THE ARCHEOLOGY OF THE POTOMAC TIDE-WATER REGION. 



Otis T. Mason, 



Curator of I lie Department of Ethnology. 

 (With Plates xv-xix.) 



The IT. S. National Museum has undertaken to publish a series of 

 bulletins upon the natural history of the region around Washington. 

 Already the birds and plants have been studied and the results given 

 to the world. 



The natural history of any region includes its human fauna, and the 

 series of bulletins under consideration would be incomplete without an 

 account of the peoples that have here resided. Our business in this 

 brief introductory chapter is with the aborigines. And, since it is not 

 possible to confine the inquiry to the ten miles square called the Dis- 

 trict of Columbia, the Potomac drainage shall be the ground covered. 

 Even this region must be narrowed, for we shall ascend no tributary 

 further than those rapids that mark the limit of tide-water, and mark 

 also the location of the principal cities, such as Georgetown, Fredericks- 

 burgh, Richmond, etc. 



In time, our limit shall be the end of the first half of the seventeenth 

 century on the hither side, but the other limit shall be pushed far enough 

 back to admit all of those geological inquiries that have become involved 

 with the history of man. 



It is possible to commence our study at either limit, taking up, first, 

 either the geology of what is called the Columbian period or studying 

 the last Indian tribes that left this arena just after the settlement of the 

 royalists in Virginia and the Catholics in Maryland. For the purposes 

 of elimination the latter plan will be adopted. 



The tribes of Indians along the Potomac tide-water region have been 

 well studied by Mr. James Moouey, and his map, which is here pro- 

 duced (see Plate xv), shows their locations and boundaries. 



The central portiou of the area was the home of the Powhatan con- 

 federacy, belonging to the great Algoukin stock, which rivaled in ex- 

 tent the domain of Charles the Sixth. On the north and the south 

 they were hard pressed by members of the Iroquoian stock, while on the 



Proceedings National Museum, Vol. XII— -No. 776. 



367 



