ABORIGINAL OCCUPATION OF NEW YORK 27 
In his Antiquities of New York Mr Squier spoke of the importance 
of an earthwork near Elmira, as showing the presence of palisades 
in these banks.. Others of like character have been since noticed 
in several places. In a letter to the writer J. S. Twining said of 
a Jefferson county earthwork that the “pickets had left their forms in 
the sand on the inside of the ditch, and on top of the embankment. 
They had been brought to a blunt point, and were from six to eight 
inches in diameter, and placed about 10 inches apart. There were 
simply the holes left in the sand, which, as the pickets decayed, were 
refilled with surface soil. This on carefully digging from the side 
would show each post’s place, as the color of the sand differed from 
the soil.” 3 
Col. Charles Whittlesey, in describing Ohio works, doubted 
whether such traces ever appeared, and whether wood could be long 
preserved. In some cases it may. In examining post-holes in one 
fort to test their depth, the writer found no wood in the shallower 
ones. The posts had been uprooted in falling. Ina deeper one was 
the charred end of a hemlock picket which had been there for 300 
years. In another stockade, of 50 years later date, pieces of oak 
pickets about two feet long were taken out. In the peculiar early 
construction of Iroquois forts, holes were not always necessary, and 
seldom exceeded two feet in depth. The intervals depended on the 
style and strength of the wall. Usually the holes are in a shallow 
trench, often described as a ditch, though this gives a wrong im- 
pression. 
Geographic distribution of sites‘ 
Albany county. Mr Schoolcraft thought the Normanskill, or 
Tawasentha, a place of Mohawk burial, but knew of no graves there. 
Its mouth was not in the Mohawk territory; part of Albany county 
having been purchased of the Mahikans. Tawasentha means a 
waterfall, and there is little ground for the story of an early general 
council between the Dutch and Iroquois there. 
Trails led from the Hudson to the western streams,and along these 
scattered relics are found, but there were no villages of importance. 
In the state museum are arrowheads from Bethlehem, Guilderland, 
