2OO 



NEW YORK STATE MUSKl'M 



culture and Professor Mills has several hundred specimens from 

 Ohio localities. 1 



Perhaps the most striking of all the objects found at the site, 

 except the pipes, are the antler combs (see figure 26). The first 

 specimens found were plain combs, one with three teeth and 

 one with four. Each had a hole drilled through the top projec- 

 tion. Then an ornamented comb was found having a top 



like an arched doorway and 

 three holes bored on the points 

 of a triangle. Later specimens 

 were found having at the top 

 effigies of birds, either a heron 

 or a woodcock. The teeth of 

 the combs are worked out 

 round and measure about three 

 thirty-seconds of an inch in 

 diameter. The points have at 

 one-eighth of an inch above 

 the tip a groove or several 

 grooves incised around them. 

 In these combs we have the 

 prototypes of the later Seneca 

 combs with complex effigies of 

 birds and animals and many 

 teeth evidently sawed in with 

 a metal saw derived from 

 European traders. 



Other antler objects in the 

 collection are a scraper handle, 

 chisels and pins or pitching and 

 flaking tools, arrow points, 

 digging tools and a remarkable 

 antler prong drilled near the 

 base and having a series of 

 serrated notches at the basal 

 end. Doctor Beauchamp, who 

 have been one of the " horns " of 



Fig. 27 Notebook sketch of unique 

 five toothed antler comb from 

 Richmond Mills site. Dewey col- 

 lection. 



examined it, thinks it. may 



a chief's emblem. This is quite plausible. 



The teeth of animals, especially the tusks, were favorite forms 

 for perforating and grooving with these prehistoric people. The teeth 

 of the bear, fox, wolf and elk were perforated as pendants. The 



1 Ibid., p. 54, 55, fig. 37, 3 



