Abstract
DURING the past summer an expedition of the University Museum of Pennsylvania, conducted by Miss Frederika de Laguna, has been at work on the coasts of Alaska in conformity with the policy of American anthropology for the intensive study of this area in relation to the problem of the early peopling of America. The expedition was engaged in the excavation of a prehistoric village site in Kachemak Bay, Cook Inlet. Of the finds of the season, Science Service (Washington D.C.) reports that Miss de Laguna regards the outstanding object to be a carved stone lamp. In the bowl of the lamp is a human figure in an attitude of prayer carved in full relief. Four other examples of such lamps are known; but this is the only example to be found by a scientific explorer in situ. It is said to come from the last phase of four prehistoric Eskimo settlements; but although the early phase of the ‘archaic’ culture of the area is remarkable for its carved ivories, stone carving is not known as an Eskimo technique. The lamp was found in a shell-heap close to the sea, which is washed by high tide. Other cultural features of the same settlement were slate mirrors, slate blades for lances, bone harpoons and dart heads, grinding stones, awls, drills, dolls, beads and needles. Rock-paintings were found in caves. Such paintings are known only in southern Cook Inlet and on Kodiak Island, where the culture is similar. The Indians of to-day believe that these pictures were painted by ‘whale killers’, much feared medicine men who poisoned their lances with human fat. If there were any foundation for this belief, it might be related to the traces of cannibalism found in prehistoric settlements by the Smithsonian Alaskan expeditions.
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Excavation in Alaska. Nature 131, 161 (1933). https://doi.org/10.1038/131161a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/131161a0