holmes] ABOKIUINAL AMERICAISr ANTIQUITIES PART I 213 



breaking up large masses of hard rock and blocking out the forms of 

 implements. An examination of the rejectage of the shaping work 

 about the pits shows that the material most utilized was that which 

 could be worked up into knife blades or long and rather broad lance 

 heads or into still larger leaf-shape implements, destined, perhaps, 

 for agricultural purposes. Nothing whatever was found in a fin- 

 ished state, and even partially worked specimens were not numerous. 

 The refuse about the j^its is characterized by the large size of the 

 partially shaped rejects. No work whatever seems to have been done 

 on the small jasper and chalcedony nodules about the pits, this being 

 reserved for the specializing shops established usually at or near 

 the camping places. As a consequence, on the latter sites numerous 

 small rejects, usually of leaf-shape pattern, occur and small flakes 

 and small hammerstones made from jasper or other nodular ma- 

 terial are found in numbers. No single specimen of finished arrow- 

 head was encountered on these sites, nor was any reject discovered 

 from which one could safely predict its destined specialized shape. 

 Small scrapers are met with in surprising quantities, not only about 

 the tipi circles near the quarries, but also in the vicinity of the large 

 circles near the Lauk & Stein ranch, 30 miles away, and at the in- 

 numerable sites encountered on the road between the ranch and the 

 quarry, all of which show evidence of having been workshops. It 

 is remarkable, however, that at none of the shop sites between the 

 ranch and the quarry was any evidence found of the shaping of large 

 leaf-shape implements, the rejectage of which appears plentifully 

 on the quarry sites. This might be taken to indicate that the larger 

 forms after blocking out were carried to distant places in agricul- 

 tural districts to be worked up. 



Dr. Dorsey concludes, however, as the result of his examination, 

 that the work in these quarries was probably done by some of the 

 Plains tribes, within a comparatively recent period, yet previous to 

 the advent of the white race in the region. 



