THE ARCHEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF NEW YORK 429 



2 Perforated at the smaller end and in several other parts for 

 use in the ''cup and awl" game (a use not yet obsolete among 

 Indians) 



3 Flattened on the surface naturally flattest, being frequently rub- 

 bed very smooth 



4 Ground off on each side leaving only the sides to form a sort of 

 open-work wedge 



5 Hollowed and perforated like pipe bowls 



6 Slit like whistles, still an incision being cut the length of the 

 bone 



Form I is still used by some Indians and as late as 1908 M. R. 

 Harrington collected two strings containing fifty or one hundred 

 specimens used as necklaces by the Canadian Cayuga. Flattened 

 phalanges seem to have been wedges in some instances and show 

 marks of binding thongs. Some look very much like the sliding 

 orifice regulator used on Iroquois flutes, and these also frequently 

 show the marks of the thongs that passed over them (see plate 40). 



Polished slate culture. Three striking polished slate articles 

 with their associated forms found in New York and contiguous ter- 

 ritory indicate a definite cultural horizon, distinct from all others on 

 the continent. These articles are the banner stone, the bird stone 

 and the gorget. Associated artifacts are the barstone and the boat 

 stone. 



The material out of which these objects are formed is usually 

 some form of slate, such as banded olivaceous slate ; more rarely the 

 material is steatite, marble, limestone, sandstone, quartzite, syenite 

 and granite. Finished specimens are usually highly polished and 

 indicate that they have been regarded as valuable articles. As no 

 white explorer has left a record of having seen any of these pol- 

 ished slates in actual use, they have been termed " problematical 

 forms " or " ceremonials." What they are we may only conjecture, 

 but our attempts to guess must be within the bound of probability, 

 guided by a more or less detailed knowledge of ethnology as well as 

 of prehistoric archeology. Just when or how these articles originated 

 we can not say but recent discoveries seem to indicate a greater age 

 than at first supposed. If we are uncertain as to the time of origin 

 we need not be so uncertain as to the time when they passed out 

 of use, for that time seems to have been just after or co-incident with 

 the entrance of Iroquoian tribes in this general area. 



It is most important to observe that two divisions of the Indians 

 used polished slates, one that indefinite branch that may have 

 embraced branches of several stocks, known as the mound builders, 



