SCIENCE 



NEW YORK. NOVEMBER 23, 1892. 



/modern QU.ARRY refuse and the P\LiEOLITHIC 

 THEORY. 



BY W. H. HOOIES. 



One of the most important industries engaged in by the Ameri- 

 can aborigines in pre-Columbian and largely also in post-Colum- 

 bian times was the search for and acquirement of the raw material 

 for making implements and utensils of stone. Quarying and 

 mining were carried on in many placss upon a vast scale, and in 

 one case at least the work has been prosecuted without interrup- 

 tion down to the present time. The operations were, in most 

 cases, carried on in remote or out of the way places, so that the 

 sites remained for a long time undiscovered, and the industry 

 and its accompanying arts have to a great extent escaped the 

 attention of archeeologists. This work is now undergoing thor- 

 ough investigation, and will henceforth take its place among the 

 most important achievements of the native races, a work claiming 

 precedence over nearly all others, lying as it does at the very 

 threshold of art and constituting the foundations upon which the 

 superstructure of human culture is built. Within the limits of 

 the United States flint, chert, novaculite, quartz, quartzite, slate, 

 argillite, jasper, pipestone, steatite, mica, and copper were most 

 extensively sought. 



The work in the quarries producing flakable varieties of stone 

 was confined almost exclusively to obtaining and testing the raw 

 material and to roughing ou* the tools and utensils to be made. 

 The quarrying was accomplished mainly by the aid of stone, 

 wood, and bone utensils, aided in some cases, perhaps, by Are. 

 With these simple means the solid beds of rock were penetrated to 

 depths often reaching twenty- five feet, and extensive areas were 

 woi'ked over, changing the appearance of valleys and remodeling 

 hills and mountains. The extent of this work is in several cases 

 so vast as to fill the beholder with astonishment. In one place In 

 Arkansas it is estimated that upwards of 100,000 cubic yards of 

 stone have been removed and worked over. Tbe most notable 

 features of these remarkable quarry sites are the Innumerable pits 

 and trenches and the heaps and ridges of excavated debris and 

 refuse of manufacture surrounding them. 



Many of the excavations have a new look, as if deserted but 

 recently, whilst others are almost wholly obliterated as if by age. 

 It is essential to observe, however, that where pits are sunk in 

 solid rock and upon convex surfaces they fill very slowly, and 

 that those in friable materials and upon slopes or concave sur- 

 faces fill rapidly. The oldest appearing may, therefore, be the 

 youngest. 



Several great quarries from which the flaked stone implements 

 of the aborigines were derived have been examined. One of the 

 most important is situated in the District of Columbia, two are in 

 Ohio, two occur in Arkansas, one is in Pennsylvania, and another 

 in the Indian Territory. These quarries cover areas varying 

 from a few acres to several square miles in extent. They are 

 pitted and trenched to various depths, and are thickly strewn 

 with the debris of manufacture, including countless numbers of 

 partially worked or incipient implements rejected on account of 

 defects of texture and fracture resulting in eccentricities of shape. 

 These rejects are extremely uniform in type in these quarries as 

 well as elsewhere throughout tbe country, varying little save with 

 variations in the nature and conditions of the raw material, the 

 general result aimed at being always the same. It is therefore 

 inadvisable in this brief sketch to describe the quarries separately 

 or in great detail, as other more important matters must receive 

 attention. 



Rudely flaked stones are not confined to the great quarries; the 

 raw material was worked wherever It was found scattered over 

 the surface of the ground. The refuse deposits of village and 

 lodge sites located conveniently to the stone-yielding districts also 

 naturally contain many rejects of manufacture. Bejond these 

 limits — the limits of the raw material — the rude specimens are 

 rarely found. The main difference between the quarry shaping 

 and the shaping done upon isolated shops and village and lodge 

 sites is that upon the former, where the work was carried on ex- 

 tensively and consisted in securing the raw material in convenient 

 form for transportation and trade, no specialization was under- 

 taken, whereas upon ordinary shop and dwelling sites the full 

 range of the roughing-out and finishing operations was sometimes 

 conducted, the implement shaped being carried directly through 

 from beginning to finish. In all cases the operations of shaping 

 were, in the quarries, confined to free-hand percussion, further 

 and more refined shaping being conducted elsewhere and em- 

 ploying the more delicate methods of indirect percussion and 

 pressure. 



The hammers used in breaking up the rock and in flaking are 

 very numerous in most of the quarries; 500 examples, varying 

 from 1 to 13 inches in diameter, were picked up in a few days' 

 work in one of the great quarries of Arkansas. These hammers 

 are generally of artificially discoid or globular forms. Such arti- 

 ficial forms of hammers are rare, however, in the bowlder quar- 

 ries of the east, since bowlders of suitable form could be picked 

 up on all hands and were discarded and fresh ones selected before 

 the outline was perceptibly or seriously modified by use. 



The true quarry, or more properly speaking the quarry-shop, 

 product — that is to say, the articles made and carried away — 

 may readily be determined in each case. This is rendered easy 

 by the occurrence in the quarries of specimens broken at all stages 

 of progress from the beginning to the end of the roughing-out 

 process. The final quarry-shop form — and it must be especially 

 noted that there was practically but one form — is naturally 

 something beyond or higher than the most finished form found 

 entire among the refuse. This form is necessarily, however, 

 quite well represented by specimens broken at or near the final 

 stages of the work. A most exhaustive examination of the great 

 quarry sites has shown beyond the shadow of a doubt that this 

 final form was almost exclusively a leaf-shaped blade, represented 

 on the sites most accurately by broken pieces, all the acceptable 

 blades having been carried away. This is the blade, varying in 

 size and outline with tbe nature of the material and the particular 

 end kept in view by the workmen, so often found in caches or 

 hoardes distributed over the country and occurring in greater or 

 less numbers on nearly every important village site. The place 

 of this blade in the series of progressive stages of the manufacture 

 of flaked tools is readily ascertained by a systematic study of the 

 subject. It is the form through which nearly every common 

 American variety of highly-developed flaked tool must pass be- 

 fore its final specialization is attempted. It is the blank form 

 ready for the finishing shops, tested in the quarry shops for 

 quality of material and availability for further elaboration, and 

 reduced in weight so far, and only so far, as to make transporta- 

 tion easy or profitable. 



In most of the quarries a limited number of cores are found, 

 from which small, generally very delicate, flakes were removed 

 for use in the arts, and used, as a rule, apparently without much 

 modification of shape. They were probably hafted for uses in 

 which delicate manipulation was necessary. Their production 

 was not an important feature of the quarry -shop work. 



The question, very properly raised, as to what we really know 

 of the nature and destination of the leading quarry-shop product, 

 the blade or blank form, may be answered by asking another 



