Stone Artifacts in Washington Will Be Repatriated

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON—The Seattle Times reports that some 270 artifacts will be handed over to the Upper Skagit Indian Tribe by the Seattle City Council. The artifacts were unearthed at a village site on the shores of the Skagit River that was disturbed some 100 years ago during dam construction work and recovered ahead of recent renovations at the site. “The soil was very mixed, kind of like you’d expect at a construction site,” commented archaeologist Andrea Weiser. The stone tools, thought to be between 4,000 and 9,000 years old, include hammerstones, scrapers, a club that may have been used to kill fish, and a projectile point that may have been used to hunt mountain goats, based upon analysis of blood residues on object. For more on artifacts used by Native Americans in Washington, go to "A Tale of Two Pipes."