320 Memoirs Bcniicc P. Bishop Museum 



STONE ARTIFACTS 



The original settlers of the ]\Iar(|uesas must have heen in possession of ef- 

 fecti\-e wood working tools, as they would otherwise have heen unable to make 

 the large seagoing craft necessary for so long a voyage. There is nothing to in- 

 dicate that they were familiar with metals, and these tools must therefore have been 

 of stone or shell. In Oceania the use of shell adzes is practically limited to localities 

 in which stone is rare or absent and it seems probable that the first arrivals in the 

 Marquesas brought with them a knowledge of stone working and of at least the 

 simpler implement forms. The islands of the group, with a single unimportant 

 exception, are volcanic, having a great variety of lavas, basalts and tuffas, but 

 they contain no workable deposits of sedimentary or metamorphic rocks. The pre- 

 sence of obsidian is questionable. The primitive implement maker thus had an 

 abundance of material at hand which could be worked b}- the processes of pecking, 

 grinding and chiiipin.^ but no minerals which could be i)ressure flaked. Deposits 

 of workable stone occur in ])ractically all the large vallevs, and although there 

 was a distinct tendency toward local specialization and trade, imj^jlements of all 

 the known types appear to have been at least occasionally manufactured in each 

 localitv. The stone working industry was thus in the hands of manv persons, 

 with a corresponding increase in the chances of individual variation. There are 

 a few indications of the existence of local im])lement types, but the differences 

 are unimportant. 



ha:\iaierstones 



The hammerstone is the foundation of any stone industry. ^larquesan 

 hammerstones were simply hard, water worn pebbles of convenient size and 

 form which were obtained from stream beds or bowlder beaches. They were not 

 shaped and appear never to have been ha f ted, and can be distinguished from 

 other pebbles only by the battering of the ends. (See PI. xlviii, F.) 



ADZES AND CHISELS 



Under this head it has been thought best to describe all stone implements 

 other than gouges, which have a cutting edge transverse to their long axis. No 

 axes have been reported from the Marquesas. i\Ianv implements may, from their 

 form, be at once identified as true adzes, but there is a large class of tangless 

 blades whose use can not be established by the form and it seems best to describe 

 them as a group rather than to risk the error of an arbitrary division into adzes 

 and chisels. 



Adzes and chisels appear to be uniformly made of ])honolite. The material 

 varies more or less, especially in the larger specimens, and it is evident that it was 

 obtained from several sources. No adz quarries were visited, and from the ac- 



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