in section.
"Grooved, double-bitted stone axes similar to those collected by Doctor
Hrdlička from the Middle Yukon region have since become known also from
stations farther south in Alaska. One was plowed up in a field near
Matanuska and is now in the chamber of commerce exhibit at Anchorage,
while another was collected in 1927 by the writer from near Chitna,
Alaska. This Alaskan type of grooved ax is practically identical with
that of the central Atlantic seaboard States, as figured by Walter
Hough in the Proceedings of the United States National Museum, volume
60, article 9, page 14.
"Another grooved type of stone object brought to the National Museum
by Doctor Hrdlička is a stone war club of unusual type. It was found
on the Yukon River beach 1½ miles below the Mission at Tanana. It
is 20 centimeters (7.9 inches) long 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. 332807, U.S.N.M.
"One form of the double-bitted, multiple-grooved stone axes resembles
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
Hrdlička. 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 identical with the double-bitted but single-grooved stone
ax from Tanana.
"It would appear from this brief presentation that there is a
remarkable 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 central 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 Hrdlička and supplemented by
my collection in 1927 show that Alaska is far from sterile or fully
known archeologically and make further exploration both promising and
important."