168 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [boll. 60 



deteimination. The unspecialized blades are often found on villag;e 

 sites and in caches far distant from the sources of the raw material, 

 and the specialized projectile points occur throughout tidewater 

 Maryland and Virginia, and in numerous cases are found on the 

 identical sites occupied by Powhatan and other villages of the Poto- 



FiG. 52. Bowlder sliowing marks of use as an anvil. (1 actual size.) 



mac and James Rivers, with the people of which the early colonists 

 came into familiar contact. 



The group of (juarry workers illustrated in figure TjH, now on 



exhibition in enlarged foi-ni in the National JSIuseum, 



Tiip Lay-figure jn^igti-ates in the most striking manner possible the 



Group _ ^ . 



various features of the quanying and shaping work 

 as determined by the writer through exhaustive investigations. The 

 scene is laid in the Piney Branch quarries and the figures are cos- 

 tumed according to the only existing information regarding the dress 

 of the tribes of tlie Middle Atlantic region — the drawings of John 

 White of the Eoanoke colony, now preserved in the British Museum. 

 Prominence is given to this group since it represents the most im- 

 portant and essential industry of the native tribes — the manufacture 

 of stone implements — without which little advance could have been 

 made in any branch of material culture. 



The question as to the particular period to which the quarry 

 operations should be attributed has been raised, and some writers 

 have ventured the view that the work is very ancient and attributable 

 to very jirimitive Indian or pre-Indian peoples. This view, how- 

 ever, finds no tangi-ble support. Leaf-shape blades of the type made 

 in such numbers in the quarries are found throughout the tide- 

 water country, associated intimately with the most ordinary remains 

 of the Indian occupancy and on the village sites occupied by 'the 

 historical peoples. The blades made at the quarry are all of the 

 form through which the millions of specialized arrow and spear 

 heads found everywhere had to pass. If further proof should be 

 called for, it is observed that the quarries with their undisturbed 

 shops are situated on the steep slopes of ravines of comparatively 

 recent origin cut by the rivulets through cretaceous gravels and the 



