666 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 192 8 



people, who opened them and either ate them on the spot or smoked 

 and dried them for future use. Many small deposits of shells are 

 visible along the shore, often having been exposed and worn away 

 by the encroaching waters. Some heaps are of great size and were 

 frequented by 03^ster gatherers for generations, their use probably 

 extending over a period of several centuries. The examination of 

 such sites usually proves of interest, as bits of broken pottery, bones 

 of animals, masses of wood ashes and charcoal, and an occasional 

 complete implement or ornament which had been accidentally lost 

 may often be discovered in contact with the accumulated shells. 

 Although the majority of shell deposits are quite small, others are 

 of vast proportions, and all prove the importance of sea food to the 

 natives who frequented our coasts several centuries ago. The great 

 shelj heap on the bank of Damariscotta River, Me., was more than 

 400 feet in length and 22 feet in depth. The same form of pottery 

 was found in all parts of the great mass, and as the fragments 

 possessed all the characteristics of the earthenware vessels known to 

 have been made by the Algonquian Tribes whose villages stood in 

 New England at the time of the coming of the colonists, and whose 

 descendants may stilj be found, it is quite evident that their ancestors 

 gathered the oysters and clams which resulted in the accumulation of 

 such vast numbers of shells. Shell heaps dot the entire coast, and 

 many are to be encountered far up the streams. One of the most 

 renowned of these is at the mouth of Popes Creek, which flows into 

 the Potomac on the Maryland shore some miles above Chesapeake 

 Bay. This shell heap once covered an area of 30 acres or more, 

 with a depth in places of 15 feet (pj. 1). The mass was very com- 

 pact, and in some places it was possible to trace the circular de- 

 pressed sites occupied by the lodges of the oyster gatherers, with 

 the fireplaces in the center. And how interesting it is to contemplate 

 the scenes so often enacted here, with a cluster of mat or bark 

 covered lodges in the midst .of the expanse of shells, with canoes 

 drawn up on the shore, and narrow trails leading through the dense 

 forests to the distant villages. 



Ancient Earthworks, ]\Ionuments of Another Race 



For centuries before the colonization of America by Europeans 

 the country had been occupied by another people, whose strange 

 customs and beliefs caused them to raise many mounds and earth- 

 works, some being of great size and of curious design. In this brief 

 sketch of the ancient monuments, many of which have been de- 

 stroyed within recent years, the regions known to have been domi- 

 nated by the several linguistic families will be considered separatelj^, 

 and it will be shown how the different groups of tribes, possessing 



