Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 1.djvu/420

 STONE HAMMERS OR PESTLES OF THE NORTH-

WEST COAST OF AMERICA

��By HARLAN I. SMITH

The stone hammers or pestles of the northwest coast of Amer- ica represent a variety of types of peculiar distribution. An exam- ination of the specimens in the American Museum of Natural History, New York, reveals the following facts :

The different types of these hammers have many features in common. Their use for driving wedges causes many of them to have concave bases, while those used for rubbing have become but slightly convex on this surface. They usually have a well- defined head, which in general is cylindrical, and extends some

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��Fig. 9 — Forms of hammers or pestles from Thompson river valley, British Columbia, a. No. 16-2416, Kamloops ; 6, No. 16-2537, Kamloops ; c, No. 16-3870, Spence's Bridge. (One- fourth nat.)

distance up from the base (figure 10). Rarely the body meets the base without such a head, except in those cases where the body is bulging (figure 9), instead of flaring toward the base (figure 12). Each variety, so far as we know, may be assigned to a particu- lar region. In the specimens from the valleys of Thompson river

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