Chapter VII: Pottery from Indian and “Eskimo” Sites

• Published in: Memoirs of the Society for American Archaeology
• Main Author: De Laguna, Frederica
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge University Press (CUP) 1947
• Subjects: General Earth and Planetary Sciences; General Environmental Science; Yukon; Indian; Delta River; eskimo*; Kuskokwim
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0081130000004007; https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0081130000004007

I Have preferred to describe in one section the pottery from the supposedly Eskimo site at Fox Creek and that from the Indian sites above Holy Cross, since there seems to be no real difference in the shapes or general character of the ware. The Eskimo of the lower Yukon and Kuskokwim also make very similar pots and lamps, though there seem to be slight differences in decorative style peculiar to each locality. Apparently all the Tena groups of the middle and lower Yukon Valley made pottery. Rainey reports potsherds from the fields of the Government Agricultural Experiment Station at Rampart, 80 miles above Tanana, and potsherds and deposits of fine clay used for pottery making at Arlan Jordan's camp six miles below Rampart Rapids, or 34 miles above the mouth of the Tanana. Indians from the lower Tanana used to come to these clay beds, and clay vessels were apparently traded as far up the Tanana as the Delta River, some 425 miles above the mouth of the Tanana. Pottery was not made, however, on the upper Tanana or on the upper Copper River. Our own informants told us of pottery 100 miles (by water) up the Nowitna and on the Innoko about 80 miles above Hologochaket. We found sherds at almost every site investigated from Tanana Mission and Kateel down to Fox Creek below Holy Cross.