280 



NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



must have been used to crack and grind the corn or other sub-- 

 stances. Long cylindrical pestles would not have served the pur- 

 pose. Four small celtlike imple- 

 ments were found in refuse pits. 

 These had been formed from nat- 

 ural water-washed pebbles the 

 ends of which had been sharpened 

 to an edge, this being the only 

 work done to form the implement. 

 It is hardly possible to state 

 definitely for what purpose these 

 miniature celts were used. Cer- 

 tainly they could not have sus- 

 tained rough usage (see figures 9, 

 n, plate 88). 



A grooved stone, sometimes 

 called an arrow shaft smoother, 

 is figured in text figure 40. 



Fig. 40 Arrow shaft rubber 

 and polisher. Size scale: 1-3 



Polished Stone Objects 



No polished stone articles of the type usually termed ceremonial 

 were found in the course of the excavations, although a gorget was 

 found on the hill to the east of the site, unless the very interesting 

 polished bar of Portage shale found in grave 96 is to be called a 

 ceremonial (see plate 88, figure 4). There is a bar of this descrip- 

 tion in the museum collection which came from Jefferson county 

 and the writer secured another 15 inches long from Mayville, 

 Chautauqua county. All these specimens have sharpened ends like 

 celts, and for the want of a definite name the writer proposes the 

 term " bar celt." 3 Thurston in his Antiquities of Tennessee, plate 

 1 6, figures an implement resembling a bar celt. He describes it as the 

 " . . . . long delicate crescent-shaped ' implement ' of highly pol- 

 ished syenite, represented in plate XV [author's collection], also 

 probably belongs to the ceremonial class. It is n^ inches long. 

 Originally it was probably 12 inches as the point has been broken. 

 It was found by Theodore Haslem in North Nashville (Term.)." 

 Objects of this kind are probably rare and but few have been 

 described. All three specimens in the state collection are flattened 



1 The writer has since examined another bar celt found by William T. 

 Fenton of Conewango Valley. 



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