680 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS EELATING TO ANTHROPOLOGY. 



As we approach the top, marks of improvement are numerous. AB 

 the larger pots are furnished with numerous ears, through which strings 

 might be run for suspension. Vessels are sometimes furnished with 

 handles, and all the finer wares are elaborately ornamented with zigzag 

 lines, curves, dots, and, in rare cases, with figures of men and animals. 

 The finest wares are invariably found on or near the surface, and among 

 them we find the first attempt at coloring their work. 



We thus observe that from the testimony of the pottery the age of 

 the shell-heaps is divided into three distinct periods, which may be 

 styled the ancient, the middle, and the modern, which are further 

 divided by two periods of transition, the latter of which is marked 

 by the stratum of soil representing a period of two hundred years. 

 Assuming that the march of improvement was uniform, and seeing that 

 a period of over two hundred years* was occupied in a transition from 

 the middle period to the modern, I think we might be safe in attribut- 

 ing a period of at least two hundred years to each of the five eras men- 

 tioned above. This would give one thousand years for the age of the 

 oldest shell-heaps. 



I might properly extend this time much beyond these figures, as 

 there are many shell-heaps which were abandoned fully as long as this 

 upon which there is no accumulation of soil, or at best but little, so it 

 would seem that I have adopted the smallest period of time necessary 

 to a correct calculation, still these calculations may be far from the 

 truth. There are so many possibilities to be encountered that the ques- 

 tion of age is lost among them. The growth of a shell-heap depended, 

 of course, upon the number of people living in the vicinity, whether 

 their residence was continuous or occasional, the abundance or scarc- 

 ity of shell-fish, and many other accidents too numerous to mention- 

 Layers of soil in dift'erent portions of the same heap show that portions 

 of the mass ceased to grow for long periods of time, while thick strata 

 of clean shell indicate the raiiid and continuous growth of other portions* 

 Future investigations may throw more light on this subject at present 

 involved in doubt and mystery. 



The key to the whole matter is a critical study of ancient pottery. That 

 the aborigines of Florida reached the state of advancement in which they 

 were found by the Europeans by slow and painful steps is evident to the 

 most superficial observer. That they did advance is equally plain. Ac- 

 cording to the estimate of time made in this paper it was three hundred 

 years before they thought of ornamenting moist clay with lines and 

 dots, and five hundred years before they thought of making ears to pots. 

 Dishes and bowls were not thought of for eight hundred years, and cups 

 with handles for nearly one thousand. Still they progressed, and who 

 can say what point their civilization might have reached had the discov- 

 ery by Columbus been delayed another thousand years ? 



*I say " over two liiindred years." because this transition began in the hitter yeara 

 of the middle period and continued in the earlier years of the modern period. 



