408 NEW YORK STATE ^lUSEUM 



have plainly been hammerheads or mauls. Plate 126 shows a few 

 selected types from the State Museum collection. 



Hammerstones. Worked stones, designated hammerstones, are 

 found throughout New York State on sites of former Indian occupa- 

 tion. They are similar in size and generally in shape to such stones 

 from the surrounding area, as in Canada, New England and Penn- 

 sylvania. The battered edges of many of these worked stones sug- 

 gest their use-name, hammerstones. Many, however, though having 

 opposed cavities or pits, for " grasping between the thumb and fore- 

 finger " have edges showing only the unaltered natural rind. 



Hammerstones are usually made from natural pebbles of a size 

 convenient to be held in the hand. They vary in weight from 2 

 ounces in certain small specimens to 3 or 4 pounds in the largest. 

 The stones chosen are in most cases natural discoid pebbles of gran- 

 ite, quartz, compact limestone or other hard and tough rock. 



Hammerstones may be divided into several types : 



1 Naturally discoidal pebbles, having 



a battered edges 



b centrally placed pits on either side, but not battered edges 



c opposed pits and battered edges 



2 Natural cobbles or pebbles of thick and irregular shape having 

 battered edges and opposite pits. These have two sides more or less 

 flattened. 



3 Discoidal hammers carefully worked to shape having evenly 

 battered rims, smooth surfaces and neatly made pits. 



a In one form one surface seems to have been a muller. This 

 form grades into the 'muller, biconcave disk and smooth discoid. 



4 Polygonal hammers of irregular shape having many faces. These 

 are usually of the hardest varieties of rock as quartz, chert, granite, 

 Hmestone, diabase etc. In most instances they are smaller in diam- 

 eter than the discoidal pitted forms and of a shape that roughly 

 fits the hollow of the palms. These chunky hammers are frequently 

 so battered that they become either (a) worn down into small irregu- 

 lar masses, or (b) by careful handling, purposely worked into 

 spheroids, which become the fifth form. 



5 Ball-shaped hammers apparently purposely shaped so for other 

 purposes than battering stones. It is possible that some of the finer 

 forms were used as club heads held in tight rawhide envelops or that 

 others may have been balls used in games, or that they were used as 

 special hammers for cracking marrow bones. 



