HOLMES] ABORIGINAL AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES PART I 111 



the arid region, west to the Sierra Nevada and indefinitely toward 

 the north. There are some- traces of the spread of the characteristic 

 imi^Iements of the arid region, especially the metate and muller, 

 toward the north beyond Salt Lake and to the east over the great 

 plains even as far as the Ozarks, and there is a noticeable overflow 

 of the types of artifacts characterizing the middle Pacific slope into 

 the upper valley of the Missouri. Among these latter objects are 

 straight, tubular stone tobacco pipes and paddle-shaped stone clubs. 

 These intrusions are probably due to the Shahaptian stock, whose 

 habitat extended from Oregon and Washington well over into the 

 valley of the Missouri. Two remarkable discoveries within the 

 region are a deposit of nearly a thousand flint implements obtained 

 from a sulphur spring at Afton, Okla., and a cache of thousands 

 of arrowheads in Delaware Count}^, Okla. Large areas along the 

 eastern border of the plains, th-at were formerly occupied by seden- 

 tary, mound-building peoples, had become, through the invasion of 

 the buffalo, the hunting grounds of the so-called wild tribes. Pot- 

 tery, the safest index of the stable status of a people, is somewhat 

 rare in the area except in the more easterly valleys, and where found 

 it is of the simplest culinary type. 



Collections from this great area are comparatively limited, and 

 large tracts of the territory have received almost no attention on the 

 part of archeologists. 



Claims to great antiquity in this grand division are based on re- 

 ported finds of stone implements associated with fc^ssil mammal 

 remains in the loess formations, on a small figurine of baked clay 

 known as the Nampa image found in Idaho, and on an obsidian 

 blade from Nevada. It is a most remarkable fact that the image, 

 which is assigned tentatively to the Tertiary or early Quaternary, 

 is probably the most mature example of modeled human figurine yet 

 found west of the Missouri. 



Naturally the antiquities on the southwest border share numer- 

 ous features with the art of the Pueblo region and in the Far West 

 with the remains of the California and Columbia-Fraser areas, but 

 the general state of culture has been everywhere about the same 

 and closely akin to that of the historic and the present time in the 

 same area. 



The principal scientific explorations of the region are those of 

 Dorsey, Smith, Holmes, Norris, Brower, Winchell, Montgomery, 

 Leidy, and McGee. 



G. The Arid Area 



This area includes New Mexico and Arizona, and parts of Utah, 

 Colorado, Nevada, and Texas. It is in the main a region of plateaus, 

 canyons, and cliffs, of limited fertile areas bordering stream courses, 

 38657°— 19— Bull. 60, pt i 9 



