A NEW GEOUP OF STONE IMPLEMENTS FEOM THE SOUTH- 

 EEN SHOEES OP LAKE MICHIGAN. 



By Dr. W. A. Phillips, 



Evanston, III. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



The first long chapter in the history of human effort and progress is 

 written in stone, and more especially in the simple forms of implements 

 shaped by fracture of brittle stone. Our knowledge of these earlier 

 phases of human activity would be very meager save for the fact that 

 the ruder peoples of to-day are found practicing similar forms of art. 

 Observations among these peoples give us a multitude of clues as to 

 the first steps in culture, while survivals of x)rimitive processes in some 

 of our modern trades have afforded no little aid. Experimental shap- 

 ing, though rarely taken up seriously, has also i)roved a fruitful source 

 of information, and a fuller knowledge of the properties of the varieties 

 of stone has led to the better appreciation of the varied phenomena of 

 the stone-shaping arts. The body of information secured through all 

 of these sources is further enforced by recent studies of the refuse of our 

 native American shop sites. The careful analysis of the stone-flaking 

 art by Professor Holmes has done much to place the whole subject on a 

 scientific footing.' His work, however, has dealt more especially with 

 the great family of implements of " leaf-blade " genesis, while those 

 shaped more directly from flakes have received less attention, and it is 

 with the purpose of developing more fully tbis branch of the subject 

 that the present study is undertaken. Both shoi) refuse and the 

 designed products of the flaking art are abundantly represented in the 

 region about the southwest shore of Lake Michigan, though the imple- 

 ments are not good examples of aboriginal skill in shaping because of 

 the absence of minerals especially suited to flaking. 



Before passing to the consideration of the shaped stone products of 

 this section the character of the ground and the manner of occurrence 

 of the materials employed require a brief description. 



The region studied. — The region studied begins in northern Cook 

 County, 111., and continues southward into Indiana. It is a succession 



' W. H. Holmes, Natural History of Flaked Stone Implements, Memoirs of the 

 Congress of Anthropology, 1893, page 122. 



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