THE ARCHEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF NEW YORK 



43 



valuable facts in the study of cultural stages, and enable us to trace 

 and perhaps identify the factors influencing cultural growth, trans- 

 formation or decadence. Lists are not difficult to tabulate if a com- 

 plete collection has been made, or if a good catalog record has been 

 kept. It is when we begin to estimate the relative frequency of 

 material that errors are most likely to occur. This is because no 

 system has been generally agreed upon by archeologists and col- 

 lectors. 



In considering methods of comparison, we find that there is one 

 general form that may be used with advantage, for statistical informa- 

 tion and for ascertaining percentages. 



By this we enumerate all classes of articles from a site or region, 

 and divide the total by the number of thousands or fraction of 

 thousands. Thus we obtain a factor for determining the num- 

 ber of given objects that occur in a thousand of all kinds. We 

 also do two other things: (a) provide the means of estimating the 

 probabilities of finding other similar objects; (b) provide the means 

 for describing the relative frequency of the article. Thus, if among 

 2500 artifacts found in a site there are 15 bone fishhooks, we may 

 divide 15 by 2.5 (the number of thousands) and as a result 

 determine that 6 fishhooks occur to every 1000 specimens found. 

 Thus we may state that .6 per cent of all articles collected are fish- 

 hooks. On the other hand, among the 2500 specimens there may be 

 250 hammerstones of all classes. This would give hammerstones a 

 frequency of 10 per cent. 



As an example of how to lay out a specific site frequency table 

 let us take a certain number of representative articles from the Rich- 

 mond Mills site, where about 2500 specimens are enumerated in 

 the census made by Mr Dewey. 



OBJECT 



NUMBER 

 FOUND 



PERCENT- 

 AGE 



NOTE 



Triangular arrow points. . . 



Notched points 



Celts 



Hammerstones ... 



I 187 



8 

 40 



365 



700 



10 



47-5 



• 32 



1.6 

 14.6 



28.0 



•4 



Comparisons based on 2500 

 objects enumerated from 

 Richmond Mills. Pre- 

 historic Iroquoian, prob- 

 ably Seneca. 



Bone beads 



Bone draw shaves 



By this means we can name an article by its specific cultural fre- 

 quency and state it as t or 10 per cent as the facts bring out, and 

 arbitrarv terms need not be used. 



