THE MUSEUM. 



A Monthly Magazine Devoted to Research in Natural Science. 



Vol. II. 



ALBION, N. Y., MAY 15, 1896. 



No. 



Notes from the Mohawk's 

 Country. 



p. M. VAN EPPS. 



(V.) 



CAYADUTTA. 



At last we are to have the long de- 

 ferred and anxiously awaited account 

 of the discoveries at Camp Cayadutta, 

 the third found of the pre-Colonial 

 Mohawk village-sites in New York. 

 The first instalment of Mr. Robert 

 Hartley's paper appears in the Popular 

 Science News for May. This ancient 

 living-place of the Mohawks is situated 

 on the east bank of the Cayadutta 

 Creek, a tributary of the Mohawk and 

 lies at the extreme southern border of 

 Fulton County just over the line from 

 Montgomery county, and its discovery 

 was certainly the most important ar- 

 chasologic "find" made in eastern New 

 York state in many years. 



Two prehistoric Mohawk village-sites 

 of considerable size have been known 

 to the archctologist of the valley for 

 some years; one on the Otstungo 

 Creek, south of Fort Plain; the other 

 on the Garoga about two miles north 

 of the Mohawk. 



Mr. S. L Frey had published a 

 paper in 1894, in which he predicted 

 by analogy that a third site was yet to 

 be found, not knowing that it had al- 

 ready been discovered, as for some 

 little time the knowledge of its discov- 

 ery was kept quiet, and only gradually 



spread among the collectors of the re- 

 gion. Mr. Geo. W. Chapin, of Fon- 

 do, N. Y. , was the one who made the 

 fortunate discovery. 



These three ancient Mohawk village 

 sites are all strictly pre-Colonial, and 

 at all of them there have been found 

 many finely made implements of stone, 

 bone and deer's horn. Cayadutta has 

 yielded an unusual number of awls and 

 needles made fi 3m bone. I^one tools 

 have not been found in any great 

 abundance at the camp and village- 

 sites of late date in the valley, in fact 

 they are very rarely found. This is 

 due doubtless to the perishable nature 

 c f the material under ordinary con- 

 ditions, but at the Cayadutta village- 

 site, buried in the ash-beds and refuse 

 heaps, in soil naturally dry and that 

 has never been disturbed by the plow, 

 these bone implements have been re- 

 markably well preserved. 



The soil at Cayadutta is filled with 

 innumerable fragments of pottery of 

 which the larger part are ornamented 

 with a quite uniform pattern. This 

 village-site would certainly have been 

 discovered long ago had the ground 

 been cleared, but it is under a heavy 

 forest growth; this makes all research 

 by digging, very laborious as the 

 ground is filled with a mat of roots 

 which have to be cut out before one 

 can get at the underlying ash-beds. 

 This condition of the ground at once 

 makes plain the utter impossibility of 



