INTRODUCTION 



i^'or many years New York State has been a prolitic field for 

 students of American archeology. Indeed, large collections of 

 aboriginal artifacts were made long before students of natural 

 science had any adequate idea of the cultural significance of the 

 objects they discovered. To the early collector the curious implements 

 of the Indians were simply " relics " and no special effort was made 

 to record anything about these '' relics " except to give the name of 

 the collector and the date of the finding, both facts relatively unim- 

 portant. 



No definite scientific value was attached to examples of aborigi- 

 nal art, and specimens from every locality were mixed in boxes or 

 scattered over shelves. Large collections have become scattered 

 and lost. The hundreds of " curious relics " found by farmers in 

 plowing or by amateur mound explorers have been lost. Mound 

 after mound has been dug and destroyed. 



Today most collectors are better informed, and the cultural remains 

 of the race that formerly occupied this continent, are careful pre- 

 served, cataloged and labeled. Science has taken the lead and asks 

 for facts. Today the pottery pipe and engraved gorget, and even 

 the humble arrowhead are regarded as " archeological specimens." 

 Definite scientific problems have arisen and challenge us to solve 

 them. Every artifact left in the soil by the vanished red men may be 

 of importance, if the associated facts are properly recorded. The 

 position of a banner stone in a grave may unlock some secret ; the 

 presence of pottery even in the form of fragments may shed 

 important light upon a knotty problem in archeology. A conscientious 

 collector observes and records everything for he knows that a care- 

 less collector is a destroying vandal who merely confuses himself 

 and others, and ruins the field of inquiry for the better informed. 



New York State for a full century has been systematically hunted 

 for relics, but only during the past twenty years has any scientific 

 method been pursued on any considerable scale. Some early observa- 

 tions were made by H. R. Schoolcraft, L. H, Morgan, E. G. Squier, 

 Franklin B. Hough, Frank H. Gushing and T. Apoleon Gheney, but 

 most of these authorities did little more than point out the fertile 

 field that existed within our borders. With them the all-important 

 problem seems to have been "Who wxre the mound l)uiklers?" 



[7] 



