North American Stone Implements — Inside the Classic

A Burned Mastodon and Human Agency

Rau presents a striking case from 1839: Dr. Albert C. Koch discovered a Mastodon giganteus in Missouri whose bones were partially burned, with a layer of wood-ashes and charred bones two to six inches thick. The hind legs, untouched by fire, remained upright in clay, indicating the animal was mired when killed. Broken rocks from the riverbank were mingled with the ashes, suggesting they were hurled at the creature. Rau reports this as evidence that "the fire had been kindled by human agency" to dispatch the helpless animal. Yet he refrains from claiming this proves a distinct paleolithic period, noting that similar implements appear in later contexts.

Mound-Builder Pipes and the Perils of Classification

Rau scrutinizes the claim that mound-builders used only one type of pipe—those without a stem hole. He cites Squier and Davis's attribution of a bird-with-human-head pipe to mound-builders, despite its stem hole, and notes that Stevens doubted such pipes came from mounds. Rau then provides counter-evidence: a rock-crystal pipe from a mound near Bainbridge, Ohio, with two hollows meeting at an obtuse angle, which Davis confirmed belonged to the primary deposit. Rau concludes that "the mound-builders confined themselves by no means to the use of one particular class of pipes," urging caution against rigid typologies.

European Goods in Mounds: A Chronological Test

Rau addresses the persistence of mound-building into the contact period. He cites Garcilasso de la Vega on Florida earthworks and Le Moyne de Morgues's depiction of a funeral mound with arrows and a shell cup. More concretely, he presents Colonel Charles C. Jones's report of glass beads, silver ornaments, and even a rifle barrel fragment found in mounds—though only in secondary interments. Rau notes one exception: a primary deposit with European goods, suggesting that mound-building continued "when the first Europeans arrived" but soon declined. This evidence complicates any simple timeline of prehistoric versus historic artifacts.

Rau's report is best read as a series of archaeological case studies rather than a synthetic narrative. Each observation—from the Bourbeuse mastodon to the crystal pipe—is presented with its source and context, inviting readers to weigh the evidence themselves. The work rewards attention to how Rau qualifies his claims, often using phrases like "it appears" or "thus far cannot be referred." This restraint makes the occasional firm conclusion, such as the mound-builders' use of stemmed pipes, all the more striking.

That rainy afternoon, Rau’s patient doubts about neat categories lingered—stone tools refusing their assigned eras, mingling like strangers at a depot. His care for the unnamed makers made me wonder about later arrivals, their own tangled beginnings. So I drifted to Our Foreigners: A Chronicle of Americans in the Making — Reading Notes, and found the same promiscuous story, told in new voices.