ARTIFICIAL SHELL-DEPOSITS IN NEW JERSEY. 371 
belonged to that remote period which is called ‘the age of stone” by the arche 
ologists of Europe. 
From the islands of the Baltic sea I will now turn to the shores of New 
Jersey. 
While spending, during the summers of 1863 and 1864, some weeks at Key- 
port, Monmouth county, New Jersey, a small town situated on Raritan bay, I 
examined within the precincts and in the neighborhood of that place several 
shell-deposits which are unmistakably artificial and the caeuiiagle of the In- 
dians who formerly inhabited this region.* These deposits evidently owe their 
origin to the same causes which produced the Danish Kjoekkenmoeddings, to 
which they correspond in all essential points, constituting accumulations of cast- 
away shells, which sometimes merely form a more or less dense covering of the 
sandy surface, but also in a few instances beds or layers intermingled with sand 
and pebbles, in which case they assume the shape of irregular hillocks or 
mounds. 
The shell-deposits of Keyport indicate the places where the aborigines were 
accustomed to feast upon the spoils of the neighboring beach, remarkable for 
its abundance of oysters, clams, and other eatable mollusks. They selected for 
this purpose favorably situated localities at some distance from the shore, and 
sufficiently elevated to be out of reach of high tide; and in a few cases that 
fell under my notice, the shell-beds are contiguous to creeks which run into the 
beach and probably afforded the means of transporting the supply of shell-fish 
in canoes from the sea directly to the place of encampment. ‘The principal 
food of the aboriginal coast-population was evidertly furnished by the common 
ster ( Ostrea borealis, De Kay) and the hard-shell clam ( Venus mercenaria, 
Gin. ) for their valves, partly very old and frequently broken, constitute almost 
entirely these accumulations of shells; but the common periwinkle (Pyrula 
canaliculata and P. carica, De Kay) is also often met, and was probably eaten 
by the aborigines, as it is at present by some of their Caucasian successors. 
I found only two or three specimeas of the soft-shell clam (Mya arenaria, 
Lin.) among the shell-heaps, and none of the common black mussel ( Mytilus 
edulis, Lin.) The last-named species, however, does not occur in great num- 
bers in the neighborhood of Keyport, and the soft-shell clam has, as its name 
indicates, very thin and perishable valves, the fragments of which may lie buried 
among the thicker and more durable shells of the other mollusks. It would 
be rash, therefore, to suppose the soft-shell clam had been excluded from the 
bill of fare of the Indians. Among these remains of mollusks the broken bones 
of animals are occasionally met with, though generally in such an advanced 
state of decay that their character can no longer be determined; for, owing to 
the non-conservative quality of the sand which surrounds them, they have be- 
_ come entirely destitute of animal matter, and will almost crumble to pieces 
when handled for examination. ‘The direct evidences of the occupancy of these 
places by the Indians are not wanting, and consist of numerous fragments of 
pottery and stone implements of the usual kind, otherwise very scarce in this 
part of New Jersey. 
By far the most extensive shell-bed I had an opportunity to examine occurs 
on the farm of Mr. George Poole, situated a mile and a half northeast of Key- 
port, and about three quarters of a mile south of a small projection of the coast 
known as Conaskonck Point. The road leading from Keyport to the village 
of Union passes through the farm lands, which occupy an area of ninety acres. 
This locality was doubtless for many generations the abiding place, or at least 
the periodical resort, of the Indians, and traces of their former presence in the 
* My attention was first directed to these aboriginal remains by the Rev. Samuel Lock- 
wood, a scientific gentleman of Keyport, who had recognized their true character before I 
mnade any investigations. 
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