Tikchik village: a nineteenth century riverine community in ... - Cluster

272 FIELDIANA: ANTHROPOLOGY, VOLUME 56One complete and two fragmentary stone lamps were recovered.The complete lamp was discarded in the field since it weighed an estimatedtwenty pounds. It was made from a large, coarse-grainedboulder that had not been worked on the exterior surface but whichhad a deep, irregularly-shaped concavity ground into it to a depth ofapproximately 6 cm. at the deepest point. The dimensions of theboulder as a whole were approximately 32 cm. in length and 18.5 cm.in width. The bowl of the lamp, which was much blackened andencrusted from use, was 22 by 17.5 cm. The largest fragmentaryspecimen, made of a fine-grained material, probably a schist, appearsalso to have been a hollowed-out natural boulder. The fragment is25 cm. long and 14 cm. wide at its widest point. The sides are brokenexcept in one place but it would seem that the bowl was approximately5 cm. deep. The entire fragment is blackened and encrustedfrom use. The smaller lamp fragment, apparently manufacturedfrom a fine-grained siltstone, is more carefully made. All surfacesshow grinding and the complete specimen would appear to have beenround or nearly so with an inverted U-shaped rim. The blackenedbowl is approximately 3.5 cm. deep (PI. 3,i). Since pottery lampswere well established throughout all of southwestern Alaska duringthe nineteenth century, these stone specimens would appear to bethe result of influence from stone lamp using areas to the south andeast. The large crude lamp and fragments are not unlike those fromKachemak Bay and Prince William Sound (deLaguna, 1934, PI. 23,1;1956, PI. 25,1).Bone and AntlerArtifacts of bone and antler are common in the Tikchik collection,with 153 identifiable objects made from these materials.Antler net sinkers, of which there are 13 complete and six fragmentaryspecimens, are roughly rectangular in outline with laterallydrilled holes at each end for attachment to the net (PI. 3,3-4). Incross-section these implements have a rounded triangular form, narrowat the top and thick at the bottom. The complete specimensrange in length from 14.5 cm. to 20.5 cm., and all are well made.Two of these sinkers have regularly spaced notches along the upperedge; that is, the edge closest to the net. On one, the notches are3.6 cm, apart and on the other, 2.5 cm. It may be that these notchesindicate the size of the mesh of the net to which the sinkers werefastened. If that is the case, the fisherman, having notched hissinkers, would then be able to tell how much length of net each sinker