Stone, Bone, Antler and Shell: Artifacts of the Northwest Coast

Mima Kapches is head of the Department of Anthropology at the Royal
Ontario Museum.

This book is a revised edition of Hilary Stewart’s very popular 1973
publication Artifacts of the Northwest Coast Indians. Stewart’s
excellent drawings are unchanged, but the text has been reduced by 32
pages (the pruning of informative artifact descriptions throughout the
text is an unfortunate loss). The book is organized logically according
to raw materials. An introductory chapter titled “First Nations of the
Northwest Coast” introduces the peoples who made the artifacts that
Stewart has studied and drawn. The superbly detailed illustrations
depict how the tools were made and used. Photographs illustrate the
sophisticated lifestyles of the peoples of the Northwest Coast.

All in all, this book continues in the excellent tradition of
Stewart’s earlier text, and is of interest to the layperson as well as
the archeologist.