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ABORIGINAL SITES ON TENNESSEE RIVER. 175 
in fifty contains artifaets." The reader of the description of our work along 
Tennessee river will note the very meagre returns from the stone graves there. 
In southwestern Ohio, also, but few artifaets have been found in stone graves. 
We are told by Gerard Fowke:! “So far as may be judged from personal explora- 
tion and from the reports of others who have made investigations, not more than 
half a dozen graves out of several hundred opened, have yielded specimens of 
any sort." 
Professor Putnam? reports that only eight pipes were found in several thousand 
stone graves opened in various sections of the stone-grave area in behalf of the 
Peabody Museum. He points out, however, that one may, at times, in stone 
graves find objects of surpassing rarity, and describes (in a personal letter) a fine 
deposit of rare flint implements obtained in central Tennessee, by an agent 
working under his direction for Peabody Museum, hitherto undescribed in print, 
which much resembles the superb deposit of flints now in possession of the 
Missouri Historical Society. This latter deposit, however, which was found in 
Humphreys County, Tenn., on Duck river, a few miles above Tennessee river, 
cannot be said absolutely to have come from a stone grave, though it probably 
was so derived, as set forth in Professor Moorehead’s book. 
While undoubtedly flints of wonderful form and workmanship have been 
discovered in Tennessee, it is almost certain that many flints of very unusual 
shape, some of which have been illustrated in various books, are the handiwork 
of well-known counterfeiters and fakirs’ who reside in the western Kentucky and 
Tennessee region, and that genuine flints of unusual shapes in the stone-grave 
territory are not found nearly so often as readers of archeological works might 
suppose. Mr. Myer has found none on Cumberland river, and our lack of success 
in the discovery of such flints on the Tennessee lends further evidence as to their 
searcity. 
We quote by permission an extract from a letter by Mr. Myer: 
«T find flint implements the hardest of all to determine counterfeits. 
“Tt is my belief that a great many bogus relics are placed upon the market. 
«In my own collection I found that I had many bogus pieces. I obtained 
them from men whom I had known for many years and had full confidence in. 
Even when I began to doubt them I felt I was doing them an injustice. I did 
not believe they knew enough or had the skill to make the flints. 
«I was unable to get definite proof, but I became convinced I had been de- 
1“ Archeological History of Ohio," р. 406. 
? Peabody Museum, Sixteenth and Seventeenth Annual Reports, p. 165. 
3 Exhibited at the Centennial Exposition, Philadelphia, 1876, and casts of which are in the National 
Museum, at Washington. 
4 Gerard Fowke, “Prehistoric Objects Classified and Described,” Missouri Historical Society, 
Department of Archeology, Bulletin I. Warren К. Moorehead, “Тһе Stone Age in North America,” 
Vol. I, figs. 161, 162, p. 164 et seq. 'See also Thruston's interesting supplement to Chapter VII, op cit. 
5 The last letter received by us from our good. friend, the late Gen. Gates P. Thruston, written 
shortly before his death, is very specific as to this counterfeiting and faking of flints. The fact, more- 
over, is well known in archeological circles. 
