80 



BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 



[bull. 60 



The Ohio Valley has furnished much material for controversy, 

 and there is still apparent ground for difference of 

 The Newcomers- opinion regarding the chronologic value of the finds. 

 Among the more noteworthy specimens is a chipped 

 object obtained from a gravel deposit of glacial or postglacial age 

 at Newcomerstown, Ohio, by W. C. Mills, at a depth of about 15 

 feet/ Mr. Mills was at the time not an experienced observer of 

 geological phenomena and probably had little idea that especial 

 importance might ever attach to the specimen, and the question is 

 naturally raised as to whether he actually found it in its original 





• c • c ■ ' « o • u < 



v-i-TiST '.'o'-'.fZ'S ■'c"c ' 



I <-. ''./of c ,%''"' ' . ■ 



f • . V> » •/ • O • « • , « • \ 6 . • 



- ^jjK/cr^: r . • . r •. v' • '"."■7}"'' "> :5^^ 



". » o ,0 



Fig. 35. Sections of gravel bank, Newcomerstown, Ohio, suggesting danger of misinterpretation of finds. 



relation with the gravels at the depth noted. The treacherous nature 

 of such formations as chronological depositories is well known, and 

 the accompanying sketch (fig. 35) is intended to suggest the possi- 

 bility of misinterpretation on the part of Mr. Mills. The excavations 

 in the gravels made by the railroad workmen had left a vertical 

 face some 20 feet high, and when the place w^as visited later by the 

 writer large masses of the upper part had broken away and de- 

 scended to different levels against the base without losing their 

 original horizontal position. Arrowheads and splinters of flint which 

 had fallen from the surface above were found at different levels in 

 the slide gravels more or less firmly embedded, and the specimen 

 obtained by Mr. Mills may similarly have descended without sepa- 

 ration from its original bed at or near the surface to the depth of 15 

 feet. No trace of human handiw^ork of any kind was found by the 

 writer in the entire undisturbed gravel face.^ It was observed, how- 

 ever, that numerous chipped flints rested on the upper surface and 

 in the soil as if the site had been at one time occupied for dwelling 

 or arrow-making purposes by the aborigines. 



^ Wright, Man and the Glacial Period, p. 251 ; Evidences of Glacial Man in OMo. 

 2 Holmes, Traces of Glacial Man in Ohio. 



