AN ERIE INDIAN VILLAGE AND BURIAL SITE 53 1 



Date of occupation. From the testimon)^ of the records it would 

 thus appear that the inhabitants of the Ripley site must have been 

 Eries. The testimony of the relics leads to the conclusion that this 

 occupation was of the early historic period. Without doubt the site 

 bridges the prehistoric to the historic. That it must have been earlier 

 than 1654 is known from the fact that the Eries were expelled from 

 their territories by the confederated Iroquois in 1654. That it is not 

 as late as 1654 appears from the fact that by this date the Eries had 

 opportunity to trade extensively with Europeans and yet few 

 European articles were discovered. Other Erie sites, notably one 

 forty miles east, known as the Silverheels site on the Cattaraugus 

 reservation, explored by Prof. M. Raymond Harrington and the 

 author in 1903, Contained great quantities of European artifacts and 

 metal. From the time the Dutch entered New York and the colony 

 of Jamestown was settled, the Eries had opportunity to acquire 

 articles by trade with other Indians, especially the Iroquois. Con- 

 sidering all things one would be strongly led to place the date of the 

 cession of occupation before 1610. It is highly probable, moreover, 

 that the first occupation of the site was early in the 17th century if 

 not during the last few years of the i6th. 



Description of implements 

 Stone 

 Objects of rough stone 



The rough and massive stone objects requiring but slight modifi- 

 cation from natural forms to adapt them to the purposes intended, 

 include hoes, anvils, shaft rubbing stones, pitted hammer stones, lap- 

 stones, net sinkers, rounded pebbles, mortars and some celtlike im- 

 plements. 



Figure i in plate 19 illustrates a flat piece of shale which has 

 been roughly shaped and from its marks of use evidently has been 

 used for a digging implement, perhaps a hoe. Objects of this class 

 were not common, this specimen being the only complete one found 

 on the site. Large numbers of rounded water-washed pebbles were 

 found distributed over the site. All had been brought from the lake 

 shore and they were not found in the undisturbed soil. These peb- 

 bles varied in size from 2 inches to 5 inches in diameter and most of 

 them show signs of use. Many seem to have been heated in fires 

 and others to have been used as hammers or anvils. Round pebbles 

 were also found in the graves but nothing- there was discovered 



