46 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



From our field examination and the artifacts obtained it was 

 possible to determine that the west shore of the Hudson showed 

 long occupation by certain indeterminate Algonkian tribes ranging 

 from remote times up to the late historic period. 



During the spring of 192 1 sites were inspected in the counties 

 of Rensselaer, Albany, Washington, Greene, Montgomery and 

 Schenectady. 



Upon the invitation of Mr Jefferson D. Ray of West Coxsackie 

 the flint quarry site near Coxsackie was visited and a preliminary 

 inspection made. The place proved of unusual interest and answered 

 the inquiry as to the location of the flint supply of the aborigines. 



Excavations and survey of Flint Mine hill. On May 15th ex- 

 pedition equipment was taken to Coxsackie and set up on Flint Mine 

 hill on the West Shore Railroad property. Permission to conduct an 

 examination of the site had been granted through President A. H. 

 Smith of the New York Central lines. 



Flint Mine hill is located about 1 § miles south of Coxsackie station 

 on the West Shore Railroad and is bounded by the Arthur Spore 

 farm on the south and the F. W. Cole farm on the north. Entrance 

 may be had through the farm road of Colonel Jacob Dunaef . 



The hill is about 1 mile long and one-fifth of a mile wide. Its 

 highest elevation is about 200 feet above the zero station established 

 at a rock cut at the roadway entrance of the Dunaef farm. 



The survey and excavations conducted from May 15th to June 

 1 5th led to many interesting discoveries relating to the methods of 

 flint mining by the ancient Indians. About 200 flint pits and three 

 large quarries, one of them 150 feet long and 40 feet wide, were 

 discovered. In places on the hill were the sites of sorting stations, 

 chipping stations, workshops and refuse dumps. Some of the 

 dumps were 10 or more feet thick and several hundred feet long, 

 and contained the refuse from the quarries after the flint seams 

 had been picked out. The quarry pits contained heaps of flint in 

 chunks ready for taking to the testing stations. A number of 

 fine blocks of flint were secured as specimens. In the pits were 

 hundreds of stone maul heads and hammers. The dumps were full 

 of them. More than a thousand were picked up from the quarries 

 and the investigators then ceased to collect them because of their 

 numbers. Not a single hammer from the site was of the pitted 

 variety, which leads us to believe that at this site at least pitted 

 " hammers " served other uses. Among the interesting forms of 

 tools from the site were the chipped disk-shaped hammers. These 

 varied in size from 2 to 10 inches and all followed a general lens- shape 



