NIK AKCHEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF NEW YORK 347 



}oung men in overalls who were perspiring over the strange task of 

 turning over all the Indian dirt on Matinicock point and looking at 

 it, were conducting a sane operation. We were thus invited to 

 examine the Dosoris site, the greater portion of which lay upon the 

 front lawn of the Price estate. Mr Price's cooperation extended 

 even further, and he not only housed the expedition but assisted in 

 a manual way the burdensome work of excavating the shell heap. 



Dosoris pond is a small tidal cove, of such a character as to be 

 especially hospitable to innumerable shell fish. A fresh-water brook- 

 let runs into the pond and along this stream one of the shell heaps 

 is located. The other is at the top of the rise of ground about 100 

 yards to the west. 



Shell heap I, in the hollow near the brook, was 25 yards long and 

 about 14 yards wide. In places the depth reached 42 inches beneath 

 the surface. It was a thick, compact deposit of marine shells, so 

 thick, indeed, that digging with a spade was a difficult task. There 

 were fourteen pits in and at the edge of this deposit, several being 

 as deep as 50 inches. These pits w r ere filled with fire-cracked stones, 

 charcoal, deer bones, split for the marrow, fish bones, and occasion- 

 ally artifacts, such as bone awls and fragments of pottery. 



In one pit were found fragments of chert, two quartz points, a 

 bone awl and beneath a flat stone the crushed skeleton of a dog. 

 Another pit contained, besides the shell refuse, a bilateral mortar, 

 three bone awls and a quantity of potsherds. 



The upper deposit, shell heap 2, was 35 feet long and of nearly 

 the same width. Here the shell deposit was nearly 3 feet deep. At 

 one place at the edge of this heap a stoned-up cache or cellar was 

 found. It was made of small boulders and inclosed a well of more 

 than a foot in diameter. This cache had been built upon an older 

 deposit that went down 3 feet farther. Some argillite points were 

 found in this heap. 



There was a small burial place midway between the two shell 

 heaps, but it had been disturbed by excavations made when laying 

 water pipes. No complete burials were found, the bones being inter- 

 mingled and badly broken. What Mr Harrington's excavations 

 were, after my return to New York, I have not learned, but from his 

 notes it seems that no burial ground was found. 



The implements found at Dosoris. The chipped implements and 

 others of stone found at the Dosoris site are similar to others found 

 on the surface, and other shell heaps, as at Matinicock. There 

 were chipped points of quartz, gray flint, yellow jasper and argillite. 



