TIIK ARCHEOLOGICAL HISTOKY OF XH\\ YORK 20^ 



combs with three and four teeth, harpoons, rish hooks, etc. In 

 class 3 are found the metapodial bone scrapers or draw shaves, 

 roller or cylindrical pestles, not found in any later sites, pottery 

 disks ornamented like the later shell " runtees," conical bone arrow- 

 points, etc. Certain forms of the pottery and pipes fall in classes 4 

 and 5. 



The absence of certain objects is significant also, particularly as 

 these certain objects were used by other and adjacent tribes, not of 

 the same stock, at the same period of time. These are grooved axes, 

 many notched arrow points, steatite vessels, mica ornaments, native 

 copper implements, monitor pipes, clay pipes with sharp elbow bend 

 below the bowl, etc. No banner stones, bird stones or two-holed 

 gorgets are to be found, and no bone or clay object is decorated with 

 curved lines. In this we have proofs that the culture of the Reed 

 Fort site was a crystallized one and of some standing in point of 

 time. \Ye may also see in this the action of certain taboos, preju- 

 dices and conventions. 



To solve the riddle of our site we must now ask with what other 

 sites the objects listed under classes 2, 3, 4 and 5 compare. In these 

 things we may find some clues. 



An examination of the most important fort sites in the Genesee 

 country plainly shows that the Reed Fort site is Iroquoian and 

 Seneca, of precolonial time and possibly pre-Columbian. It may 

 antedate the foundation of the Iroquois Confederation. The speci- 

 mens found show that the people were in closer touch with their 

 neighbors to the west of them than those to the east, though in point 

 of general culture they were the same. But the large high-collared 

 pottery puts the contact with western New York. It was but a day's 

 journey or at most two to the country of the lower Cattaraugus 

 and the lower Allegheny. The Niagara frontier was but 80 miles 

 distant. In all this country lived the Erie, the Neuter, the Kahk- 

 wa and the Wenroe and perhaps smaller divisions of the Iroquoian 

 stock. Across the Niagara and to the north were the Huron. But 

 the immediate neighbors of the Reed Fort site, if not indeed their 

 progenitors, seem to have come from the region to the southwest. 

 Perhaps the people of Burning Spring Fort in Cattaraugus county 

 were their ancestors. Certainly the pottery and pipes seem to point 

 out this while the vase and bowl-shaped stone pipes are typical of 

 the country west of the Genesee. Cylindrical pestles are found both 

 on this site and at Burning Spring but not on later sites. Once the 

 proto- Seneca may have used long pestles. Strangely significant too 

 are the bone draw shaves. Thev are Ohioan, as we have already 



