54 BUREAU

vln^S^on^el

CROW

VILLAGE,

ALASKA 55 On

the basis ofhallmark identifications, then, it

would seem

that the u'onstone

ware from

thesiteismostly, ifnotentirely, of

American

manufactm-e. In 1891 the United States

began

to require that all

imports, including pottery, be labeled with the

name

of the coimtry of origin. Therefore, after 1891 all English pottery exported to the UnitedStates

was marked "England"

just asit is atthe present time.

In the

Crow

ViUage collection there are, in addition to the 2 pieces with hallmarks already described, 16 basal sherds large

enough

so that parts of hallmarks

would

be visible if they were present.

Thus

it is difiicult to escape the conclusion that the majority of pottery used

by

the villagers

was unmarked. Unmarked

pottery

must have

been

made

in America, imported before 1891, or brought into the country through other than the usual import channels (Fontana and Greenleaf, 1962, p. 93; Ormsbee, _{1959, pp.} 16-17).

Although

it is

impossibleto say with

any

degreeofcertainty, thereseemslittlereason to doubt that the

Crow

Village pottery is

American and

dates

from

thelast three decades ofthe 19th century.

Glass

With

the exception of beads, objects of glass

and

even glass frag-

ments

are not

common

in the

Crow

Village collection. If bottles, drinking glasses,

and

other glass artifacts

had

been used extensively,

we would

expect that they

would have

occurred in

abundance

since the material,

though

breakable, is impervious to decay. It therefore seems likelythat glass, at least as a container material,

was

an

unim-

portant aspect ofthematerial cultm-e.

Buttons

Five

mUk

glass buttons,

aU

of the

common

four-holeshirt button variety, occur in the collection.

They

are

molded

in a biconvex shape ^\'ith a slightdepression in oneface. All

have

large holes,

and

four aresize 14

(mm.)

whileoneissize24 (mm.).

Such

buttonswere

first

made

in France

and

introduced to the UnitedStates about 1860 (Fontana

and

Greenleaf, 1962, p. 98).

Window

Glass

Fifty-nine fragments of

window

glass, forty-eight of

which

were discarded in the field, also are

mcluded

in the collection.

Most

of the fragments are less than 2

mm.

ⁱⁿ thickness, although one piece is 5

mm.

thick.

A number

offragments

have

edges that are straight

and

smooth, suggesting the use of a glasscutter. It seems likely, therefore, that the

Eskimos

obtained the glass in the sizes required, the cutting being

done

at the store just as it is today.

The most

222-189

—

⁶⁷ 5

56

likely use for

window

glass

would

be as a covering for the skylight, replacing the traditionally used gut or fishskin covering.

Two

fragments of

window

glass

have

been retouched as scrapers

and

were described earlier.

Bottles

Four

complete or nearly complete bottles were recovered, along with thirteen bottle fragments, three of

which have

been retouched as scrapers (previously described).

The

fragments include five pieces of thick

dark-brown

glass, one of

which

is a large basal frag- ment, while the others are either clear or of variousshades of

amber and

green.

As

far as bottle types are concerned,

two

complete specimens

and two

fragments are recognizable as being associated with patent medicines. All were

presumably

the

same

shape, being tall with rectangular bodies

and

"panels"

on which

the trade

name might

appear.

One

complete bottle of this type has

no

trade

name

(pi.

13, c), while the other has "California Fig

Syrup

Co.,

San

Francisco, Cal."

on

the front panel,

and "Syrup

of Figs"

on

both sides.

One

panel fragment has

an

^" 's" visible as well as the letters

"pound"

as part of the last word. This of course suggests that the contents were

somebody's compound. The

third complete bottle is of the shape one normally associates with soft drinks, but it contained

an

oilysubstance that

smeUed

likea medicine (pi. 13, e).

The

fourth bottle (pi. 13, d) is of bluish glass

and

looks older than the others.

Itis

rounded

witha

narrow

neck

and

widerim,

but

itsuseis

unknown.

Accordingto

Hunt

(1959, pp. 9-10),

an

easilyrecognized changein bottlestylestookplace aboutthetimeof

World War

I

when

thenecks of bottles

began

to

be

finished

by machine

rather than

by

hand.

"In the

modern

machine-finished bottle, the

seams from

the

mold

extend the whole length of

two

sides

and

even across the lip of the neck. Prior to

World War

I the necks were finished

by

hand,

and

the

seams

on bottles

made

during earlier periods

end

at the base of the

neck which

is a layer of glass

wound around

the partly finished bottle" (ibid., p. 9). This change to

machine methods

of bottle manufacture can be traced to the invention

by M.

J.

Owens

in 1898 of the first successful completely automatic bottle

machine

(Singer et al., 1958, vol. _5, pp. 675-676).

Hunt

fxu-ther notes

an

earlier

change

inbottle style

which

took place about 1900

when

metal caps were introduced.

During

the 1890's

and

^earlier,

most

bottles

had

been

made

to receive cork stoppers (Hunt, 1959, p. 10).

The

im- portance of this information as far as the

Crow

Village bottles is

concerned is that all four complete bottles

have

hand-finished necks

and

therefore certainly date before 1917. In addition, all four

Van''ston°e"]

CROW

VILLAGE,

ALASKA 57

bottles

have

necks

made

to receive cork stoppers,

and

in the case of

two

specimens, the corks were still inplace at the time of discovery.

Thisfactalone

would

tend toplace the bottleschronologically

where we would

expect to find them-

—

^at the end of the 19th century.

One

other feature of manufacture

and

style is likely to be of value

when more

research has been done on late 19th-century

and

early 20th-century glass bottles. This concerns the fact that

molded marks

frequently occur on the bottoms of bottles

and may

indicate the manufacturer, the contents, or both (Fontana

and

Greenleaf, 1962, p. 101). All four complete bottles from

Crow

Village

and two bottom

fragments

have molded

marks. In three cases atleast, these

marks

indicate the

name

of the manufacturer but only one could be identified definitely. This is

"A & DH CO." which

stands for the Alexander

and David H. Chambers

Co. of Pittsburgh (Fontana

and

Greenleaf, 1962, p. 101).

Fontana and

Greenleaf point out that Arthur

Woodward was

able to deUneate

many

of the

marks

found

on

bottles at Fort Union, N. Mex., but

was

able to identify with cer- tainty only three, including the one given above. Itis clear, as these authors take care to mention, that

much more

research needs to be done on the entire subject of late 19th-

and

20th-century bottles (1962, p. 101).

Miscellaneous Glass

In addition to buttons,

window

glass,

and

bottles, there are three fragments of

what

appear to

have

been faceted drinking glasses.

Also there are

two

rather thin cm-vedpieces that

may

be fragmentsof oil

lamp

chimneys. If this identification is correct, it

would

be the only indication in the

Crow

Village collection of the use of

any

kind

of

lamp

other than the traditional

Eskimo

clay variety.

Beads

Various types ofglass tradebeadswere found in all houses

and

in the

two

large

midden

sections.

They form

an important group of artifacts

whose

structin-e, color, form,

and

size lend themselves to typological analysis. Their value as dating aids, however, is limited,

and

it will be possible to

make

only the

most

general statements con- cerning the chronological position of the

Crow

Village beads.

Ingeneral,thebulkoftheglassbeads traded onthe

North American

continent from the 16th until the first half of the 19th century were

made

in the glass factories ofVenice in Italy. After that time

many

beads were manufactured in France

and some

in Czechoslovakia, knoAvn then as

Bohemia. A number

of other countries imported beads

from

Italy

and

repackaged

them

for shipment abroad

(Wood-

ward, 1959, n.p.; 1960, n.p.).

The Crow

Village beads, which are