38 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 177 
is larger than Akawini, 250 feet long, 90 feet wide, and 20 to 25 feet 
high. Brett’s (loc. cit.) five test pits produced the typical shell refuse 
and large amounts of human bone. 
PIRACCA MIDDEN 
Piracca midden, located by Im Thurn in 1877 when he was working 
at Cabacaburi, is presumably named for a small tributary (fig. 58). 
This midden, reported to be 38 feet high, was on an island in the 
middle of a swamp. Osgood (1946, p. 27) notes that although Im 
Thurn describes the contents as similar to shell middens, he mentions 
in later publications the finding of a European pipe stem at a depth 
of 3 feet and of potsherds at an unspecified depth. 
ANALYSIS OF MATERIALS 
Alaka Phase artifacts are made of bone, a shark’s tooth, pottery 
or stone, with the latter by far the most common. 
OBJECTS OF BONE AND TEETH 
Avis (fig. 7, a-d).—Striations produced by wear on two fishbones 
indicate that they were used as awls. The complete specimen comes 
from N-8, level 0.75-1.00 meter. It is small and slender, 4.6 cm. long, 
and dark brown in color. One end is sharpened to a point, and the 
surfaces are smooth and polished from usage (fig. 7, c-d). 
The other specimen is broken, but striations from use on the tapered 
end suggest it to be of the same type as described above. This frag- 
ment came from N-6, level 0-24 cm. It measures 6 cm. long to the 
broken end, and originally was probably several centimeters longer 
(fig. 7, a-b). 
Punch (fig. 7, f-g).—A dense, heavy, compact section of bone prob- 
ably split from one of the long bones of a tapir, but too fragmentary 
for positive identification, has been abraded and one end polished to 
a blunt point. The total length is 10.0 cm., with the polished, blunt 
end 2.8 cm. long; thickness varies from 1.0-1.2 cm. The punch came 
from N-9, level 0.75-1.00 meter. 
Drilled shark’s tooth (fig. 7, ¢)—A small fragmentary shark’s 
tooth, drilled biconically for suspension, came from N-8, level 0-25 
em. The tooth fragment measures 1.5 by 1.3 cm. The perforation 
is 3 mm. in diameter. 
Stonr ARTIFACT TYPES 
From the large number of stones excavated, 496 were identified as 
artifacts and 187 as flakes. While the work was underway and even 
when some of the specimens were being washed in the laboratory, 
many appeared to be only miscellaneous pieces of broken rock. How- 
