58 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



The greater number known to and found by the writer are from 

 the Susquehanna valley, the Chenango valley and the Genesee val- 

 ley. A simple illustration (see plate 8) is sufficient for the purpose 

 of identifying these objects. 



Hoes are sometimes chipped from flat pieces of shale. They are 

 celt-shaped and the cutting edge may or may not appear to be 

 sharpened by rubbing and grinding. The average specimen is simply 

 chipped. 



Choppers are generally made from thin, flat, waterwashed peb- 

 bles of a size larger than an adult hand. One end js chipped 

 acutely for the working edge. The greater portion of choppers, 

 which may or may not be notched, come from littoral sites, either on 

 Long, Staten, or Manhattan islands or from the Westchester coast. 

 Some have been found along the Hudson and even on inland 

 Algonkian sites. 



Disks of various sizes have been found along the Susquehanna. 

 A considerable number come from the Chenango and Chemung val- 

 leys but specimens from the tributaries of all these streams are to be 

 found. As a rule these disks are chipped from flat layers of sedi- 

 mentary rock, except slate, and in thickness are from one-fourth to 

 one-half of an inch. Many have been found down the Susquehanna 

 as far as below Wilkes-Barre. These disks are sometimes termed 

 " pot covers " perhaps because they are round, are notched in many 

 instances and because the larger specimens are about the size of the 

 top of a small pottery vessel. Those who use this term, however, 

 forget that the greater number are much too small to be pot covers, 

 unless all pots with three inch tops have " crumbled into dust upon 

 exposure to the air." It seems far from improbable that notched 

 disks were simply a local form of the common net-sinker. 



Stone Tools 



Hammerstones. Nearly all Algonkian sites are characterized 

 by the abundance of hammerstones. Several types are to be found, 

 ranging from a naturally formed pebble or small cobble to an arti- 

 ficially formed grooved head, symmetrically shaped and polished. 

 The commoner types are ordinary cobbles that show evidence of 

 impact ; discoidal pebbles with pits in the center on either flattened 

 side (the ordinary pitted hammerstone) ; and chunks of chert and 

 quartz that have been battered into spheroids by much use. There 

 is nothing more distinctive in Algonkian hammerstones than these 

 battered ball-like hand hammers (see fig. 127). 



