468 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



roots and grasses. We may even read his thoughts in his artifacts 

 and know his sense of beauty and of accuracy, we may learn of his 

 superstitions and personal habits and more things than these. None 

 of his day left us the written record by which we know these things, 

 but if by strange chance the wild raw story of man primeval or of 

 his early descendants has been written on a parchment by his con- 

 temporary, it would have been destroyed by the accidents of time, or 

 if it escaped, been laughed at as a legend; if preserved in symbols 

 wrought on rock walls the crude ideographs would be unintelligible 

 mysteries to the people of the later day. The age of stone in the 

 State of New York has left nothing in the way of inscriptions by 

 which the wondering steel age of now may know of it. It is better 

 that it has left us in its fire and refuse pits, in its graves, in its monu- 

 ments and earthworks a record far more satisfactory, enduring 

 and truthful. 



THE FIELD OF ARCHEOLOGY IN NEW YORK 



During the past 20 years tremendous strides have been made in 

 archeology. Museums have been especially active. Oues.tions that 

 seemed incapable of solution have yielded to careful investigation. 



Museums and collectors have found New York a most fertile field 

 for archeological research and for years have carried beyond our 

 borders thousands of specimens. 



With the creation of the State Education Department and the 

 installation of the present Director a new policy was instituted. An 

 archeologist was engaged to examine the prehistoric and recent 

 monuments of the aborigines and by exploration and excavation to 

 obtain first-hand from original sources specimens to illustrate the 

 facts of that occupation, to discover the various cultural areas and to 

 collect from the Indian tribes yet residing in the State such material 

 as should be properly contained in the museum series. The out- 

 come of this policy has been the creation of the position of arch- 

 eologist on the Museum and Science Division staff. 



As a field for archeological research New York State presents one 

 exceptionally inviting. Specimens discovered in dififerent parts of 

 the State evidence a number of distinct ethnic cultures of great 

 interest. The various problems connected with these culture regions 

 will form the subjects of special research. Nor will conclusions be 

 formed hastily. Several years of active field work in each district 

 will be done and the results embodied in reports or special bulletins. 



