NO. 7 INDIAN OCCUPANCY IN VIRGINIA BUSHNELL I 5 



quite large, scattered over the ground prove that much work was 

 actually done here, and great numbers of arrowheads and other 

 small chipped objects have been discovered during the past few 

 years. The variety of forms is equally remarkable, and practically 

 every type found on other sites is represented, together with some 

 which have not been encountered elsewhere in the region. Although 

 the great majority were made of quartz and quartzite, easily ob- 

 tained nearby, other small objects were made of jasper, chert, and 

 varieties of quartzite not known to occur here, but some of which 

 may, however, have been found in the streams — pebbles brought 

 down by the current. The latter class of specimens appears to be 

 more plentiful on the southern slope and on the adjoining low 

 ground than on the summit plateau. Traces of several small en- 

 campments have been encountered on the slope, from which small 

 fragments of pottery vessels and some very crude stone implements 

 have been recovered. Such camp sites are believed to have been oc- 

 cupied by one or more families when, during the hunting season, 

 they would leave their permanent villages to seek game elsewhere. 

 As Strachey wrote (p. 75) : " In the tyme of their huntings, they 

 leave their habitations, and gather themselves into companyes, as doe 

 the Tartars, and goe to the most desart places with their families, 

 where they passe the tyme with hunting and fowling up towards the 

 mountaines, by the heads of their rivers, , wher in deed there is 

 plentye of game, for betwixt the rivers the land is not so large be- 

 lowe that therein breed sufficyent to give them all content." 



A view looking south from the Oliver farm over the adjoining 

 lands is reproduced in plate 5, figure i. Hardware River, as it ap- 

 pears about 2 miles below the junction of the three branches, is 

 shown in plate 5, figure 2. 



Arrowheads have been found in such quantities scattered over 

 the surface throughout the country, that they are seldom accorded 

 the interest they deserve and are often regarded as being too plenti- 

 ful, too commonplace, to occupy a prominent position in a collection. 

 However, in time, as much importance will probably be attributed to 

 them, as a factor in determining the movements of the tribes by 

 whom they were made, as is now attributed by some to designs on 

 bits of pottery recovered from widely dispersed sites. 



Capt. John Smith wrote of the natives of tidewater Virginia, the 

 Algonquian tribes with whose manners and ways of life he became 

 well acquainted, but at no time did he have much intercourse with 

 the Monacan. However, it is evident that many customs of the peo- 



