496 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION^ 1916. 



Dr. G. B. Gordon, and are described by him in volume 2 of the 

 Transactions of the Department of Archaeology of the University of 

 Pennsylvania. It is a highly conventionalized drawing of one of the 

 carnivora. 



The remarkable designs illustrated on plate 8, g and A, are incised 

 upon disks cut from the parietal bones of a human skull. They are 

 from an altar of the Turner group. The designs are alike, excepting 

 that they are reversed. Each consists of three highly conventional- 

 ized bird forms joined together. The central bird with ears and with 

 large legs terminating in four claws probably represents an owl. 

 The other two are less easily identified. 



The spatula-like implement shown in &, made from the rib of a 

 large mammal, is also from the Turner group. The bird incised upon 

 the handle is one of the most artistic Indian drawings thus far 

 known. The lines were originally filled with red pigment. 



Those shown in <?, d^ e, / are from the Hopewell group, c is carved 

 upon the thin bone of a large bird and represents the ocelot; the 

 markings upon the body are true to nature, and although somewhat 

 conventionalized, they occupy their proper position. 



MICA OBJECTS. 



Mica was highly valued and was obtained in considerable quanti- 

 ties by the earthwork builders, probably from the Appalachian 

 region. The crystals or plates are often of large size, and are fre- 

 quently found with skeletons or as sacrificial deposits in the mounds. 

 The thin sheets into which these plates are easily divided were some- 

 times cut into ornaments or symbolic figures, such as are shown on 

 plate 9. These were taken from altars of the Hopewell and Turner 

 groups with many fragments of similar objects cut from this mineral. 

 The edges are as smooth and even as though cut with a sharp steel 

 implement. Experiments, however, show that small flaked knives of 

 flint will do the work equally well. The perforated disks, a and c, 

 were cut with some kind of instrument for describing accurate cir- 

 cles. Fragments of large symbolic designs of a nature similar to 

 those cut from copper are shown in e-h. The general method of lay- 

 ing out a design is illustrated in i. This was evidently done in free- 

 hand with a sharp flint. Figures I and o are in the form of stone 

 knives or projectile points. Figure I was lying in contact with an 

 obsidian implement of like form and has incised upon its surface the 

 outline of what is apparently a barbed spear point. That these peo- 

 ple were familiar with the atlatl or spear thrower is evident from 

 the design shown in n. An interesting delineation of the horned 

 serpent is shown in m. It should be noted that the disk from the 

 center of which the long horn projects has two short arms which lie 



