12 



AN ANCIENT QUARRY IN INDIAN TERRITORY 



^ BUREAU OF 

 ) ETHNOLOGY 



In many cases these circular clusters are surrounded by liues or ridges 

 of chert masses, just as they were brought from the quarry and dei)os- 

 ited within the reach of the workman, indicating that the work was 

 abandoned before the supply was worked up. In some cases flattish 

 lumps of chert, used as seats by the workers and surrounded by piles 

 of refuse, are seen. Not only are these shop phenomena thus fresh 

 and undisturbed, but in sonie instances the flint seems hardly to have 

 changed color or to have suffered in the least from weathering. 



The shops are very numerous over the level space included between 

 the three main groups of quarries,. but as a rule they are not found 

 more than 100 or 150 feet from the pits. Small trimming shops are 

 found, however, much farther away, scattered through the forest and 

 alon g the water courses. Probably these spots mostly represent camj) or 

















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Q,-^m 



"^.^^r 





Fig. 5. — Relation of lodge-shop sites to the quarry pits, n, pit; h, h. b, shops. 



lodge sites too far from the quarries to be ordinarily used as shops, 

 but where the roughed-out pieces were occasionally trimmed and some- 

 what elaborated. On one of these a broken blade (figure 7), more neatly 

 finished than any of the quarry-shop forms, was found. 



Where the work has gone on for a long time near the quarry margins 

 the accumulations of refuse are so great that separate shops are oblit- 

 erated, a number coalescing in the general mass which, in some cases, 

 reaches many feet in depth. Such an instance is illustrated in plate 

 III, where the older jjits are entirely filled up with masses, rejects, and 

 clinking flakes of chert. One can sit on these accumulations and, with- 

 out changing position, select busbels of the abortive imiileraents 

 and partially worked pieces broken under the hammer. The figure of 



