North American Stone Implements — Inside the Classic

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NORTH AMERICAN STONE IMPLEMENTS.

REPRINTED FROM THE REPORT OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION FOR 1872.

WASHINGTON: GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. 1873.

NORTH AMERICAN STONE IMPLEMENTS.

The division of the European stone age into a period of chipped stone, and a succeeding one of ground or polished stone, or, into the palaeolithic and neolithic periods, seems to be fully borne out by facts, and is likely to remain an uncontroverted basis for future investigation in Europe. In North America chipped as well as ground implements are abundant; yet they occur promiscuously, and thus far cannot be referred respectively to certain epochs in the development of the aborigines of the country. Archaeological investigation in North America, however, is but of recent date, and a careful examination of our caves and drift-beds possibly may lead to results similar to those obtained in Europe. When in the latter part of the world man lived contemporaneously with the now extinct large pachydermatous and carnivorous animals, he used unground flint tools of rude workmanship, which were superseded in the later stages of the European stone age, comprising the neolithic period, by more finished articles of flint and other stone, many of which were brought into final shape by the processes of grinding and polishing. In North America stone implements likewise have been found associated with the osseous remains of extinct animals; yet these implements, it appears, differed in no wise from those in use among the aborigines at the period of their first intercourse with the whites.

In the year 1839, the late Dr. Albert C. Koch discovered in the bottom of the Bourbeuse River, in Gasconade County, Missouri, the remains of a _Mastodon giganteus_ under very peculiar circumstances. The greater portion of the bones appeared more or less burned, and there was sufficient evidence that the fire had been kindled by human agency, and with the design of killing the huge creature, which had been found mired in the mud, and in an entirely helpless condition. The animal's fore and hind legs, untouched by the fire, were in a perpendicular position, with the toes attached to the feet, showing that the ground in which the animal had sunk, now a grayish-colored clay, was in a plastic condition when the occurrence took place. Those portions of the skeleton, however, which had been exposed above the surface of the clay, were partially consumed by the fire, and a layer of wood-ashes and charred bones, varying in thickness from two to six inches, indicated that the burning had been continued for some length of time. The fire appeared to have been most destructive around the head of the animal. Mingled with the ashes and bones was a large number of broken pieces of rock, which evidently had been carried to the spot from the bank of the Bourbeuse River to be hurled at the animal. But the burning and hurling of stones, it seems, did not satisfy the assailants of the mastodon; for Dr. Koch found among the ashes, bones, and rocks _several stone arrow-heads, a spear-head, and some stone axes_, which were taken out in the presence of a number of witnesses, consisting of the people of the neighborhood, who had been attracted by the novelty of the excavation. The layer of ashes and bones was covered by strata of alluvial deposits, consisting of clay, sand, and soil, from eight to nine feet thick, which form the bottom of the Bourbeuse River in general.

About one year after this excavation, Dr. Koch found at another place, in Benton County, Missouri, in the bottom of the Pomme de Terre River, about ten miles above its junction with the Osage, _several stone arrow-heads_ mingled with the bones of a nearly entire skeleton of the Missourium. The two arrow-heads found with the bones "were in such a position as to furnish evidence still more conclusive, perhaps, than in the other case, of their being of equal, if not older date, than the bones themselves; for, besides that they were found in a layer of vegetable mold which was covered by twenty feet in thickness of alternate layers of sand, clay, and gravel, one of the arrow-heads lay underneath the thigh-bone of the skeleton, the bone actually resting in contact upon it, so that it could not have been brought thither after the deposit of the bone; a fact which I was careful thoroughly to investigate."[1]