rill-: AKCIIEOLOGICAL TIISTOKV OF NEW \()KK 549 



tiiC level lands ujxm the flood plains are strewn with villag^e sites 

 and ihe creek flats show every mark of having been cnltivated in 

 early times. Indeed the present sites of many of the important 

 viliage and cities in the county overlie earlier Indian settlements and 

 excavations made in these places for cellars and other purposes 

 seldom fail to bring to light some traces of the red race. This 

 is true of the city of Buffalo, East Aurora, Hamburg and other 

 places. 



The region now^ embraced by the county was early known to the 

 French missionaries and explorers, many of whom passed over the 

 Indian trails into Canada and southward into Ohio. The county 

 now contains portions of two of the Seneca reservations and an 

 Indian population of perhaps 2000. Undoubtedly these people still 

 bear in their veins the blood of the earher occupants of the region, 

 the Neuter, Wenroe and Erie and the vanquished Kah-kwa. 



Many of the aboriginal village sites and burial grounds found in 

 the valley of the Cattaraugus and vicinity usually credited to the 

 Erie exhibit characteristics that lead one to think that in reality 

 they belong to the Seneca. The clay vessels and pipes are counter- 

 parts of those found in the valley of the Genesee, the original habitat 

 of the Seneca. Farther west along Lake Erie shore are sites that 

 are unmistakably Erie. Here the pottery is vastly different in form 

 and decoration. The Iroquois exterminated the Erie about 1654 

 and from that time until the war of the American Revolution their 

 territory was supposed to have been uninhabited. To have left so 

 rich a hunting ground unvisited and without settlements is contrary 

 to the known policies of the Iroquois and it is extremely probable 

 that the Seneca, to whom the territory naturally fell, early had 

 villages and defensive works there. Tradition has little to say of this 

 occupation though there are a few faint glimmerings that might lead 

 to the idea. Archeology, however, sheds a more definite light on the 

 matter and from the material found in grave pits and refuse heaps in 

 the Cattaraugus valley one is led to say there is much evidence to 

 support the statement that the locahty was occupied by the Seneca 

 soon after the Erie were driven from it. 



Considerable archeological work in Erie county has been done by 

 Prof. Frederick Houghton of the Buffalo Society of Natural 

 Sciences, by M. R. Harrington for the Peabody Museum of Harvard 

 and by A. C. Parker of the New York State Museum. 



