250 NEW YORK STATK MVSKUM 



The entire knoll was covered by a peach and plum orchard (since 

 uprooted) and it was between the rows of trees that work was car- 

 ried on. The owner naturally objected to carrying the excavations 

 too near the roots of the trees and thus it was sometimes impossible 

 to take out a skeleton or to open a pit when it lay beneath a tree. In 

 such cases slanting shafts were sunk beneath the roots and the pit 

 examined. This was a somewhat dangerous operation as sometimes 

 the overlying sand would cave down and engulf the curious but 

 incautious archeologist who after a time would be rescued by his 

 assistants. 



Preliminary post holing over the knoll soon revealed the character 

 of the site, and in consequence it was divided into two sections, the 

 village and the burial. Parallel and adjacent trenches were staked 

 out and the lines run as far as post holing and surface indications 

 revealed a disturbance or modification of the soil by its former 

 occupation. 



Surface Evidence of an Occupation 



The surface evidence of an occupation in that portion of the site 

 afterward found to be the village section was pronounced. The 

 ground was strewn with heat-cracked stones, fragments of shale 

 anvils, broken flint nodules, with here and there a fragment of 

 weathered pottery hidden among the roots of the tall grass. The 

 luxurious growth of grass in patches when surrounded by a scantier 

 growth points out a spot of soil enriched by some abnormal agency. 

 The rank thick grass and clover here in the village site was con- 

 spicuous and pointed out the presence of occupied soil or " Indian 

 dirt," as archeologists sometimes term it. Except on the western 

 slope, the burial section of the site revealed no trace of its character. 

 On this hillside where the elements had washed down the loose sand 

 some of the graves were left so near the surface that the skeletons 

 had been thrown up by the plow. The broken and crumbling bones, 

 however, would hardly be recognized by the ordinary observer as 

 human remains. Other than the bits of human bone on the surface 

 there was no external indication where graves were located, unless 

 it were conjectured that if graves were to be found at all they would 

 be in the soil most easily excavated. 



Village Section 



The village section occupied the level top of the knoll bordering 

 the lake bank and ran back south on the west side about 200 feet. 

 and on the east side to the declivity that formed the bank of the 

 eastern hillside. This bank ran at nearly right angles to the knoll 



