^''fow^ke'^T exploration OF HRUMBACK FARISI 53 



All the pits and graves appear to have been made with reference to 

 a regular disposition around a given point.' 



All other mounds in this county in which specimens were found 

 contained mica and gorgets, but no beads nor shells, while this yielded 

 quantities of the latter, but not a flake of mica nor a gorget, except 

 one rough stone whose only artirtciiil feature was a rudely drilled hole. 



CITLLEKS KARIM. 



On the summit of a hill on the farm of Lee Cullers, next west of the 

 Brumback farm, is a small mound 18 by 28 feet, the longer axis nearly 

 east and west, parallel with the ridge on which it stands. 



Near the eastern end was a small pile of stones resting on the 

 original surface, but nothing was found under them. 



At the middle of the mound, stones extended t<» the bottom of a 

 grave 5 by 2 feet and a foot deep, trending nearly southeast and north- 



' Ou April 21-23, 1894, this locality was further examined by Professor W. H. 

 Holmes and W J McGee. About 100 yards northeast of the large mound, on the 

 level alluvial bottom, a number of graves were found, roughly arranged in a line 

 trending e.ist and west. AH were broken up by plowing to such an extent that the 

 contents were fragmentary and iudiscriuunately intermingled. Tlic graves were 

 detected by the d:irk color, due to organic matter, in the freshly i)b)wed surface. In 

 all, fragments of inim;in bones and potsherds were found; in some cases human teeth 

 occurred, and in one instance tlie distal portion of the tibjaof a deer was pK-ked ud. 

 Cliarcoal was observed in several graves, but no calcined bones were seen. 



The site is of exceptional interest as an illustration of aboriginal industry. Pass 

 run, a good-sized mill stream, flows over a l)ed of vsmall bowlders and cobbles with 

 smaller pebbles, consisting in part of an exceptionally hard and tough diabase, and 

 in size and texture the diabase cobbles were admirably adapted to uumufacture 

 and use in primitive fashion. The extent of manufacture is indicated by numerous 

 rejects representing all stages from that of a few trial or initial blows to nearly 

 Huishcd implements. These rejects are of special note in that nearly all represent 

 the manufacture of l)road-poiuted implements — celts or axes — rather than sharp- 

 pointed objects, such as those represented l)y the rejectage iu the well-known 

 localities on Piney branch and Delaware river. A nearly complete celt, showing 

 the llaking by which it was wrought out of the original cobble, and gi-ound only 

 toward the edge, was among the objects pitked up, and it was evidently the form 

 which the nrimitive artisan had in mind iu his work on the cobbles which resulted 

 only in failures. 



The source of the diabase cobbles was sought by following Pass run toward its 

 source near the summit of the Blue ridge. Traced upstream, the fragments increase 

 in size and number until, about the confluence of the branches as they emerge from 

 the mountain gorges, the material was fouiul to prevail, commonly in the form of 

 huge bowlders; and well within the gorges the rock was found iu place as a great 

 eruptive mass. In view of the rude appliances and purposes of the red men the site 

 near the mouth of Pass run could not be better chosen by civilized intelligence. 

 With primitive tools the hard, tough rock could not be quarried where it occurs in 

 place; the grc^at bowlders of the upper reaches could not be reduced. A few hun- 

 dred yards below the site, with the continence of the larger Hawksbill creek audits 

 inferior i>el)bles, the material is too sparse for ]irofitable se<^king. At the site only 

 the toughest an<l hardest specimens have been ]>reserved by the selection of stream 

 work, and they are of lit size for convenient llaking and sufficiently numerous for 

 easy finding. — W .1 McGkk. 



