REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR I918 29I 



European articles have not been found in undisturbed mounds or 

 sites of this culture in New York. There are, it is true, occasional 

 intrusive burials ' in these sites, but all of them appear to be 

 precolonial and pre-Iroquoian. Whether some of them were contem- 

 poraneous with an Algonkian culture is another problem. The 

 weight of evidence seems to be that this is the case. Certainly the 

 material culture of the eastern Algohkians seems to have been 

 considerably modified by this culture, just as the later New England 

 tribes were modified by the Iroquois. It is quite possible, therefore, 

 that the mound culture people intruded into the hunting grounds 

 of certain Algonkian bands and established themselves. 



The moundbuilding people seem to have disappeared from New 

 York at or before the time of the coming of the Iroquois into their 

 recognized area of occupation. We can not be entirely sure, how- 

 ever, that all were driven out or exterminated. A survey of the 

 earliest Iroquoian sites, especially in western New York, leads us 

 to believe that the earliest Iroquoian immigrants were measurably 

 influenced by the moundbuilding culture. This is so appreciable 

 that one is led to consider two propositions as within the bounds 

 of possibility: first, that the Iroquois were originally a part of the 

 mound building peoples who had separated themselves from the 

 main cultural body; second, that the Iroquois in entering this region 

 absorbed large nimibers of the mound building people and adopted 

 certain of their culture traits and rejected others; third, that the 

 early Iroquois were merely influenced at their early entrance by 

 the mound culture. 



Our present knowledge would lead us to conjecture that the 

 Iroquoian hoardes pushing up the Ohio came into conflict with the 

 mound people and finally overcame them. We may then inquire 

 whether or not the Catawba, Tutelo and Saponi do not represent 

 the survivors of these vanquished peoples. We also pause to com- 

 pare certain artifacts of the Muskoge and early Cherokee with 

 mound objects, as the platform pipe. The earlier Iroquois sites 

 frequently yield, especially in the graves, objects similar to those 

 found in the mounds, but not gorgets, birdstones or related forms. 

 To be explicit, the points of similarity between certain Iroquois forms 

 and mound area forms, as between those of Ripley, N. Y., and 

 Madisonville, Ohio, are certain pipes and certain pottery vessels. 

 A prehistoric Iroquois site at Richmond Mills, N. Y., known as 

 "The Old Indian Fort" has yielded metapodal scrapers, similar in 

 every way to those found in Ohio mound sites. From these facts 

 and from an examination of the entire field of the earlier Iroquoian 



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