ABORIGINAL OCCUPATION OF NEW YORK ^7 



In his Antiquities of New York Mr Squier spoke of the importance 

 of an earthwork near Elmira, as showing the presence of pahsades 

 in these banks. Others of Hke character have been since noticed 

 in several places. In a letter to the writer J. S. Twining said of 

 a Jefferson county earthwork that the "pickets had left their forms in 

 the sand on the inside of the ditch, and on top of the embankment. 

 They had been brought to a blunt point, and were from six to eight 

 inches in diameter, and placed about lO inches apart. There were 

 simply the holes left in the sand, which, as the pickets decayed, were 

 refilled with surface soil. * This on carefully digging from the side 

 would show each post's place, as the color of the sand differed from 

 the soil." 



Col. Charles Whittlesey, in describing Ohio works^ doubted 

 whether such traces ever appeared, and whether wood could be long 

 preserved. In some cases it may. In examining post-holes in one 

 fort to test their depth, the writer found no wood in the shallower 

 ones. The posts had been uprooted in falling. In a deeper one was 

 the charred end of a hemlock picket which had been there for 300 

 years. In another stockade, of 50 years later date, pieces of oak 

 pickets about two feet long were taken out. In the peculiar early 

 construction of Iroquois forts, holes were not always necessary, and 

 seldom exceeded two feet in depth. The intervals depended on the 

 style and strength of the wall. Usually the holes are in a shallow 

 trench, often described as a ditch, though this gives a wrong im- 

 pression. 



Geographic distribution of sites 



Albany county. Mr Schoolcraft thought the Normanskill, or 

 Tawasentha, a place of Mohawk burial, but knew of no graves there.. 

 Its mouth was not in the Mohawk territory; part of Albany county 

 having been purchased of the Mahikans. Tawasentha means a 

 waterfall, and there is little ground for the story of an early general 

 council between the Dutch and Iroquois there. 



Trails led from the Hudson to the western streams, and along these 

 scattered relics are found, but there were no villages of importance. 

 In the state museum are arrowheads from Bethlehem, Guilderland, 



