THE ARCHEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF NEW YORK 225 



Near graves we sometimes found narrow depressions filled with 

 black dirt, charcoal and refuse penetrating some i8 inches into the 

 yellow sand. We gave them the name " post holes " which seems 

 to offer the best suggestion as to their probable origin and use. 

 Perhaps the posts supported palisades or fences surrounding the 

 graves, such as were seen by the early explorers among the Iroquois.^ 



During the course of our excavations we met with a number of 

 unexplained disturbances which we traced downward, as usual, to 

 the undisturbed yellow sand, sometimes more than 4 feet deep. But 

 we found nothing — no chippings, no charcoal, no trace of man 

 except the disturbed sand with its tell-tale black stains. I can con- 

 ceive of no feasible explanation for these apparently useless expendi- 

 tures of labor. One somewhat similar disturbance, however, on 

 the northern side of the fort we laid to some excavation of more 

 modern times. 



The foods of the former inhabitants of this site, as indicated by 

 the specimens found, must have been quite varied. Among animal 

 foods fish predominated ; almost every pit yielded from a few to 

 large quantities of fish bones, among which the presence of the cat- 

 fish could be detected by the numerous characteristic fin-spines, and 

 of the sturgeon by a few scattered bony scales. The raccoon and 

 the woodchuck were the best represented among the small mammals ; 

 larger mammals were scarce, but two bear teeth were found. 

 Strange to say, deer bone, so abundant on many other sites, were 

 here decidedly rare: all of the few found, however, were split for 

 the marrow in the usual fashion and some showed partial burning. 

 In one pit several bones of a large mammal were found, with a 

 perfect arrow point close to one of them as if it had been embedded 

 in the flesh. I did not attempt to identify the bird bones found. 

 Crumbling Unio shells were not infrequent in the pits, and at least 

 one deposit of more than a dozen helix shells was obtained, both 

 indicating their probable use as food. Turtle bones were rare — a 

 contrast to their abundance in the ancient shell-heaps of the New 

 York seaboard. 



Corn evidently held first place then, as now, among the foods of 

 Iroquoian peoples^ for it was very abundant in many pits, both in 

 the form of charred grains or cobs and sometimes in very large 

 quantities as described before. The cobs are quite short, but the 

 kernels themselves seem as large as in modern corn. In pit 40 at 



^ Cf. Journals Sullivan's campaign. 



