webb] ARCHAEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF NORRIS BASIN 139 



carefully made, highly polished, and was a beautiful specimen of its 

 kind before being broken. 



Conclusions 



This site, evidently a burial mound, built on a rocky bluff, is notable 

 in that some attempt was made to use stones in prepared graves. The 

 almost entire absence of artifacts with burials gives very little evi- 

 dence of the cultural connection of this site. 



The outstanding material find was the steatite monitor pipe. This 

 pipe has a slightly curved base, yet the curvature is so slight and its 

 form so much like the "flat-base" monitor pipe shown by West 1 that 

 it may be properly regarded as of that type. In form it certainly 

 differs markedly from the "curve-base" monitor pipes of the Hopewell 

 complex, taken by Mills 2 and Shetrone from the Tremper mound. 

 Pipes of the type shown in plate 90, #, as pointed out by West, have 

 a wide distribution over the eastern United States and southern Can- 

 ada. They have not been shown to be associated with any particular 

 cultural group to the exclusion of others. 



McGuire 3 expresses the belief that such pipes are not very old. 

 He bases this conclusion on the fact that he observed what he thought 

 were iron file marks on such specimens, thus placing their manufac- 

 ture after contact with the whites. He also contends that the very 

 small hole in the base of the pipe which serves as a stem hole would 

 require a steel or iron drill. Such holes were too long, too small in 

 diameter, and too straight to have been produced by any means avail- 

 able to Indians prior to white contact. 



West completely disagrees with the opinion of McGuire. West 

 considers that the monitor pipe was made and used in the eastern 

 United States centuries before white contact. He finds no marks 

 of manufacture on such specimens which could not be attributed 

 to sandstone scratches. He points out that in the manufacture of 

 monitor pipes the stem hole was drilled early in the process of 

 making, before the base had been finished, thus greatly diminish- 

 ing the chance of damage during manufacture. Also, those speci- 

 mens which were broken in drilling were discarded and were never 

 formed. (Such specimens have been found.) He also points out 

 that long stem holes of small diameter could have been drilled with 

 rods of native copper, such rods being well within the ability of 

 Indians to acquire without the aid of white men. 



It would appear, therefore, that this very interesting specimen, 



1 West, George A., 1934, p. 156. 

 8 Mills, William C, 1916, p. 105. 

 » McGuire, Joseph D., 1899, p. 512. 



