NO.    4      INDIAN    SITES    ON    THE    RAPPAHANNOCK BUSHNELL  65 
Earthenware  vessels  continued  to  be  made  in  the  Rappahannock 
villages  long  after  the  arrival  of  the  English  colonists.  There  is  a 
reference  by  the  French  traveler  Durand  to  the  making  of  "  pots  and 
vases  from  earth  "  at  the  Portobago  village  during  the  autumn  of 
1686,  and  the  art  may  have  been  practiced  into  the  eighteenth  century. 
Much  fragmentary  pottery  is  found  on  all  sites  along  the  river,  but 
it  is  difficult,  often  impossible,  to  distinguish  the  more  recent  from  the 
early  forms  of  ware.  A  few  scattered  pieces  bear  the  impression  of 
basketry.  These  are  attributed  to  an  early  period  of  occupancy  and 
may  have  been  contemporaneous  with  the  axes  previously  mentioned. 
The  impressions  of  textiles  on  fragments  of  pottery  from  Pis- 
saseck,  Nandtanghtacund,  and  other  localities  serve  as  a  means  of 
determining  the  kind  of  nets,  mattings,  and  coarse  fabrics  made  and 
used  in  the  native  villages.  Much  of  the  ware  so  marked  and  now 
encountered  on  the  surface  was  made  during  the  late  period  and 
indicates  the  skill  of  the  people  as  weavers  and  potters. 
All  material  described  in  the  preceding  pages  was  discovered  on 
the  surface,  and  the  greater  part  of  it  may  have  accumulated  in  refuse 
heaps  in  and  about  the  villages,  later,  when  the  land  was  cleared  and 
cultivated,  to  be  scattered  by  the  plow.  It  is  believed  that  much  re- 
mains hidden  beneath  the  surface,  implements  and  ornaments,  pottery 
vessels,  fireplaces  and  traces  of  the  habitations,  and  burials.  The 
recovery  of  such  material  would  make  it  possible  to  form  a  clearer 
conception  of  the  manners  and  customs,  the  ways  of  life,  of  the  in- 
habitants of  the  Rappahannock  valley  long  before  the  settlement  of 
Jamestown,  and  would  aid  in  determining  whence  they  came. 
