538 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



or a knife, of white chalcedony. It is pictured in figure 21. There 

 were several well shaped oval blades and a few of the so called 

 " leaf shape." Scrapers were fairly common, drills rather rare and 

 spears rarer still. There are a number of forms that may safely 

 be called knives. Plate 22, illustrates the range of forms of the 

 larger flints not arrowheads. 



Triangular arrow points are commonly called " war points " and 

 notched and barbed points, " hunting points." It does not neces- 

 sarily follow, however, that these terms are correct, although quite 

 popularly held. The Ripley Eries as well as those of other sites 

 were great hunters, as is manifest from the great quantities of' 

 animal bones found in the refuse pits, and yet at Ripley only two 

 so called " hunting points " were discovered. The great majority of 

 projectile points were of the triangular type and these were found 

 in the ash pits among animal bones as well as in graves with the 

 bones of warriors and women. It would appear therefore, that the 

 triangular points were used for hunting as well as war. Sites of 

 Preerian occupancy in Chautauqua county, and elsewhere in New 

 York, yield only the barbed or shouldered " hunting point," no tri- 

 angular arrow heads being found. Yet this fact does not point out 

 a people who knew only of hunting and nothing of war. Specific 

 terms defining the use of such implements are, therefore, to be 

 avoided. They are more accurately described by their forms as, 

 triangular J notched^ etc. 



Earthenzuare 

 Pottery vessels 



All of the entre or nearly entire pottery vessels, save two were 

 found in graves. Most of them exhibited signs of prolonged use. 

 A few seemed to have been especially made for funeral urns and 

 some had been evidently molded in great haste and poorly tempered 

 and baked. Such pots were in every instance broken and the pot- 

 sherds were soft and flaky, not hard and gritty like good pottery. 



The material of which the pots were molded seems to have been 

 the local Erie clay found everywhere in the region overlying the 

 shale beds. The tempering material in all the specimens discovered 

 is invariably pulverized stone, quartz or granitic rock. In no 

 instance is shell to be found. Most of the pots are of a salmon red 

 color varying from a sooty red to a light orange. The majority are 

 stained by smoke and carbonized grease. This- charred grease is 

 especially noticeable around the inside of the rim where the in- 



