I/O NEW YORK STATE Ml'SEUM 



The flint articles found at Burning Spring are of a different type 

 from those found in the site at the mouth of the Cattaraugus creek 

 and were made by a different people. The material is also different, 

 no jasper or fine quality of flint being found. The material with- 

 out exception is the local flint and chert. 



Three disintegrated skeletons were found in pits on the eastern 

 side of the fort, but these were so far decomposed that they would 

 have resisted every artifice to restore them. 



Each grave pit contained a smaller intrusive pit and a quantity of 

 charred straw or grass. Grave pit i contained a large broken pot- 

 tery vessel, pit 2 a broken pipe bowl and pit 3 a rude axe or celt. 



Nothing of the positions of skeletons could be determined. That 

 no complete skeletons could be found is to be regretted. 



No metallic articles were discovered, notwithstanding the fact 

 that Bulletin 32, The Aboriginal Occupation of New York, contains 

 a paragraph on the site in which it is stated that explorers in 1838 

 discovered skeletons and iron axes within it. Such articles may have 

 been found near the site near the mouth of Castile or Indian creek 

 2 miles above Burning Spring and been credited by mistake to Burn- 

 ing Spring fort. 



The character of the objects found here leads to the conclusion 

 that the site is one occupied by a branch of some early Iroquoian 

 tribe. It can not have been the Seneca for it antedates the Seneca 

 occtipation. It is probably Erie, but if so, seems very early. The 

 vessel pottery is similar to the early Iroquoian ; for example, Jeffer- 

 son or Onondaga counties. The pipe bowls are early Iroquoian 

 but the bowls are thinner and of greater capacity. They are Iro- 

 quoian but not of an ordinary type. 



A PREHISTORIC IROQUOIAN VILLAGE AND BURIAL 



SITE IN CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY 



By ARTHUR C. PARKER 



Early in the month of May 1907, a preliminary examination was 

 made by the writer of some of the earthworks in that part of 

 Chautauqua county lying south of the Chautau(|ua range of hills in 

 the Allegheny-Ohio watershed. The outlook seemed a promising 

 one, judging from the abundance of earthworks visited and reported. 

 The Cassadaga valley was of special interest and a season's cam- 

 paign of investigation was planned for this region. Upon the 

 uneven stream-cut hills that rise from the ancient lake bottoms were 

 found everywhere traces of an early i)cople which seemed emincntlv 



