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Exhibit of Indian Relics 



The Indian artifacts on display in the C. Hart 

 Merriam Laboratory were collected on the grounds 

 of the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center near 

 Laurel, Maryland, between 1937 and 1960. They 

 were picked up by employees and visitors to the 

 Center, mostly in areas now being- farmed. In 

 fact, almost every time the fields in areas marked 

 on the map are plowed or cultivated, additional 

 Indian relics are uncovered — often an arrow point, 

 a spear head, a blade, or a scraper, occasionally an 

 ax head, a drill, or a hammer. All are mute re- 

 minders that American Indians once lived on these 

 lands that in 1937 became America's first Federal 

 wildlife experiment station. 



Local Tribes of Indians 



What manner of Indians lived in these parts? 

 While the items on exhibit have not been dated, 

 archaeologists believe that some of them are asso- 

 ciated with an Indian culture going back perhaps 

 several thousand years. Some are doubtless of 

 much more recent origin. We know of course that 

 Indians were in this region when the first Euro- 

 pean settlers arrived. 



There is evidence that tribes belonging to three 

 great Indian "linguistic families," the Algon- 

 quian, the Siouan, and the Iroquoian, crossed and 



