pip. N^o^" 2lT' JO™^ H. KERR RESERVOIR BASIN — ^MILLER 127 



tools sucli as knives and spear points resembling the Savannah or 

 Stallings Island-Lake Spring types. 



From the present study it has been noted that a majority of the 

 very early forms are exclusive of notches in association with definable 

 stems, and that when notches were introduced there emerged some 

 connective with a changeover toward lighter points that may be indic- 

 ative of a reasonable relationship coeval with the appearance of 

 a lighter lance and the later bow and arrow. 



JMany forms of scrapers have been found that tend to grade one 

 into the other. All are characterized by being steeply retouched on 

 the functional end or ends. Such forms were fashioned from very 

 large flakes and cores, as well as from very small chips. The func- 

 tional section tends to be either convex, concave, or straight in outline, 

 depending upon the use to which each particular instrument was in- 

 tended. Some were definitely used solely in the preparation of hides 

 of sufficient size to warrant large scrapers; others were used for 

 smaller hides; while still others were used in woodworking, bone, 

 and horn ; and there is a possibility that they were also used in the 

 preparation of various plant fibers for weaving. 



Either in association with scrapers or entities unto themselves are, 

 what have been termed, gravers. These are small, sharp, bilaterally 

 chipped projections with flat bases and with various types of tips. A 

 number of uses have been attributed to them. It has been pointed 

 out that they could have served as the puncturing implements in tat- 

 tooing of their human possessors. They could also have served as 

 perforators of hides and similar substances in lieu of needles as an 

 aid in sewing, and they could have functioned as instruments used in 

 the engraving of bones, such as were found at the Lindenmeier site in 

 Colorado. All these uses are conjectural. We are not cognizant of 

 their origin nor do we know for a certainty what their intentional 

 function was. 



Then, too, we have a nmnber of burin types that have been called 

 gravers. From the nature of the burin surface, one would suppose 

 that engraving must have been their initial function, but again, there 

 is no certainty. They might have served as cutting instruments, 

 those that were large enough. From the multiplicity of form they 

 could have had any number of functions. Wlio can tell ? 



Choppers and hand axes are both intriguing and fascinating in 

 that the types found within the basin correspond with identical forms 

 in various of the early horizons of the Old World. To state positively 

 that the Virginia specimens are of comparable age as those of Europe 

 is out of the question, but it is hard to deny that the alteration present 

 in the cortex of the cherty stone artifacts does not indicate a greater 

 age than is presently accepted for the early cultures of the New World. 



568192 — 62 10 



