RELICS FROM THE MOCTNDS AND STONE GRAVES. 



143 



length, and four and one-half inclies in breadth. The most plausible supposition 

 as to the use of these broad, fiat, and comparatively blunt implements, is that they 

 were employed as spades, or trowels, or hoes in agriculture, and in the excavation 

 of ditches, and in the formation of embankments and mounds. The edges are too 

 blunt for cutting purposes ; and the broad flat edges are highly polished, just as 

 the plough-share and iron hoe receive a high polish from repeated use in the 

 cultivation of soils. 



The singular implements represented in Fig. 84 are formed of a mixture of 

 clay and coarsely crushed shells ; and have been subjected to the action of fire. 

 The clay thus prepared has attained the hardness of stone. 



Fig. 84. 



A. B. C. 



Implements fashioned of cl.ay and crushed shells, from ancient works in tho valley of Cumberland and 



Harpeth Kivers. 



The projections were evidently to be held in the hand, and these implements 

 were used most probably for crushing parched corn and beans, or for dressing 

 and smoothing hides. The flat surface of each disk presents a polished appear- 

 ance, and the ends of the fragments of shells are worn as if from constant attri- 

 tion. The discoidal portion of A is ellipsoidal, being five and three-fourths inches 

 in the longest diameter, and three and fourteen-sixtecnths inches in the short diam- 

 eter. The discoidal portion of C is circular, the diameter being four and three- 

 fourths inches. 



The manner of employing stone implements in clearing the forests has been 

 described by Du Pratz' and Adair.^ 



The aborigines of Florida, when first discovered, in like manner cleared the 

 forests and cultivated the soil. 



The artist Le Moyne, who accompanied the French Admiral Renaud de Lau- 

 douniere to Florida, in 1564, and who made numerous drawings of the natives, 

 illustrating their appearance, manners, customs, and pursuits, gives, in the thirty- 

 eighth plate of his work, a view of the Indians preparing their fields by digging 

 up the soil with rude hoes ; others follow Avith canes, with which they make holes 

 certain distances apart ; the women next followed with corn in the baskets, which 

 they dropped in the holes. 



It is evident, therefore, not only from the position of tlie ancient encampments 

 and towns of the aborigines of Tennessee, in fertile valleys, eminently adapted to 

 the cultivation of Indian maize, but also from the character of many of the stone 



' Vol. ii, pp. 223-226. 



History of the North American Indians, pp. 405-406. 



