I/O SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 93 



hence it may equally well be the result of natural fires. Since there 

 are no artifacts or hearths, the point has little immediate interest. 

 Sterns goes on to show that 6 feet below this point (i. e., lo feet 

 below the present surface) there occur numerous ash beds and hearths. 

 He distinguishes 17 such exposures of ash and 9 distinct hearths. It 

 may be noted that our own sketch map (fig. 24) likewise indicates 17 

 exposures, but this correspondence must not be too strongly empha- 

 sized. Our own reconnaissance work was done in ignorance of the 

 extent of Sterns' complete results and was therefore of a general 

 rather than a detailed type.'" Since there remains much important work 

 still to be done at the site, some suggestions for a correlation of data 

 and further research here will be given at the close of this section. 

 The general distribution of the present exposures is indicated on the 

 sketch map (fig. 24), but I strongly suspect that we have failed to 

 locate some that Sterns mentions and added others of our own 

 discovery. 



Sterns describes two levels of habitation in the lower walls of the 

 gully, one row of exposures at an average depth of 10 feet and at 

 certain places another layer 2 feet below this group, the two strata 

 being separated by a blue creek muck. This material accumulates 

 rapidly and involves no great lapse of time between the upper and 

 lower occupation levels. As the diagrams of the lower culture levels at 

 exposures 4 and 10 (figs. 25, 26) indicate, we have found three 

 levels of this older occupation at these particular places, whereas at 

 other exposures, as Sterns noted previously, only one or two strata 

 appear. Our own observations indicate a variation from one to three 

 levels at the ditferent exposures of this old cultural horizon rather 

 than the one or two levels noted by Sterns. However, we are in 

 agreement regarding the fact that cultural material from all these 

 lower levels is uniform and that a relatively short period is represented 

 by all three. 



By using a long auger Sterns was able to demonstrate that these 

 deep ash beds extend back into the gully walls on both sides for at 

 least 50 feet. It thus appears that for at least one-eighth of a mile 

 in a straight line along Sterns Creek there are some 17 old dwelling 

 sites exposed and that similar hearths or dwellings extend back for 

 some distance on each side of the gully. Since the exposure of sites 



"Sterns' published summary (1915) was consulted in our work, but his com- 

 plete manuscript and map (1915 a), being a thesis of which only one copy is on 

 file in the Harvard University library, was not available. As already noted, 

 it could not be consulted by the present author until January 1932, when his 

 own work at the site had been completed. 



