45 2 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



the New York area is concerned, we can not use the same terms 

 employed by European archeologists, for no evidence has yet been 

 discovered to prove the presence of paleolithic man. Our " stone 

 age " is, however, comparable with the European " neolithic " with- 

 out being susceptible to the same subdivisions. 



It must always be kept in m'nd that what we know of the stone 

 age culture of any people is only a knowledge of certain durable 

 stone artifacts, the use of whxh may or may not be obvious. Stone 

 implements may have been and probably w r ere the least in number 

 of all objects possessed by ancient man. We know nothing of his 

 clothing, articles of wood and of thongs. On rare occasions we do 

 find some article of worked bone, but as a general thing all things 

 less durable than stone heive rotted away. We must therefore use 

 caution in attributing extreme poverty of possessions to the ancient 

 race whose stone implements we find ; when we look at his hatchet 

 head and his spear point we must vision all that these things imply. 

 The hatchet had a handle, the spear a shaft. These were of wood 

 and the thongs of the deer or shreds of tough bark bound the heads 

 to the handles. Our stone age men had skin robes, footgear, head 

 dresses, pouches, utensils of bark, objects hewn out of wood, and 

 they had dwellings where they lived with their women and children. 



While the advanced races of Peru, Central America and Mexico 

 made articles of molten and cast silver, gold and copper, the 

 numerous tribes to the south and to the north, at the time of the 

 Columbian discovery, were living in the stone age. The aborigines of 

 the New York area were all stone age people. Cartier, Verrazano, 

 Hudson and Champlain all saw the American stone age man. 



Civilized man of today still depends upon stone for many useful 

 and ornamental purposes, but has abandoned it as a material for 

 cutting and pounding* in industrial purposes. For mulling and for 

 abr'asives, stone is still used in ways not entirely different from those 

 employed before the ." age of metals." 



Trade articles, European. With the coming of Europeans to 

 America "there was a great change in the material culture of the 

 New York Indians, and in the culture of the American aborigines 

 in general.' Among the evidences of European contact and trade 

 may be mentioned glass beads of many sorts ; brass articles, as kettles, 

 bracelets, beads and other ornaments ; iron articles, as knives, 

 hatchets, tools, scissors, chisels, chains, tomahawks, spikes, guns, 

 swords etc. ; lead articles, as bullets, seals, effigies etc. ; glassware, as 

 bottles, sheet glass, ornaments etc.; earthenware, as glazed pottery, 

 white clay pipes, dishes etc. ; stone articles, as European flint, chalk 



