134 



BUEEAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 



[bull. 52 



for most important and constant needs, tend to show in no uncertain 

 manner that they were merely the rejectage of flake-making cast 

 aside as of no particular value. 



Feeling that the settlement of the questions here raised is of con- 

 siderable interest and importance, the writer undertook certain 

 experiments in pebble-working, the results of which are instructive. 

 A large number of pebbles of the same general form as those used on 

 the Argentine coast were gathered from gravel banks in the suburbs 

 of Washington and subjected to tests which were, however, not 

 altogether satisfactory for the reason that the pebbles were of quartz, 

 most of them much flawed, or of quartzite, often tough, coarse*- 

 grained, and partially disintegrated. They were much more difficult 

 to flake than the more homogeneous and fine-grained pebbles of the 

 Aro:entine sites. 



Fig. 21. 



The principal percussive methods of stone flaking, 

 hand method. 



a, Tlie anvil method, b, The free 



Proceeding on the theory, well sup])orted by the facts just recited, 

 that the principal object of the chipping work on the shore-land sites 

 was the making of flakes suitable for knives, scrapers, and projectile 

 points, and recognizing no other ideal toward which the aboriginal 

 work could have been directed, effort was confined entirely to the 

 production of such flakes. The pebble, held firmly between the 

 thumb and fingers of the left hand, was set vertically on the anvil- 

 stone and struck sharp blows with the hammer held in the right 

 hand (fig. 21). This process w\as in occasional if not verv^ common 

 use among numerous North American tribes, the free-hand method (b) 

 being more generally employed. These processes are almost equally 

 effective in the making of simple flakes, but the former is effective in 

 the work of crude primary fracture only, while the latter is capable of 

 carrying forward a considerable degree of specialization of the imple- 



