ARCHEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS IN MISSOURI 57 



A sinker or weight is vaguely suggested by c, which is chipped on 

 both faces and has a low median ridge on the surface figured. The 

 retouched edges seem to be slightly worn, and there is a wide shallow 

 notch in either end; d and e are also flaked on both faces and have 

 finely retouched edges. The former has a low keeled back and the 

 edges are slightly polished; e lacks evidences of wear or use. 



Varied uses would seem to be indicated by objects such as those 

 shown on plate 18, f-h. Though lacking the typical planoconvex pro- 

 file the rounded broad end sometimes is worn in a manner identical to 

 the end scrapers. In other instances, slightly blunted or battered mar- 

 gins suggest use in cutting or sawing. Some of the pieces show little or 

 no retouching beyond the primary flaking needed to bring them to 

 their present form and size. These may represent blanks or gen- 

 eralized forms from which projectile points or other useful imple- 

 ments could eventually have been made. 



The three specimens described in the preceding paragraph actually 

 stand at one end of a gamut of worked flints that at the other extreme 

 grade into what are probably cores and rejectage. Many are broadly 

 lanceolate, almond-shaped, or roughly triangular in outline; others 

 tend toward a quadrilateral or elliptical form, or are merely irreg- 

 ularly shaped lumps. They are generally thick, and the surfaces, 

 as also the edges, show only coarse primary chipping. Edges are 

 seldom polished or blunted and in their present condition give little 

 or no evidence of ever "having had much use. In size they range 

 upward to maxima of ca. 120 mm. long, 75 mm. wide, and 35 mm. 

 thick, the larger pieces being the most roughly made. "VVliole and 

 fragmentary, they occurred nearly everywhere — in cache pits, in the 

 midden-filled occupational stratum of the site, and on the surface. 

 They included all the more common varieties of raw material other- 

 wise utilized in the fashioning of finished artifacts. It is possible 

 that some represent quarry blades, i. e., incipient tools roughed out at 

 the quarries and carried into the village for final shaping as time per- 

 mitted. Others perhaps represent cores left after the removal of 

 spalls from which arrowpoints, flake knives, or other smaller imple- 

 ments were made. A few may have been intended as heavy duty 

 agricultural, digging, skinning, or chopping tools, either lost, dis- 

 carded because of flaws or other intractabilities, or left behind when 

 the village site was finally abandoned by the natives. 



WORK IN GROUND STONE; UNWORKED STONE 



Artifacts of ground stone were much less common than chipped 

 forms, and the range of types was also more limited. Heavy duty 

 implements were made of tough crystalline stone — green diabase for 

 axes and celts, quartzite for balls and hammerstones. Less often 



497261—43 5 



