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BUREAU OP AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 



liULi.. 60 



Other side, Siive throiioii acfideiit, remaining smooth, suggesting the 

 under surface of the turtle (fig. 147, «, h). If the removal of a single 

 circuit of flakes was not sufficient, the work was continued until the 

 one side was reduced to the proper degree of flatness and the avail- 

 :;bilitY of tlie stone for further elaboration was made apparent. 

 If the result thus far reached proved satisfactory, the stone was 

 reversed in the hand and by a second series of blows the remaining 



smooth side, the under 

 surface of the "turtle," 

 was flaked away (fig. 

 148), the result being a 

 double faceted stone (fig. 

 149). With perhaps a 

 few additional strong 

 strokes the stone assumed 

 the ovate or ovate-lanceo- 

 late outline of the imple- 

 ment blank, the principal 

 product of the quarry 

 shops (fig. 150). If at 

 any stage the stone de- 

 \ el(jped serious defects, as 

 too great thickness, 

 cr( )okedness, or h n m p s 

 (fig. 151), that could not 

 be remo^'ed, it was thrown 

 away and thus became 

 part of the refuse, and it 

 would appear that all the 

 entire specimens collected 

 fronx the quarr}^ shops, since they were included in the refuse, 

 had developed some of these shortcomings. The development 

 of too great thickness through failure of flakes to carry Avell 

 across the specimen was the particular bete noire 

 Causes of Failure of the workcr of quartzitc and other like tough 

 materials. Another frecpient cause of failure and 

 reject age was cross fracture or shattering under the blows of the 

 hammer, and it is probable, judging by the vast number of trans- 

 A ersely broken incipient blades, that one-fourth or more of the blades 

 begun met this fate. Examples are shown in figure 152. These speci- 

 mens must have been all but completed when the unlucky blow was 

 delivered, for they are apparently more nearly complete than any 

 whole blades left on the site. Many such, associated with the flakes 

 produced in .shaping them, were gathered from the Piney Branch 

 shop clusters. 



Fic. lie. The first step in the making of a thiu l)lado. 



