30 STONE IMPLEMENTS [imi, axn. IS 



■stone, may be takcu as a. type of the great class of quarries furiiisliiii}^ 

 rock froui the mass. 



QUARRY-WORKSHOPS OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA 

 JIlST()i;\ OF THE UESEAUCII 



From time to time daring- the decade ending with 1890, the attention 

 of archeologists was called to a class of rudely worked stones found 

 iu great numbers in the vicinity of the city of Washington; all are 

 shaped exclusively by flaking, and are of forms so simple and rude 

 that the idea prevailed that they were very ancient, this idea being 

 strengthened by the assumption th;tt they are somewhat closely related 

 ill form to typical I'hiropean paleolithic implements. The best-known 

 variety is the so-called "turtleback," a bowlder slightly flaked on one 

 side, giving somewhat regularly arranged conchoid facets suggesting 

 the i)lates of a turtle's back; but more highly developed forms of vary- 

 ing stages of elaboration are almost equally numerous. The materials 

 are mainly quartzite and quartz, the former very largely predominating. 



These objects are pretty generally scattered over the surface of the 

 country, and are found to some extent throughout the tidewater region, 

 being less numerous towanl the sea. They occur in greatest abun- 

 dance, however, as shown by recent discoveries, along the steep faces 

 of the terraces bordering Washington city on the north and west. So 

 plentiful are tiiese rude objects in certain of the suburbs that they are 

 brought in with every load of gravel from the creek beds, and the laborer 

 who sits by the wayside breaking stones for the streets passes them by 

 thousands beneath his hammer each year; the capital city is paved with 

 the art remains of a race who occujjied its site in the shadowy 2)ast, and 

 whose identity has been a matter of much conjecture. 



The first discussion of these objects within my memory occurred at 

 a meeting of the Anthropological Society of Washington in the winter 

 of 187S. A j)aper on the turtlebacks was read by Dr W. J. Hoffman, 

 in which their character and manner of occurrence, their age and prob- 

 able relations to the Abbott finds of New Jersey, were discussed, the 

 conclusion reached being that they were probably paleolithic, and that 

 they had, therefore, a purely adventitious association with the relics of 

 Indian art with which they were intermingled on various sites. Later 

 Mr S. V. Proudfit engaged in the collection and study of these forms, 

 and in 1888 published a short paper relating thereto in the journal 

 issued by the Anthropological Society, the American Anthropolotjist. 

 His views of their nature, so far as elaborated, were opposed to those 

 of Dr Hoffman, and have stood the test of later research. 



Mr Thomas Wilson, on liis return from a long sojourn in Europe in 

 1887, having been appointed curator of the department of prehistoric 

 archeology in the National Museum, took up the subject afresh, and 

 published a series of papers on the general subject of paleolithic man, 



