242 Field Columbian Museum — Anthropology, Vol. II. 



evidence of the work being done on the large roughed-out leaf-shaped 

 implements which prevail right at the quarry pits. 



Among the refuse at the quarry tipi circles were found five speci- 

 mens which possess some interest. Two were of jasper and had evi- 

 dently served as drills, one being long and slender and chipped on 

 both sides, the other being a flake which was notched at one end for 

 the purpose of hafting. The other three were fragments of stone 

 hammers such as are commonly used to-day by the Shoshoni and 

 Arapahoe women of western Wyoming for pounding berries, meat, etc. 

 Curiously, the material of these three fragments was different in each 

 specimen, one being of quartz, another of granite, while the third 

 was of diorite. 



There remains to be mentioned a flat stone metate found near 

 one of the tipi circles (see PL XXXIX). This is of quartzite and 

 measures fourteen inches in length by nine inches in breadth, while 

 it does not exceed one inch in its thickest part. This was probably 

 used as the lower milling-stone for grinding corn. 



AGE AND OCCUPATION. 



In a dry and generally arid region^ where the vegetation is scant, 

 it is not to be expected that the quarry with its pits and refuse heaps 

 would be covered to any great extent with vegetable mould, however 

 great their antiquity. As a matter of fact, even such evidence of age 

 as might be expected from this source is almost entirely absent. The 

 exposed material seems as fresh and bright as though operations had 

 ceased but yesterday. At one place on the bank near the ravine I 

 found a great flat slab which evidently served as a seat for some 

 workman. Seating myself on it, I could readily make out the grooves 

 in front of the seat where had rested the legs and feet, while on the 

 right were two hammer-stones of different sizes, and all about were 

 chips, refuse, and many rejected and partially roughed-out imple- 

 ments. The whole place suggests suspended operations and a 

 temporary abandonment. What tribe or tribes worked the quarry is, 

 of course, not possible now to determine, but that mining was carried 

 on here extensively and through a considerable period of time there 

 is no doubt. Furthermore, the great number and wide extent of the 

 tipi circles leads to the belief that permanent encampments were 

 made right at and in the vicinity of the quarry. It seems probable 

 that the work was done by some of the Plains Indians and within a 

 comparatively recent period, but before the advent of the white race 



